Snapshots

  • My grade-school teacher assigned “essays” every week. We could write about anything we liked, but she marked every little error in spelling, grammar, or punctuation. A perfect score seemed unattainable. I just did the best I could. When the teacher returned my essay about a pet whale that I kept in a swimming pool, it had “100” at the top. I couldn’t believe it, and I felt, I think for the first time in my life, that there was something I was good at, could do well, and could be rewarded for.
  • I sat in a Sunday school class at an unfamiliar church, where I didn’t know anyone. The teacher was asking questions to test our knowledge. When he asked, “Why did God send Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden?” I knew the answer, because I’d learned it at my old school. I raised my hand and said, “Because God was angry with them.” The teacher gave me a harsh scowl and said, “That’s wrong. God never gets angry.” At the same time as I was melting with embarrassment, I knew that what he said wasn’t right—and he was the teacher! I thought, if these people can’t agree on what’s true, then how do you know if any of it is? It was my first experience of doubt.
  • I was about 13. At that time I was learning all sorts of things about myself and how to deal with people, and I’d decided that I was a doormat and needed to be more assertive. So when I walked into the living room and my little brother Paul—sitting on a chair, holding his arm and grimacing—asked me to phone my mother for him because he’d hurt his arm, I said no, do it yourself, and left the room. He did ... and it turned out his arm had been broken. I felt awful and concluded it’s better to err on the side of kindness.
  • My high-school English teacher held little informal conferences with me about writing. When the idea of my pursuing writing as a career came up, she warned me that the only writers who ever made a living at it were authors of smut and romances. So she suggested I try writing a romance. (I wasn’t interested.)
  • In my senior year, as I tried to decide on a college, my French teacher asked me where I planned to go. I told her about the engineering school where I’d been accepted. She said, “Don’t be an engineer, they’re all ...” and she made a squinty, wrinkled face. I thought, “But I have to ...”
  • I was at the engineering college, and I was not doing well at all. Instead of studying, I was working out with the crew team and dating—something I’d never had the chance to do before. Both failure in class and the need to make choices and deal with challenges of living on my own were things I was totally unprepared for. I met with my academic advisor, and he was very critical of my performance. I went to the ladies room, sobbed on the floor, and never went back to my classes.
  • A few years later, I was attending school in California. Still, I was torn between writing and studying a technical field, but this time I had chosen the other side—I was taking various humanities courses, undecided on a major. I was enjoying my classes, but felt that they were completely impractical. When the pressure of working and going to school became too much, I walked to the undergraduate office, filled out the form, and quit, thinking that my courses were just a waste of time.
  • I was at the Santa Fe Screenwriting Conference, the first such conference I’d attended. I had signed up for a reading of the first ten pages of my script. When I’d sent it in, I had been confident. Now, after attending other writers’ readings, I was mortified. I wanted to ask them to cancel it. I wanted to stay away. I wanted to run away. I sat on a bench outside and tried to encourage myself. Finally, when it was time, I forced myself to walk in the room ... sit down among the audience ... and listen to the whole thing. At the end, everyone was quiet. Then I was asked to raise my hand, as the writer. People turned and smiled at me ... and started asking questions! “Oh my god ...” I thought, “could it be ... they actually liked it?!”