When I was in sixth grade, I had a teacher whose only fan was me.
Nobody particularly appreciated her since she often did boring assignments or somewhat monotonous things on a daily basis. She was also a bit hard of hearing, which made it difficult to answer her questions. I never blamed her for any of it, though. It was obvious that she was trying her best, and that was simply the outcome.
We had this great big book that we read from sometimes. It was one of those typical, 800-page reading educational book filled with questions and interviews and stories. I think that all of us have had a book like that at least once in their English class before. We as a whole didn't like going through it since it was so boring, and since the lighting in the room made it difficult to stay awake. I didn't like it either.
One day, we were instructed to use that huge book. We flipped to this author's interview. He said something to the interviewer that I would never forget:
"I tried for years. 13 years, in fact, of submitting book after book and not getting published. I thought that my books were good enough to at least get that. I believed there was nothing wrong with the book, but simply something wrong with the people who looked through it.
I wrote many books throughout those long years. The characters were different, the plot was different, the dialogue changed significantly... But it was never enough. I still couldn't achieve getting published.
But I still tried one more time in my seemingly futile attempt. And instead of making new characters and setting and dialogue, I incorporated pieces of my life into the story. I talked about the dinner bell, the kids on the front steps, that great big ball of endless string.
That was the book that got me published - the one that I pushed my life into."
I did that with my story, All Stars Bright and Beautiful.
I don't know how to feel about it, exactly. But I can tell you this: if the author of Maniac Magee himself said that, then I am inclined to believe his every word.
People who read my story may not notice the pieces of me that I put in there. But they're there. I think, with every story that I write now and every one that I write in the future, I will still remember what Jerry Spinelli said...493Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvZnLBxK1k8
...Because you have to be the author who is proud of their work and proud of their past accomplishements, and that's why they pushed their memories into their writing.
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