Want to Be a Writer? You'd Best Read This!

There have been two times in my life when someone told me I would never be able to accomplish the goals I set out to accomplish. One time was in 1973 when my voice coach told me I was a talentless hack who would never be able to learn to sing. And, get this; I had declared my college major as music.

The devastation I felt was engulfing. The depression would roll over me like the waves of a violent ocean storm tossing me like a cork, a piece of wood, a mere lifeless thing, taking me under with each crashing surge. The sky had turned black with absolutely nothing to indicate the sun would come out tomorrow. All I could do was sit in my dorm room and stare at the wall. Sometimes thoughts ran through my head. Most of the time, my mind was blank. I could see only one option-failure. I felt I had no light, no life.

What else could I do? I had prepared for this moment all my young life. I wanted to study music. All the lessons, the choir concerts, and the music theory classes I had taken as a youth-wasted. Here was a professional, my college voice coach, telling me I was no good and would never be any good.

I do not recall now, some 34 years later, exactly how I came out of my despair. But, I did. What I do remember is that I came to a point where I had to make a decision. I had to decide whether to allow what this man, someone I respected greatly, said to render me totally useless musically. I had to decide whether I would limit my options to working in a gas station, or God forbid K-Mart, or whether I would become something musically and prove this man wrong.

I did the latter.

I did become a singer and became an accomplished one. This man, my voice coach, told me years later that he told me what he did to "push me," to "prod me," to make me count the cost of what it was going to take to be not just good but great. While I doubt whether I became great, I did become a good singer.

To this day, I feel this was the action of a cruel man. To tell someone, "you do not have what it takes to fulfill your heart's desires. Your dreams are meaningless" is devastating.

Twenty-four hours ago, I felt the crashing and drowning surge once again create its emotion-destroying tempest in my mind.

There he was, drinking coffee. The man who would be the source of the second such event in my life all these years later. He was at his usual morning post, on the patio of a local coffee shop, enjoying his hot brew when I approached him.

He had been an inspiration to me four years ago when I decided to begin writing. He had had a long and successful professional writing career. I met him when my wife and I moved to Mexico. He made me believe then I could write.

He was now telling me I was an unskilled and talentless hack. His advice was that I find something else to do with my life.

No hope. You can't do it. You will never amount to anything in the world of writing.

Yet another professional telling me I don't have what it takes to practice another form of artistic expression.

He droned on that he had read my work. In his opinion, I was not just lacking talent, but I was a zero.

I felt like I had been hit in a place on my body that men don't like to be hit. Another man, and a man I respected highly, was telling me I was worthless. I felt what I had chosen to do, to write, was a pipe dream, a delusion, a mere fantasy that would never amount to anything. Why waste my time?

And, shouldn't he know? After all, look at all those years he spent becoming a credible writer.

I can only suspect this man's motive. I cannot know it for certain.

Is he pushing and prodding too?

Is he also of that school that thinks squashing someone's dreams is the appropriate way to motivate?

I don't know and was too shocked to ask him.

Then, he told me it took him a certain number of years before he became a credible writer. Ok, that's fine. But, did he not continue to write from day one, year one, paragraph one, and word one until he reached that mark of accomplishment decades later? Did he not practice? Did he not keep trying? Did he not fall down as a writer but keep getting back up? Isn't that what led him to become an accomplished writer-PRACTICE?

Isn't the point that he spent all those years laboring at becoming something? He wasn't born a brilliant writer but became an accomplished one. In the process of becoming a credible writer, he had to have fallen on his face a time or two.

The secret I learned 34 years ago when trying to become an accomplished singer was success is measured in how many times one keeps getting up after falling on one's face.

It's still painful when someone I thought I knew resorts to such cruelty. But, the waves are not so strong this time. They won't pull me under now. The sky isn't so black and I do see some light.

A young Mexican man who lives across the callejon (alley) from us practices the violin nearly every day. I haven't a clue why. He is college-aged, so I presume he is studying music. He isn't very good. But, he keeps on practicing no matter what. He is much older than the age experts recommend for beginning to study this stringed instrument. That fact shows in what horrible sounds come pouring out of his apartment when he practices.

But, he keeps trying. He hits those bad notes but he keeps trying to get them right. He never gives up.

Neither do I.