Dear Reader,
This week I've been thinking about how I ended up here. Here as in being a writer. There's no one thing that led me here really. I've wanted to tell stories for as long as I can remember. But there is one incident that feels a little...prophetic?
I had this English teacher in high school. Let's call her, Ms Green*.
(*Name changed to protect the guilty. And because I can't remember it.)
I'm pretty sure Ms Green didn't much like having me as a student (shocking I know). We used to run into each other all the time in the school library and it became clear that she thought the books I liked were pretty subpar.
I remember one time while I was standing in line to borrow one of Georgette Heyer's regency romance novels, Ms Green turned to me and said, "You realize books like that are the worst kind of escapist trash?"
Smart-ass sixteen-year-old me blinked back at her and said, "Of course it's escapist. I go to school here."
I know. I can't understand why she didn't like me.
But Ms Green was also a fair woman. She always graded my work like it deserved and, despite thinking I wouldn't know a good book if it bit me, she was also the first person to ever suggest I become a professional writer.
To help us understand genre, each week for a semester Ms Green's students were required to write the opening for a different type of novel.
We did thriller, mystery, science fiction, fantasy, and even romance.
I loved these assignments and ripped through them all
with budding writer enthusiasm. I got pretty good marks on all of them, especially the fantasy. But it was the romance assignment Ms Green made me stand up and read out-loud to the rest of class.
I turned brick red and almost died from embarrassment, but I did what she asked.
When I'd finished stuttering it out, Ms Green turned to the class and said, "Did you hear that? It was perfect. Exactly what a romance novel should be. If Edwina finished that book they would publish it." She turned to look at me. "You should be a romance writer."
To this day, I'm not quite sure whether or not she meant that as insult.
But either way it's not like she was wrong.
So thank you, Ms Green, wherever you are. I took your advice and I could not be happier.
