The Fiery Boys (A Sample)
Page 14I sat in my Creative Writing class and stared at the paper. An A! Underneath the grade, the professor had written, "Good passion." That was a first. I had been struggling with this class all semester.
I wasn't sure I liked Professor Norbert's concept of Creative Writing. His suggested reading list had way too many dense books, with wordy sentences, thick layers of abstraction, and ambiguous conclusions. Hadn't I read enough of that in high school and college? These night-school classes were supposed to be light and easy-an opportunity to do something fun. So why did I have to read such tedious books?
But I put up with the class because I wanted to be a writer. And we've all heard the advice: if you want to be a good writer, you have to read. So that's exactly what I did. I spent much of my free time plowing through book after book, finishing another one every few days. But I was the one who picked those books, not Professor Norbert.
If I could have created my own reading list, I'd have chosen the sort of articles and books that I someday hoped to write: stories about rock and roll. That was my goal: to be a famous reporter who covered the music scene, followed bands, and interviewed musicians. I dreamed of being like Ivory Doe of No Moss magazine, one of the most famous music journalists out there.
Now some would think I was a hopeless dreamer, and they'd probably be right. But I knew that only one person could make my dream come true: me. So I kept reading, and I signed up for a literary masters program at the local college. A master's degree would be a nice ticket-punch that would establish my cred as a writer. And it would improve my writing, too. Along the way, I'd get to read even more books, which seemed like a good thing. Too bad Norbert's reading list was so tiresome.
A woman sitting next to me leaned over and noticed my grade. "Wow! How did you get an A out of Norbert? He's such a hard ass." She had a good point-the guy had been beating me up all semester.
I shrugged. "I just got tired of writing stories based on his reading list. Every time I did that, I got a C. So I figured, the hell with it. Since I can't get a good grade out of him, I'll write about something I really love. A song lyric." I pointed out the title on the first page of my paper. "Fiery Life," of course. My song.