And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.
This week, a client asked me if I’d be willing to let her middle school daughter interview me for a school assignment. I happily agreed, and a few days later, I was gazing into my computer screen at a young, open-faced, well-spoken girl.
Her mom, who is currently submitting her novel around, had several cameo appearances as she slipped in and out of the room. I coached her through writing that novel, and as I looked at her daughter, my feelings were similar to what I feel when I look at my granddaughter.
By the time we were done with the interview, I knew I was actually looking at my grandwriter.
The interview was supposed to be about editing, and being a professional editor. I fielded the questions about my experience as an editor, what my most proud moments are (the success of my students, of course!), do I mostly just work with grammar and punctuation, or do I look at the work as a whole (always, the whole), and then, quietly, a question about writing appeared. It slipped in sideways, sandwiched between other questions, and was followed by a few other quiet comments. But they set off alerts in my mind.
“Do you…edit…um…write on the computer?” she asked. “Or on paper?” She looked down at her notes and away from the screen.
“Mostly on the computer now,” I said, “with both editing and my own writing. But I also sometimes grab a piece of paper or whatever else is handy.”
She glanced up at me. “I like writing on paper,” she said. “I like feeling it while I’m writing it.” She looked away again.
I smiled. “I know writers who write on napkins. Paper towels. Notebooks, both paper and electronic. The backs of envelopes. Sketchbooks. Even on their own skin, if there’s nothing else.” Michael’s memory drifted into my mind. He wrote, usually lying down on the couch, and he chose to hand-write, on small post-it notes or teeny notebooks. His handwriting was beautiful, cursive, and small. When he finished the first draft, he keyboarded it into his computer, and then printed it out. The next draft was written as he read the first draft…writing in the margins. Subsequent drafts followed the same careful order. He wrote in green pen.
Looking back at the girl on my screen, she looked startled, which made me wonder if there were a few words written on an inner elbow. Or on post-it notes. Or on napkins.
“You can’t write wrong,” I said, and laughed. “Sure, when you’re getting ready to submit for publication, you have to have it in a certain format, created on a computer. But when you’re writing, when you’re working on a poem, a short story, a novel, anything at all, you can’t do it in a wrong way. You just write.”
This made me think of an interchange I had with my son Andy, way back when he was in third grade (he’s going to be 40 soon). He and his brother and sister always walked home from school together, but on this day, he ran ahead of them, threw open the back door, and flew into the house.
“Mom!” he yelled. “Mom! I wrote a story! It’s about a wizard!”
I, of course, flew just as quickly out of the room I used as my writing room and tore into the kitchen. “Really? Let me see it!”
He started to open his backpack, but then he stopped. His shoulders slumped. “I think I spelled wizard wrong,” he said.
At the time, the school system was actually grading first drafts for spelling errors, a practice I found infuriating, and that I’d told my kids I was going to completely ignore, if they brought home a red-marked assignment.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Writers don’t care about spelling when they’re writing something for the first time. You just write first. You fix later. That’s what real writers do.”
Those shoulders came right back up. He beamed at me. And then he dug out his story and I read it and we talked about it. After a snack with his siblings, he hustled to his room and to his desk, to work on the story some more.
I about melted with happiness.
Now I looked at this earnest child in front of me, on a computer screen. Her eyebrows were still puckered. I decided repeating my previous words would be worthwhile, this time, while she was looking at me.
“Camille,” I said. “You can’t do it wrong. However you write is the right way. Just write.”
And like Andy, that face opened up and she beamed wide at me.
After we signed off Zoom, I sat quietly at my writing table for a bit. Last year, my books were banned from my school district.
But I was still reaching young writers. And they still wanted to write. Despite AI, which steals the joy of writing in pencil, in green pen, on napkins, post-it notes, and skin. Which steals the joy of writing at a desk or lying on a couch or under a tree.
Which steals the joy of being a writer.
All of my students, whether they’re kids or octogenarians, have that fear of doing it wrong. That fear of the red pen circled around their words drives them, no matter their age.
It’s why I use a purple pen, when I’m editing hard copy. 😊
But all of them, ALL of them, burst into a beam when I tell them they can’t get it wrong. Write first. Then edit.
It’ll all work out. And it will have their stamp of originality and individuality on it.
I lit my screen with the story I’m working on, and set to work.
And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.
