Make the Effort!

I have found that if you have some particular field that really interests you, you should study the gurus and make an effort to be in their presence. Ever since about 8th grade, I knew that I wanted to be involved in some aspect of writing. I used to write that I would be a stenographer-typist, which was a career path, back in the day.

It still had to do with the use of words, whether listening and transcribing someone else’s words and then, typing them, before word processing came along. In high school, I always received better grades in shorthand (Pittman) than in typing. I could get the words down with a level of speed, but learning the places of the keys on the keyboard was more difficult for me.

Eventually, I figured out that I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to let my own words flow onto a page and even now, entering them into a word document is not anything I look forward to doing. I often write in longhand and data entry is a part of the entire writing, so it must be done.

Once, I figured out my next steps to write after years of teaching and librarianship, I started to seek out the writing gurus. If I heard that there was a writer or a writer’s conference anywhere in the area, I made the effort to get there. In between jobs, while the gas tank may have been almost on E, I still found a way to get there.

I wanted to be in the room, the presence and within earshot of those who had achieved what I wanted to achieve as a published writer. I now share a long list of authors that I have seen, heard, and in a few precious instances spoken with, always asking, “How do I get published?” It is not being braggadocious. It merely shows what can happen if there is a will and determination to get there. As the old saying from the 80’s said, “Be there or be square.”

I have seen the following:  Haki R. Madhubuti (Don L. Lee), Ernest J. Gaines, Eudora Welty, Amiri Baraka (Leroi Jones), Issac Bashevis Singer, James Baldwin, Toni Cade Bambara, Dick Gregory, Nikki Giovanni, Ishmael Reed, Reginald Martin, Gwendolyn Brooks, Sonja Sanchez, Alice Walker (chatted with), Tina McElroy Ansa, Sandra Cisneros, Rita Dove, Virginia Hamilton (chatted with), Jerry Pickney, Mildred Pitts Walter, Walter Dean Myers, Andrea Davis Pickney and Brian Pickney (chatted with), Leo and Diane Dillon, Judy Blume, Paule Marshall (chatted with), Christopher Paul Curtis, Terry McMillan (chatted with), Maya Angelou and Jacqueline Woodson (chatted with). I am sure that I am forgetting some, but you get the general idea.

Being in their presence, getting some autographs and mostly listening to them tell their stories and read from their works, kept me connected to my dream. Each writer fired me up in some unique way and inspired me to stay on the literary path. I am so happy that I made the effort to get to the location to see them in action!

“I shall be telling this with a sigh,
Somewhere ages and ages hence,
Two roads diverged in a wood and I –
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.” 
                          Robert Frost – The Road Not Taken

Lynn M.
December 16, 2023