The Best Piece of Writing Advice I Ever Received

Posted on August 15th, 2009 in Style by martie
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Some words of wisdom stay with you forever.

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There are some words of wisdom that stick with us long after the actual event that lead to those words being spoken has passed. Such is the case with the best piece of writing advice I ever got.

It happened almost forty years ago when I was a young and somewhat cocky teenager. Ahh, but, let me tell you the story in it’s entirety.

I was a junior in high school, and had decided to take a creative writing class for my English credit. I took the class for two very important reasons. The first reason, was that if didn’t take creative writing I would have been stuck in another basic English course. The thought of another year of diagramming sentence was more than I could bear.

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The second reason was because I had heard that the instructor for the creative writing class was an easy grader and I was all for boosting my GPA.

For the most part the class was interesting, challenging, and fun. I really did enjoy it and true to the rumors the instructor seemed to be a pretty easy grader.

The only problem was, that every couple of weeks or so he would give this in class writing assignment. The same assignment. He would have us describe this maple tree outside our classroom window in 25 words or less.

Every time we were given this assignment some little devil inside of me made me rebel. Each time I would carefully write my name on the paper, followed by a one word description of the tree. Usually something like big, leafy, etc.

Each time he would hand back all our papers ungraded and have the best description read to the class. I would sit at the back of the room and roll my eyes whenever I would hear about “Little fairies, dancing on the sun dappled leaves.” or “The whispering of the rustling leaves.”

Through out the years the other students would get try harder and harder to out do one another and the description of that tree got more and more fantasy like. I stayed true to myself however, and continued to write my one word descriptions “Brown” “rough” “tall.”

At last the class was almost over for the year. All that was left was the final exam. As the class and I gathered in our classroom pens in hand our instructor announced that everyone would be excused from the final except for Martha.

I sat in stunned silence while the rest of the class filed out of the room grins on their faces.

After they had left, my instructor turned to me and said quietly. “I want you to write a 500 to 600 word essay describing the tree outside the window.”

“you’ve got to be kidding!” I protested. “It won’t take that many words to describe that stupid tree.”

That is when he utter the words that would change my life. For several minutes he spoke to me about writing and how to describe something. He told me that a really good writer, would describe the tree in such a way that not only could someone picture exactly what the tree looked like, but what kind of day it was, and even how the writer felt being in its presence.

He allowed me three days to work on the assignment.

Over the next couple of days I spent a lot of my spare time outside that English classroom in the presence of that tree.

I walked around it looking at it from all angles. I ran my hands over its bark and looked at each and every scar and knot that tree had on it. I stood well away from it and viewed it from a distance. I even laid under it and stared up at its branches.

A few of the other students and some of the teachers would look at me strangely from time to time and one or two of them asked me what I was doing.

“Studying the tree.” I would answer.

In truth I really was hoping for some inspiration. I was waiting for something to “click” that would make it possible for me to describe the tree in such a manner that my instructor would be duly impressed. No inspiration came.

The night before the paper was due I sat in my room at my desk, crumbled pages scattered all around me like giant snowballs. I must have tried to write that paper 100 times, and could not get passed the first line or two.

Wearily, I put my head in my hands and closed my eyes. What did I see? That darn tree!

I moaned and opened my eyes a moment. Would this assignment haunt me forever? I wondered.

I closed my eyes again. This time when the tree appeared I was determined to keep my eyes shut until the tree disappeared and something more interesting replaced it.

As I sat there with my eyes tightly closed, I saw a tiny black ant making its way up the side of the tree. Wandering from groove to groove in the brownish gray bark. I watched fascinated as it climbed higher and higher, and higher, until it disappeared in a hole just below the branches.

I opened my eyes and smile split my face. Reaching for a clean sheet of paper I began to write.

The next day I turned in the essay and when I got it back just one day later, there was no grade on it. I felt disappointed until I saw the note at the bottom.

“For a brief period of time last night I became a small ant.”

Over the years I have received numerous and wonderful words of advice on writing, but his words remain the most important writing advice I ever received.

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