Here's something from my mailbag. "Dear Michael, do you need to



do good in school if you want to be a writer? I stink at school

and all my friends laugh at me when I tell them I want to write,

but I'm serious." Followed by a sentence or two of "I need your

words to encourage me" or some such nonsense.

Fortunately, a writing sample is rarely attached. If it is,

either it's excellent or it stinks like rancid yak butter.

There's a lot of middle ground in the writing world, of course,

but for some reason it never seems to accompany these emails.

The message is usually (but not always) so filled with errors

that I'm not gonna reprint them here or correct them when I reply

lest I destroy some sensitive soul like a jackhammer to an

eggshell. (It's ridiculous that I should even have such power,

being a stranger and all.) Let's move on to the relevant part,

the question, which actually contains several. This writer gets

bonus points for brevity.

Do you have to be good in school? Given what's passing for

English in some places, I'd certainly like to see more effort

given to school. If you're a student reading this, please try to

learn something while you can.

If you aspire to be an author and you did poorly in school, or if

you're just plain uneducated, don't let it stop you. What we do

as authors isn't taught in school. They teach grammar, and bless

them. I can't teach that subject. If you're very fortunate, as I

was, you'll stumble across some teachers who teach you how to

think. But thinking is the beginning of writing, not the end, and

grammar can be fixed later if you find some long-suffering editor

(like me) willing to do it.

In other words, school can help you with the first step or two of

your journey to be an author. Considering how many steps come

after those, don't be discouraged by test results and report

cards.

To distill what you think, feel and believe from all the trash

floating around in your head, and then to actually put that on

paper the way you mean to put it, is a skill that only comes from

years of practice. They don't teach it in school. At least, no

school I've ever attended. I struggled at this for 20 years or so

after I graduated from college. That's where I learned to write.

Not in a classroom.

In my travels through the Matrix, I've met blind authors, deaf

authors, dyslexic authors, authors writing in a second or third

language, authors suffering partial paralysis, authors with

various psychoses, authors who deal with more than one of these

obstacles. What they overcome makes my complaint, that I'm too

left-brained to be in this business, seem absolutely pathetic.

And yours, about doing poorly in school.

I could cite you a VERY long list of authors who did poorly in

school. If I did my job as an editor, you'll never know who they

are unless I call them out by name. And I won't. Probably because

I can't remember them all.

(I'm joking. Editor/author confidentiality protects them, even if

it exists only in my imagination.)

Our emailer then mentions that her friends laugh at her when she

tells them she intends to write. Why does she care? I've lost

count of how many projects I've undertaken despite criticism. Not

just writing, either. Life. But let me narrow my focus just so I

can end this rant.

You have a reason for writing. You know what it is, even if you

can't put it into words. I can't put it into words. ("It" can

mean your reason OR mine in that sentence.) But it's there. Why

do you give a rat's backside how many people tell you not to even

try? People who I doubt have even read your writing, I might add.

Your classmates won't understand why you write. Nor your friends.

Nor your family. You're lucky if you find ten non-writers in your

lifetime who have a clue. And you don't care. You just write.

If you're ever lucky enough to "arrive," then all the doubters

will claim to understand why you write. And they'll all be wrong.

Also, by the time someone out there is embracing your work,

you'll already be three books beyond it and sick of hearing about

your old trash. No, it won't be trash, but you'll think of it

that way. There's a big time lapse between creation and that

Oprah interview.

What I never write to those emailers is this. I shouldn't have to

tell you why you write. You don't need my vindication or anyone

else's. If those who haven't even read your work can discourage

you, maybe you should give up. Or do an Emily Dickinson and leave

it all for people to find after you die.

But I can tell you this. If you'll let something as silly as your

grades in school stop you from even beginning to write in the

first place, nothing you have to write is worth finding after you

die. And if you're angry at me for saying it, good. Prove me

wrong. Write a book.