My first foray into writing for entertainment came when I was in high school. I wrote for my high school newspaper. The key facts that I recall from those days were just the facts ma’am. News articles needed to be short, sweet and to the point. Who, What, Where, When and Why was the mantra my journalism teacher drilled into us. While I enjoyed writing in high school, I decided a career in writing would not be sufficient to provide a lifestyle with the luxuries of a nice car, a house, and heat (those necessities were important to me back in my youth). In the late eighties and early nineties the only careers that would provide me with a salary which enable me to pay back my school loans was in the sciences, specifically engineering. So, I set off to become a biomedical engineer. After Freshman Chemistry, I realized that perhaps Electrical Engineering would be more to my liking (requiring one year less of chemistry than biomedical engineering). My Alma mater, Northwestern University (for some strange reason that I couldn’t understand at the time) wanted well-rounded students and required English, foreign language, and social/philosophy courses for all students, even engineers. So, in an effort to meet these totally irrational requirements, I signed up for a freshman English course. After all, I always enjoyed creative writing. I was even somewhat good at it. I had won a contest for poetry and was generally regarded as a pretty good writer. It was during that freshman English course that I learned to hate writing. My English professor returned each paper that I submitted swimming in red. The corrections/feedback that she meticulously provided looked as though she had bled all over my paper. Initially, I took the feedback as guidelines on how to improve my writing. I spent hours looking for ways to take the professor’s feedback and make it my own. But each time, my papers were returned again and again and again. Eventually, I got the message. My professor did not want me to take her comments and make them my own. No. What she wanted was for me to take her words and simply regurgitate them onto the paper. I didn’t believe that my literary creations would avoid slang, speak in perfect English and use words that even I (the alleged writer) did not understand. But what did I know? My professor was the expert and she refused to provide passing marks unless I made the exact changes she dictated. So I did. The changes were ridiculous and left me feeling completely detached from the story. But this was not my chosen profession. I was going to be a scientist. So, I made the changes, exactly as she suggested. And, I passed the course and vowed never to take another one.
It took another year before I was able to admit that I hated engineering. Even still, I almost continued. Most people hate their jobs anyway, right? Were it not for Physics I might be an engineer today. But after two semesters, I decided nothing in life was worth having to take physics to achieve. That’s when I changed my major. When looking for another major, I steered clear of English and majored instead in political science and Urban Studies (thank you Northwestern for forcing me to take general studies classes). It took another thirty years for me to realize that maybe I wasn’t a bad writer and to give writing another chance. I love to read. I love to write. I have a notebook full of ideas for movies, children’s books and mystery novels. And thanks to Seton Hill University, I have completed two mystery novels and am working on a third. If all goes well, I will graduate with an MFA in Writing Popular Fiction in January 2015. As I prepare to head to Seton Hill to complete my 5th residency, I find myself thinking back on my journey. If I had one piece of advice to give to any young, aspiring writers, I would say follow your passions and believe in yourself. Maybe this is a lesson that only comes with age. Or maybe in order to be a good writer, you need some life experiences worth writing about. Whether you take the short path or the long winding road, enjoy the journey.