In the midst of a successful career as a Professor of teacher education I decided to take up a new hobby. Since I was a little girl, I’d wanted to try my hand at creative writing. Perhaps a story, or an image? Maybe the image of a woodpecker being blown to smithereens by my friends’ husband? I set a portable typewriter on a TV tray, pulled up a straight back chair and took a seat. Somehow the smallness of it all calmed my nerves. No big dreams here. Just a single sentence. Or two. Keep it simple. Keep it safe.

Life at the University was all consuming, allowing for only the occasional, but much anticipated, respite at the typewriter. Time passed. Several images and sentences later, a notice in the Nashville Scene caught my attention. A workshop at Vanderbilt. A writing workshop. “Why Women Don’t Write” was starting in September. A month away. My birthday month. My 50th. It was now or never, as they say. I put off registering. Even though my EdD was from Vanderbilt, a writing class was not the same as a class in education or program and staff development. A writing class could call you out. Expose you. Show all your little sentences for the drivel that they were.

Looking back, my heart aches for that woman who waited until the last day of registration to call the number she’d torn out of the paper and stashed in the TO DO pile on the kitchen counter. The woman who hoped the class was full, only to cringe when the instructor, nationally known historical fiction writer, Karen Essex, gleefully told her “You’re in luck! I just had a cancellation. You’re in!”

And so I was, in with a group of perhaps a dozen women. A copywriter, a novelist, a lawyer, a widow, a divorcee, all varied backgrounds, all remarkable, all seeing themselves as want-to-be creatives. I’d found my people. As the weeks progressed, Karen taught us about the craft of writing, shared writing tips (a good story is about something and something else) and writer affirmations (writing requires one thing: put your butt in the chair). I kept notes, I learned about small literary journals and not so small literary authors. There were assignments. What do you see yourself doing in 5 years? Ten? Describe your perfect day. Write a beginning sentence. An ending sentence. A scene. A page.

I remember being very quiet that first semester. As others shared their work, I listened in awe. My thumping heart and shaking fingers forbid me to read aloud. I passed—with no repercussions. Each week, pass. “When you’re ready,” Karen’s words assured me. It was just a matter of time.
It took until the last class of that first semester for me to read a one-page story aloud. The class applauded. I think I cried. This was good. I signed up for two more workshops, where I learned to trust the process, to trust my fellow women writers, to trust Karen.

I was inspired. I felt so alive! Everything around me had the potential for a story. I started taking notes. No one was safe. I scribbled down overheard conversations in the doctor’s office, grocery store lines, even in bathroom stalls. I made lists of odd mannerisms and gestures, I even sketched a few eyebrows, a pocketbook, shoes and a pair of red suspenders worthy of the page. Little notebooks became my fodder for story ideas, for character descriptions and sometimes even entire story lines.

Turns out women don’t write for as many reasons as there are women, but for me there were clearly two. Lack of time and lack of confidence. As caretakers, we tend to have time for everyone but ourselves. For me, it was aging parents, a husband, an adult daughter, my students, and my friends. Loved ones all, but putting ourselves first, carving out the necessary 30 minutes a day to practice our craft, demands that we believe in ourselves enough to put others’ needs aside. Not just once, but day after day, week after week. Our 30 minutes (or 20 or 10) might expand to an hour or two. Regardless, we are worthy. For myself, by Karen’s last workshop, I’d folded up the TV tray and returned the straight back chair to the kitchen. I bought a computer and commandeered an upstairs bedroom. I bought a wall of bookshelves to house my collection of newly discovered and old favorite writers (Virginia Woolf, Penelope Fitzgerald, James Salter, Shirley Hazard, Raymond Carver) and books on craft (The Art of Fiction by John Gardner, Writing Fiction by Janet Burroway, On Writing by Eudora Welty, Bird by Bird by Anne LaMott).

Finally, I bought a beautiful desk from a writer friend who was moving out of town, and a serious desk chair, one that would hold me in its stead through good days and bad, one worthy of even the largest dream.

Karen’s workshop was the first of many. Choosing not to go the route of an MFA I sought out high caliber first rate writing workshops that exposed me to the best writers in the field, writers who shared their expertise and critiqued my own work with the eye, ear and spirit of one who knows what it is I’m trying to do. I worked with Tony Early, Alice McDermott, Jill McCorkle and Claire Messud at Sewanee, Erin McGraw at Kenyon, Tom Jenks at Narrative Magazine workshop, Darnell Arnott at Sweetwater. I came away from each experience more committed than ever to being the best writer I could be.

Being a writer has changed how I live my life. In the process of publishing thirteen stories (including a Pushcart nomination) and now with my first novel, I’ve realized writing is the best antidote to mindless living. Writing brings every encounter, every humdrum occurrence, to the forefront of creative possibilities. Being a writer helps put things in perspective. It’s rather like having a feel-good tonic at your disposal. Conjuring up the morning’s well-placed word, perfect ending, or plot line that finally came together makes even the worst traffic jam, or fight with your neighbor, bearable.

Becoming the best writer I can be continues to require daily recommitment. I look forward to the challenge.