This is NOT How I Became a Writer - Pt. 01, The Gift of the School Assignment.
How the expectations we hold and the stories we tell ourselves matter.
Becoming a writer means taking into account every paper that I ever chicken-pecked into existence the night before it was due and every journal page scratched out while holding a flashlight in the other hand. Becoming a writer encompasses every book that’s kept me up at night and every story I’ve heard my uncles tell. Becoming a writer means that I am obliged to acknowledge every joke that landed and every joke that fell flat. Becoming a writer isn’t one grand occurrence, but a lifetime’s worth of small incidents that add up to something much more substantial.
That being the case-
This summer I’m exploring the events which were a big starting point for me.
This is part one of three.
Spring semester, 1996, 6th grade, GT class:
Project - Create a Picture Book
I remember being so excited. Yes, I was in a class full of nerds but I have a distinct feeling I was the nerdiest of them all.
“How fortunate that this was school?
How did I get so lucky?!?!
I love books!
I love stories!
I love art!
I love making art!!
I’m going to be GREAT at this!
This is going to be the best project ever!!!!!”
At the time, I wasn’t concerned with an amazing story but obsessed with amazing visuals. I had a mental image of how {gestures with hands} SPECTACULAR this book was going to look.
And then…
I wasn’t able to create them.
I couldn’t make the pictures in my head look like the images I created by hand in pencil and chalk pastels. (Why do I remember that we used chalk? Partially because I wanted bold and this was not the correct medium to do bold.)
For years I saw this as a failed visual art project.. something where the results didn’t match what was I was “seeing” in my brain.
I would mentally point to it and cringe, “See. That thing. Obviously you do not have the capacity to write or illustrate a story because you did not hit it out of the park that one time when you really tried. Stop trying. This is not within your capacity.”
And Now- Some Context:
Scroll backup and look at the date… Spring of 1996.
Only weeks before this assignment was made I, and lots of other creative nerds of my generation, had our brains collectively blown by the wonder that was Toy Story during the holiday movie season of 1995. Computer animation took us by the hand and showed us to the very edge of possible and I was twelve/ thirteen: Ie. young enough to be wholly entranced by a well-told story and old enough to think I was almost fully grown and capable of making such things myself.
I was told to create a “story for kids” and having been so recently inspired by a “story for kids,” I didn’t process (or, probably more true, wasn’t fully aware) that the piece of art I which had so enraptured me was created by a huge team of adults who had years of art degrees and years which they had dedicated to its making.
I was expecting Toy Story… and I was creatively devastated when I couldn’t make that impossibility happen. That disappointment lead me to a core memory that said, “Your art is not good enough.”
And I believed that for a very long time.
Twenty Years Later…
About ten years ago, I came across this quote from author, podcaster, and NPR personality Ira Glass.
The quote (like Toy Story) shook me.
“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”
―Ira Glass
{Are your eyes bugging out like mine were when I first read this?}
How could this man who never met me know exactly what I had first experienced in middle school 20 years previous and what I continued to feel any time my output didn’t match the inspiration/ input?
And why had no one ever told me to keep going?
Why had no one said, “This looks like something you’re really into. Don’t quit. It’s not about having talent or not; It’s about not stopping.”
Why all this matters
Look, I’m not a therapist.
I’m not going to suggest that you start digging up all the core memories surrounding your creativity / aspirations/ self-worth. (And if you do, please have a professional on-hand.)
But, I guess, in a way, I am challenging you to question the negative assertions that you’ve had “since forever.” Maybe, like me, you might be able to review the context.
This Toy Story realization? Brand new. Never made that connection before 2025.
That one reframe has helped me realize that my twelve year old brain was wildy over-ambitious and, of course I was disappointed when I was comparing myself to actual professionals and it allowed me the space to think, “Maybe everything that I think (especially the negative and the overarching generalities), isn’t necessarily true.”
Try it.
Let me know how it goes.