Jennifer Jordan

It was the first grade. I had two pretty influential assignments: one was to write a story, and the other was to write a picture book.

I don’t remember what the prompt was, but basically, my first grade writing teacher instructed my class to write a story. There had to be a plot. There had to be some kind of obstacle, and our characters had to make choices. Something had to happen. Naturally, I wrote a story about a Leprechaun, and he was on an adventure. I remember the scenes in my head while I wrote the story. I liked the idea of treasure and Rainbows. Basically, the Leprechaun was a proxy for me, so I imagined myself running through a forest, and I was looking for a rainbow. Classic ’80’s fodder.

What was influential about writing my first short story is that I was imagining it while I wrote. And it felt good. I felt excited while I told my story. I also realized I never had to stop writing a story if I didn’t want it to. Then writing the story became a way for me to feel good about myself because I was a perfectionist with self-esteem issues, and I had written the longest story in my class. One kid who sat next to me told me, “You can’t write a story that long.” And I snorted and said, “Yes I can!”

Writing my first book was also an important moment for me because of the writing and illustrating process. My book was called Superkids Go to the Circus. We were superheroes, and the goal of this gang of freaks I was to get to the circus. We wanted to see a circus. We wanted to see the animals, the clowns, the trapeze artist. I had never been to circus at that point, so this was also a big deal to me. I could experience what I wanted through a story.

First we wrote the stories by hand, and our teacher reviewed them and gave editorial suggestions. Then we drew the pictures that coincided with each scene. My teacher then collected up all our stories with the text and the pictures, and she typed our stories, yes with a typewriter because this was the ’80s. She typed our stories on our drawings, and bound them together for us with covers that we made with cloth and cardboard. Thinking about the whole process my teacher went through to guide us through the project and to gift us with our own bound stories, I can see that my grade school teacher was pretty formative in my writing life.

These experiences are also what led me to teaching, in a way. I loved school. I Ioved English class. I loved telling stories and writing poems, and I sit here writing now, listening to my own narrative voice, typing like a fiend, and searching for the next word to write. I have never gotten tired of this.

I have found myself stalling and procrastinating, and sometimes afraid to either finish or share my work.

But I always find my way back to this place. I recently joined Blue Sky, and I have reconnected with the #writingcommunity there, and that feels really good, too. If you write, reader, when did you first know you were a writer?