Literacy Narrative: Mama, I Want to be A Writer
Unveiling the Writer
My maternal grandmother has written in a journal for as long as I can remember. Each time we would go visit her, I would sit at her feet and watch her write in her journal at the end of the day. I always wondered what she was writing in that book of hers. I would ask her what she was writing and she would say, “Something about the day.” That is where my fascination with writing began.
I became a writer at the age of nine when I wrote an Easter speech because I was tired of memorizing the words of others. I thought that I could write a poem better than the people who wrote those speech books and it would be easier for me to remember and that is exactly what I told my mother and the coordinator of the Easter program. It was at that moment that I began my journey to be a writer. Thirty years later, I still remember the first poem I ever wrote. I wrote something every day from that point on, but I never told anyone that I wanted to be a writer.
I discovered that I wanted to be a writer in high school. I was in an English Creative Writing class taught by Ms. Spightner. I cannot even remember how to spell her name, but I remember what it was. She assigned the class an assignment where we were given the first two sentences of the story and had to finish it. We were to turn the assignment in after we read it aloud to the class. I ended up being at the end of the list. That was an advantage for me although I did not know it at the time.
I completely my story the day before the readings was supposed to begin, although I had until I was assigned to read my story out loud to work on it. The first student went to the front of the class and read their story. The story was lackluster. I made a point to watch everyone in the room, especially the teacher, as the student read the story. I wanted to see their reaction to the stories. None of the students were paying attention. Ms. Spightner was not paying attention either. She stared at the walls, looked at the ceiling, and looked around the room. I was the only person in the room who appeared to be paying attention to the stories. Another student read their story. It was better than the first story, but no one was in the mood to listen to any stories after the first one, so no one paid attention to the reader. The last reader for the day read their story an to uninterested audience. The class was over for the day. I went home and rewrote my story, trying to make it better.
The next two days, went the same way as the day before. A student would read their story. The only person in the class who was paying attention to the stories was me again. On one of the reading days, Mrs. Spightner was doodling her and her future husband’s name on a piece of paper on her desk instead of paying attention to the stories she was going to have to grade later. I knew this because my student desk was right next to her desk and if I leaned just right, I could see what she was writing. When she caught me looking at her, she looked at me, shrugged her shoulders, and gave me a look that let me know she was uninterested the stories that were being read in her class. At that moment, I declared to myself, “Everyone in this room will listen to my story!”
I went home and looked at my story again. I had allowed my mother and brother to read the story. They loved it. I still knew in my heart, that the class would not pay any attention to it. I prayed and asked God to help me write a story that everyone would listen to. I left my story alone for a while and went outside to play. As I was playing, I remembered a rap, a horrible rap that I had written. In the rap, I had written all of my friends from church name in it. Although the rap was horrible, everyone asked me to repeat it over and over because their name was in it. I decided to use the names of the people in the class in my story. That meant that I had to redo the story, but I was so excited that it did not even bother me. This was the day that I learned to include some names and something familiar to the people in my life in my writing to say thanks for inspiring me, to include current culture in my writing, and to always be conscious of who my audience was.
I was second person to read my story. As the first person read their story, the class and Mrs. Spightner took their usually positions, the students looking around the room and the teacher doodling. When the teacher called my name to go read my story, I looked her in her eyes and smiled at her. She gave me a crazy look. I went up to the front of the room with confidence.
Before I read the first word of my story, I looked at Mrs. Spightner. She had her head down and was doodling. I began reading my story. All I remember about the story is that it was a story about a crime. The first person’s name I mentioned in the story was the teacher’s. I paused after I said her name to look at her. She looked up from her desk at me with an astonished look on her face. I smiled and continued on with my story. The characters in the story not only had my classmates’ names in it, but some of the descriptions of the people in my story resembled my classmates. At the end of my story, the entire class was looking at me and listening to my story. I went home that day and told my mother that I wanted to be a writer.