Literacy Journey

I had to write a paper about my school days and current experiences as a reader and a writer for class. It made me really think about my development as a writer and how what I read has influenced me. Here's basically what I wrote:

As far back as I can remember, I was always a voracious reader and writer. As a child I remember loving to read all the typical childhood books such as Dr. Seuss and truly enjoyed going to the different worlds in my mind that the writers created. To this day I still read often, and there is always a shelf of “next books to read” on my bookcase.

            It wasn’t long before I was creating my own stories. When I was in grade school we often would have small creative writing projects. These often were as simple as “create a folk-tale” or “what do you want to be when you grow up”. While not all my pieces were masterworks of literature, it did allow me to learn how to improve as a writer and to take criticism when needed.  I remember Ms. Stone, my fourth grade teacher, actually wadding up a writing piece I had turned in and told me, “I know you can do much better than this”. While at the moment I remember being upset, later I realized it was a motivator for me to do better.

            That experience has aided me as an adult and struggling writer. It gave me the ability to take criticism and rejection along with praise. If I submit a piece to a publisher or journal gets rejected, I don’t get depressed over it. Though rejection is not ideal, sometimes there is some feedback that helps to improve my work. I’ve also become less worried about allowing others to read my work and work that is in progress. Though I have yet to have another experience as having the work I’ve handed in destroyed in front of me, I know it will only make me want to work harder. 

A more positive experience occurred when I was in the fifth grade. At the time the Young Authors Competition was taking place. I decided to submit a piece. At the time I was really big into Westerns, so I decided to write my own. It was a fairly good story from what I remember. A trio of heroes—a white Civil War veterans, a former slave, and a Native American—come into town to get rid of a gang of bad guys. They of course are victorious, and the Native American character finishes of the main bad guy.

            I remember the biggest challenge for me other coming up the story was the task of actually writing it. They wanted it typed, and I was not very proficient with a typewriter at the time; this was years before home computers were a common thing. Luckily my mother was, and I gave her my half-notebook full of manuscript. After she proofread it and we made some corrections in spelling and grammar, she went to work typing up my masterpiece. I was sure that I would have a small novel on my hands when it was put in my hands. It was only five pages.

            Still those five pages were lovingly crafted and placed in those clear protectors students bind their writing projects in. I turned my story in an anxiously waited to hear the results of the judging. I knew my story was good, but I didn’t know if it was great. The crumpled paper of Ms. Stone still haunted me.

            I remember our principal, Mr. Perkins, calling all the students that had entered the contest down to the office. We stood anxiously as he told us who had won. I don’t remember who came in first; nor do I remember who came in third. But I do remember when he said, “Nick Howard won the silver medal for ‘The Posse’.”

            I was on cloud nine. It was the first thing I remember winning that I really felt I had worked for. Sure I won a bike at a school raffle, but that was just a simple lottery. This was verification that I could be a great writer. It motivated me to continue to improve my writing.

            As I moved into middle and high school I still read often and would write in my spare time. Again, some pieces were good, others not so much. My writing usually reflected whatever my reading interests were. In middle school it was a lot of science fiction and horror books with vampires and werewolves. Some of the pieces I still hung on to over the years and I have even been able to fine tune them a bit more since my writing skills have improved.

            My senior year of high school was another milestone in my journey of becoming a better writer. I took a Creative Writing class with Ms. Edierhimer, which would be both eye-opening and challenging. To start off, I was greatly outnumbered gender-wise. When the class first started there were three males in the class, and the rest were female; the other two guys switched out within the first couple weeks, leaving me stranded in the land of women. While at first I was hesitant to stay, I soon filled a much needed role as the sole male perspective in the class. By the end of the year I was glad I had remained in the class, as it made me into a better writer and expanded my horizons on what I could write about.

            I never really liked writing poetry. It was a given in English class I would have to at least try to write a sonnet or a haiku. I was never really interested in the genre to be honest. That changed with this class, as one of the things we had to do was write in a creative writing notebook for ten minutes each day. Some days Ms. E would assign us something to write on in the beginning of class, other times it was whatever we wanted to write on. Often times I wouldwrite whatever was on my mind at the time—maybe a band I liked, something going on in my personal life or work—but sometimes I just could not think of anything to write. It was those times that I would try my hand at writing some poems.

            I played around with meters and styles. I wouldn’t write just about the love poetry that saturated the genre; maybe it was raining outside and that would get me to write a few stanzas or I thought of something funny to just make something humorous. When I would share these pieces in class it was often received with praise from Ms. E and my fellow students.

            By the end of the school year I had amassed a small collection of poems, and as our final project we had to compile some of our pieces for our portfolio. With the urging of Ms. E I put all of my poems into a collection. I even sent one for publication in a poetry collection.

            Though I don’t write poetry that often anymore, it is still a genre I appreciate more from having taken that class. In college when I had to take classes that involved reading a lot of poetry, I found myself enjoying them more than I did in my younger years.

            Several years ago my love of reading and writing came together in an unexpected way. I am a big fan of George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series, having started reading them when I was still in high school. So of course I have been a fan of the Game of Thrones television show that it spawned. A couple years ago I came across a call for writers to write essays for a book about the series. The book would tie in aspects of the books and show with real world aspects from history. I submitted a piece on feasting and tournaments, which the editor loved.

            This experience also taught me an aspect of the publishing world; losing a publisher. The publisher we had dropped their division that would have published the book, so we were given the option to either drop out of the project or hang on until another publisher was found. Luckily in the fall an new publisher was found, and now we are awaiting word on when the book will be ready for publication; hopefully sometime next year.

            All these experiences have shaped me into the reader and writer I am today. I have a greater application of the written world, and recognize my influences in my own work. I’ve also learned to keep an open mind when it comes to a genre of piece of work that I think I may not like. Though I may not end up enjoying it, I may in fact find I do and it will open may reading and writing horizons. The most important lesson I have learned from all of this is that you never stop growing as a reader or a writer unless you choose to stop yourself.