Encouragement isn’t always rah-rah-sis-boom-bah. At times, it can feel more like a nudge or even a shove toward an uncertain, but desired, outcome.
Let me tell you about a time just seven words, in the form of a suggestion, put me on a path that directed my entire life.
Miss Potter, my English teacher, had assigned each of us to write a poem. The Vietnam War was raging. That conflict weighed on my heart and became the theme of my poem. The day after we turned in our poems, Miss Potter stood in front of the class and read only one poem – mine. I was half-mortified, half-thrilled.
I’ll share it with you:
In Vietnam, he fought that day,
While overseas, protestors marched on their way.
Bullets flew ’round his head,
While back at home, President Nixon lay in bed.
A grenade exploded at his side,
And in Canada, some deserter tried to hide.
In Cambodia, he was taken to a prison camp,
While Congress decided to raise the price of a postage stamp.
They tortured and beat him, he slept in his blood,
Back at home, demonstrators spit on a flag in the mud.
The next day, he died, his body contracted in pain,
While in Washington, a general crossed out his name.
When she was done reading, Miss Potter looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, “You should think about getting this published.”
I was a voracious reader, but write something that could be published? The thought had never crossed my 16-year-old brain. But Miss Potter had planted a seed. Could I write something good enough to get published? I started studying the editorial pages of magazines and reading the fine print on how to submit material.
Life moved on. I graduated. Got married. Had kids. I started submitting small pieces. I got a lot of rejections, but I kept at it. Reader’s Digest was my first “big” publication. I got $35 for a little quip I’d written. My husband bought me flowers, which probably took care of the check I received.
Years passed. Miss Potter’s words never left me. In 1998, after our youngest daughter graduated from high school, I finally started writing a novel. I had no idea what I was doing. This was strictly a seat-of-the-pants project.
I asked a well-read friend (also an English teacher) if she would read a few pages. I started sharing about 50 pages every month with her. She offered feedback in a red-pen, teacher-like fashion and waited for more.
I became discouraged. After all, I didn’t know how to write a novel. It would probably never get published. But my friend read the latest pages and challenged me: “Keep writing. I want to read more.”
I plugged away until I had run out of words and gumption. Maybe my dream of writing a novel was just a dream. I pushed away from my computer and said, “I can’t do this.”
And then, Oprah Winfrey threw down the gauntlet that set me on a new determined path. This all happened toward the end of the century in 1999. I was watching “The Oprah Winfrey Show” and she issued a challenge. If there is anything you want to get done, if you have a dream or a project, make it a goal to get it done before the clock turns midnight on Dec. 31, before the year 2000. Her challenge lit a fire in my heart, and my fingers. I typed until New Year’s Eve, when I typed, “The End.”
The challenge from my high school teacher set me on a path. The words of my book club friend kept me going. Oprah, unknowingly, sealed the deal. After almost 30 years from those first challenging words, I had written a novel.
It took another two years of challenging myself to approach publishers and getting more than my share of rejections. When I was close to the “I don’t know what else to do” place, I received a brochure for a writers conference in San Jose, Calif. “No way,” I thought from my rural North Dakota home and threw it in the garbage. A week later, I got an identical brochure in the mail. I don’t know what possessed me, but I filled it out, wrote a check and mailed it. I was now committed.
Going to that conference all by myself may have been the most challenging part of the publishing journey. I went. I pitched my novel. I was asked to send it to an editor. And six months later, I was signing a two-book contract.
Add up all those challenges over the years and the result has been eight published novels and a magazine column I’ve written for over a dozen years. Those challenging words, combined with my words, have now reached several hundred thousand people.
The End.
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But not “The End.” There is more to come in this encouragement series. You can reach Roxy at roxannehenke@gmail.com.
