Writing

I remember it like it was yesterday.

Just a few weeks into the fall term, my 8th-grade English teacher returned my first attempt at a proper essay. I grabbed my handwritten soliloquy as I exited class, eager to read the feedback. Across the top of the first page she had scrawled just three words.

"Queen of Gobbledegook."

There was more of course. Along with her rebuke of my overly flowery prose were comments about punctuation, vocabulary choice, and the occasional dangling participle. But it was the trinitarian declaration that stuck with me, splashed across the page in bold red ink.

This past weekend I discovered the American Writers Museum. Tucked inside a nondescript skyscraper on Chicago's Michigan Avenue, this jewel box is a love letter to both the craft of writing and to those who have spent their lives in its pursuit. Surrounded by the words of so many of my muses, I was reminded of the teacher who first inspired me to take my writing seriously.

Tough love. But love nonetheless.

"Write. Rewrite. When not writing or rewriting, read. I know of no shortcuts." - Larry L. King