It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything for the sake of just writing it.
Besides really random, probably drunken moments throughout the years, the last time I wrote something aimlessly, without a structure, for no reason at all (and didn’t promptly toss it out days later) was in my ninth-grade English class.
My entire nine-year writing career has consisted of writing for other publications and businesses; writing about other people, places, and things; describing cars, real estate, food, or selling different products and services.
For a while, I didn’t have the confidence to write about—or for—myself.
But now, I remember that small, badly lit ninth-grade English classroom where I discovered that I am a writer.
Thankfully, it was one of the few with a window. I looked out it often during the first few minutes of Mr. Giles’s 10-minute writing drills. He was infamous for those.
With a twinkle in his eye, he told the class to write about anything.
At the time, anything seemed like a mountain. And it still does.
In Mr. Giles’s classroom, I learned that there is a beautiful sense of calm in not knowing what you’re writing about and letting the words on the page show you; flow through you; guide you, and help you find your way.
You don’t know you’re done until you are. It’s just a feeling that washes over you. The piece is complete and you feel at ease. It’s a high I used to think I could only feel after completing a newspaper deadline.
But when I sat in the back of Mr. Giles’s ninth-grade English class 14 years ago, I didn’t have deadlines. And I didn’t even really know what journalism was.
Four years later
During my senior year, I would sometimes skip lunch and go create things in the art room. If no one was in there, I would see if Mr. Giles was in his classroom.
We’d talk about writing and literature. He was curious and friendly. He believed that people were good and if he had a bad day, he’d never let you know it. He taught me about Camus and Machiavelli, but most importantly, he taught me about life.
One day I saw him in the hallway and I asked him where I should apply to for college if I was considering a degree in writing. He paused for a moment. Then, with a gleam in his eye, he told me that the University of Central Florida in Orlando had a great journalism program.
And then, in the funny way that he had, he smiled, turned around and walked away. This was toward the end of my senior year and I think it was one of the last conversations we had together.
No one had seriously suggested journalism to me before and to be honest, I didn’t really know what it was until I somehow found myself in a History of Journalism class at Florida Atlantic University during my sophomore year.
I didn’t get into UCF, but I still think about Mr. Giles often and he remains one of the most influential people in my life. I don’t think I would have considered journalism if he hadn’t suggested it.
Mr. Giles not only made me realize my love for writing, but he made me see that it was ok to think differently, too.
To this day, I’m not sure which gift is greater. It’s not like one outweighs the other, but I’m still eternally grateful to have met him.
“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
-Ernest Hemingway