MY JOURNEY TO BECOMING AN AUTHOR
Becoming an author surprised me as well as my family,
friends, and my community. I didn’t grow up
writing poems and reading books, but for me, writing was just as easy as
breathing.
During my early 30’s I decided to go back to college. After taking a placement test and scoring
really high on the writing portion, but low on the reading—I was placed in a
remedial reading class. That was where
my journey began.
Being brutally honest—I was pissed that one out of my four
classes was remedial reading. Life moves
fast after thirty and I felt a non-college level class was a waste of my time. I was forced to read book after book and then
engage in group discussions. Half the
class came from hard knocks like me and the other half used English as their
second language.
Professor Steve Cohen taught us. From the neck up he looked nerdy in a good
way. He wore seeing glasses with a thick
black frame. He had a head full of black
hair that was parted down the side and slicked down neatly. From the floor up he was tore up, wearing
sneakers, jogging shorts, and a t-shirt.
He did a rhythm-less dance as his students entered class. He kind of favored the famous actor Kevin
James. And then he opened his mouth and
began to speak. By the end of the class
everyone could relate to him. He became
all things to all people in our class: goofy, smart, ghetto, Black, Caucasian,
Hispanic, working class, welfare class, and no class. We all felt a bond with him and soon began to
bond with each other as we engaged in classroom discussions about reading and
how it relates to our lives.
Professor Cohen shared a book that he wrote while he was in
college. It was a book to help new
college students find their way around school.
It was then, at that moment when I decided to write a book about my
life. Writing a book would make sense
out of no sense. Give my pain and
struggles reason. I asked “What do you
think about me writing a book?”
He
responded, “That’s great! Bring me your first five pages.”
Now I was just running an idea pass him. I hadn’t written anything and had no idea of
how to begin to write a book, but I was excited.
It consumed my thoughts for days. Where do I start? What do I write
about? How honest should I be? Whose voice should tell the story? Questions multiplied as the days passed.
Well I started with the most dramatic thing I could remember
happening to me. Professor Cohen read my
first five pages and loved it. He said,
“Keep writing.” I wrote every night for
three months straight. My book was
complete and it was all over the place.
Only I could understand it. I had
to rewrite the whole book.
This blog is my journey to becoming an author. Let’s get started! Please read my next blog titled, GETTING
STARTED
Click on the link below to read an article I wrote about Professor Steve Cohen in 2010
Click on the link below to borrow my book for FREE or read
on Kindle for $2.99.
Click on link below to buy Paperback from Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Evergreen-Uprooted-N-Z-Pankey/dp/0615340237/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1352239179&sr=1-2&keywords=evergreen+uprooted
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