I have been writing short stories for a while and will post on here if you want to read them. Happy reading:-)
Learning to Write
by thereseplummer
She was 21 and fresh off a stint in rehab.
again.
Back in her college classrooms.
Professor’s were understanding and told her they would ‘work with her’ to salvage the year and not loose any credits.
she was grateful.
Room 17 in the new building on campus was where she walked into the Creative Writing Classroom.
It was a dream of hers to learn how to write effectively, professionally or maybe just better. She had been spouting stories and poetry on the old typewriter her Dad had hand-me-downed her a long time ago.
Alone, in the attic or her bedroom or in all night diners in town where she would frequent when she couldnt sleep and smoke way too many cigaretts and drink really bad coffee but it was bottomless cup so who cared. And her words would pour out of her onto paper. pen gripped so hard she developed a callus. And she was free. For those moments she was free from the mental gymnastics her brain loved to play on her. It was indeed a channel. a door to another place she could access now without numbing out.
The Professor walked in.
Middle-aged man, pale complexion, slow gait, audibly exhaling as he unloaded his briefcase in front of the classroom.
She remembered him saying something like ‘write anything and everything that comes to your mind and just be free with it.’ Free Writing he had called it.
She went for it. She wrote and wrote in circles and patterns and to the moon and back again and around the world and back again and when she handed her paper in at the end of class she was smiling.
she hadn’t smiled in a long long time.
She anticipated her professor’s feedback and had butterflies in her stomache waiting to receive her paper. When her name was called and she took her paper there was a note at the top that said ‘see me after class. office 19.’
she was nervous but excited as she anticipated that this meeting was to single her out and tell her she was a born writer and to stick with it and this is her calling…..
But as she sat in office 19 waiting for her Professor there was a dread in her belly.
he walked in sighing, huffing and it seemed like his breathing was labored. He finally sat in the chair and took a big breath. Then he began to talk to her:
“Look I don’t know how to say this but your paper was, well it was all over the place? Really out there. I am not sure writing is the right outlet for you. You seem much more adept at the stage. Maybe focus there?”
And with each word she withered.
more and more and more until she was a puddle and all those insecurities and fears that kept her writing in her attic and in coffee shops and in her bedroom ALONE came true. This Proffessor obviously knew what he was talking about. He was a proffessional.
He must KNOW.
she walked out of his office her head down and eyes cast on the floor.
She would not tell another story for ten years in public.
and then it was another person’s words. But that was safer and she didn’t feel as exposed.
But the stories within her still want to be told.
So she quieted the professor’s voice that haunted her,
And now, finally, she will tell them.
