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Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.

Cyril Connolly

I count myself fortunate that I actually love to write. As a grade school student, I took great pleasure in writing letters to my grandmother–partly because I missed her, but also think because I enjoyed the act of putting words on paper. I’ve strained my brain a bit trying to remember some early attempts and have been able to recall a piece I wrote in junior high regarding how to set up an aquarium. As I recall it, the basis was all of the mistakes one would make in the process. The teacher loved it. I remember her love of it more than I remember the actual piece.

I was also fortunate to have some teachers who encouraged my craft–and some who didn’t. During junior high, I remember one scathing teacher commenting on an essay I wrote. She was horribly upset that I’d misspelled the word “truly” several times in an essay. Her concern was that I’d repeated the mistake seven or eight times in the piece. I wanted to suggest that I wasn’t sure I understood her criticism. If I thought I’d spelled it right the first time, why would I question it the next time? And, in retrospect, why didn’t she “wack” me for overusing the word? (This was, by the way, before word processing and spell-checkers.) I confess, however, that I learned how simple errors in grammar and spelling can detract from the message. I also never spelled truly wrong again.

During high school, Miss McQuestion was a bit obsessive about grammar, and I’ve learned to love her for it. Mr. Russo, probably more than any other teacher, put an edge on my writing. I recall many of his scribblings in the margin… accusing me occasionally of dysentery of the pen and advising me to put my head “squarely on the chopping block for easy removal” when I took a controversial position.

Oddly, writing in college almost did me in… because it felt like we were too busy reading! I owe a debt of gratitude to Professor Bailey, who actually taught writing–and gave an assignment that was profoundly simple but also drove me to develop an ease of writing. He made us keep a journal. We had to write a paragraph every day. The big disappointment at the time was that he never collected it. Many years passed before I fully appreciated the magic of the assignment. I think it was partly, “Better to write for oneself and have no public than to write for the public and have no self.”