
Mrs. Flake
I didn’t have to think about the name when I saw the question.
I usually talk about how my mother always encouraged me and guided me to be a writer. My mother was a foundation part of learning the craft and becoming good at it.
But what a writer needs, especially very introverted writers like myself, is confidence.
My first real teacher to believe in my writing was Mrs. Flake.
Mostly all the other teachers would compliment my writing telling me I wrote well, but I always wrote too much. If the word count was 1000, I wrote 5o000 and so on.
I loved to write.
I knew I did and I looked upon the challenge of word counts like it was my duty to conquer.
I learned metaphors and research were my friend. When writing a paper I sued these weapons to defeat many a writing assignment.
Mrs. Flake started as my tenth grade teacher. Just when I was transitioning to adulthood. She read my second paper and demanded I volunteer for the newspaper.
I didn’t take her seriously of course because I didn’t think i was good enough for journalism writing. by 2nd semester she was sending me articles to write. So in essence she forced my hand. – my writing hand.
By eleventh grade, Mrs. Flake proclaimed I’d be editor by senior year and started training me.
It was just awesome to have someone constantly encouraging me and challenging me to be better at writing.
So I’d have to thank Mrs. Flake for being a teacher in my life that gave me the confidence to know I was a good writer.
Who encouraged you to write?
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