Although I clearly remember the first moment I knew I wanted to become a writer, I will unlikely bring up the embarrassing incident at my upcoming appearance at the Secaucus Public Library on April 6.
What I will be talking about will be the book of collected stories being published by Rutgers University Press in July called Everyday People: Profiles from the Garden State. I will also likely relate tales about how each article was written and the people they were written about.
Yet when looking back at success stories, I do not count my miserable moment in eighth grade as one of them. Sister Cecilia, trying to prepare us for the precarious leap from grammar school into junior high, asked each of us in the graduating class to write an essay on what we wanted to be when we grew up.
Until that moment, I hadn’t a clue. After nine years in a Catholic school, I knew only what I didn’t want to be: a priest, partly because teachers like Sister Cecilia seemed to have that career choice in mind each time they eyed me. Sister Cecilia even thought to provide me with literature on the noble profession, in order to supply me with adequate information for my essay.
Her strong hints motivated me to send a strong message to the good sister in defiance of my Catholic upbringing. If I could do a good enough job in writing an essay about something other than the priesthood, the Sisters of Charity who ran my school might be convinced to let me graduate in peace.
For years, I had scribbled journals in private, recollections and observations that I had no intention of revealing to the public. I had even commandeered my grandmother’s Underwood typewriter that my family had abandoned in the attic once my grandmother gave up secretarial work to raise kids.
Writing always begins with observation, then twists reality for its own ends. Even the most dedicated non-fiction remains the writer’s interpretation of reality. So, in that attic, I took bits of reality and shaped them into a fiction I hoped would fool the nuns at school. As a troublesome student, I had often visited the principal’s office in less than admirable circumstances. More than a few times, I had wished for legal representation, convinced that my rights had been violated during the sessions when Mother Superior worked over my knuckles with a ruler.
This reflection led me to the question: What if I became an attorney?
That idea became the topic of my piece, and that was how I began writing fiction. I spent hours crafting that piece, puzzling my family who wondered about my sudden fascination for homework. (In nine years, I had become notorious for failing to do homework assignments.)
I scribbled, scratched out, started over, and revised, putting my thoughts into new orders I never imagined myself capable of doing. I was so proud of the final product that before I turned it in, I allowed my best friend, Steven, to review it.
Rarely have I made such a grave mistake. Steven had a homework history that rivaled mine, and lacking the inspiration to shape his own essay, he copied mine – teaching me a valuable lesson about plagiarism.
Sister Cecilia, confronted with two copies of the same essay, failed us both. While she believed my tale about Steven’s copying my original, she found the essay too well written to have come out of a laggard like me. She was convinced I had copied it from yet some more professional source. Needless to say, Steven and I both found ourselves once more in the principal’s office, and the nuns completely gave up any ideas about my becoming a priest.
Onward and upward
Over the next several decades, I would learn many lessons on writing as I struggled to develop my writing skills. Yet no memory remains at vivid as that of Sister Cecilia’s face when she had finished reading my essay. She initially looked stunned, then awed, then unbelieving, and her expression has become the model of motivation for me ever since. I learned that no one should write without a reason, and that no one should write without reward – even if that reward is self-satisfaction. I also learned that from beginning to end, writers need to have a clear purpose of where they want to go with a work and what they want to accomplish.
Over the years, these have become guiding principles that have allowed me to publish short stories and poetry in various literary magazines around the county. These principles also allowed me to publish my own literary magazine during the 1980s. And my job as a reporter for the Secaucus Reporter, and for various other editions of the Hudson Reporter in the 1990s, allowed me to learn how to meet weekly deadlines and has also recently resulted in Rutgers University Press seeking to reprint many of the profiles I did over the last decade.
Few people believe me when I tell them that I have never lacked inspiration or suffered from writer’s block. Although only a small fraction of my writing has made it into print, I am by far the most prolific writer I know. I write fanatically, every day, seeking to learn more and more about the craft of writing. Many of the people I have met over the years, from editors to other writers, have helped shape my craft, teaching me some of the tricks of the trade – even though I have yet to take full advantage of them.
When Library Director Katherine Steffens asked if I could be part of “National Library Week” to relate some of my experiences, how could I refuse? After thinking on the matter for a few minutes, I recalled that shocked look on Sister Cecilia’s face, and thought: “Maybe I do have something to share.”
So, on Friday, April 6 at about 7 p.m., I will appear at the Secaucus Public Library (in the meeting room) as the kick-off event in what I hope will be a successful book publishing venture. I will talk about Everyday People and about the people whose stories appear in it. There will also be a question and answer period. For more information about the event, feel free to call the Secaucus Public Library at 330-2083