{"id":3252,"date":"2014-03-21T09:31:59","date_gmt":"2014-03-21T15:31:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ramblindan.org\/?p=3252"},"modified":"2014-03-21T09:46:15","modified_gmt":"2014-03-21T15:46:15","slug":"being-a-fair-writer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/?p=3252","title":{"rendered":"Being a \u201cFAIR\u201d Writer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"images\"<\/a>This is about something that happened over 50 years ago, that changed my life.<\/p>\n

One of my very favorite things to do today is publish on the Internet. I think it is just because I can. I wasn\u2019t born or studied to be a writer. I am definitely not a professional, but for some reason I have enjoyed writing for half a century. It must be the lasting power of the printed word. It hangs around well after I think about it and can be reviewed over and over again.<\/p>\n

I have never been able to produce good writing the first time through. I make many changes and edits before I publish. Sometimes I eliminate complete thoughts that serve no value, even now.<\/p>\n

I am not going to get into detail on how I write. That might need a book. The fun started to switch on in High School. I learned a lesson in life from writing back then. The fun could have switched off but didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

High School English composition was usually a chore. It was a forced \u201cassignment\u201d to write stuff. But with one assignment I realized what a powerful tool composition was, and it was because I liked the subject I was working on. It has stuck in my mind over 50 years because it was also a bad experience.<\/p>\n

I worked long and hard on this one composition. I remember staying up late many nights making it the best I could. I turned it in with no more expectation than knowing it was probably the best I had ever done, and that made me feel good.<\/p>\n

The teacher graded it as a \u201cC\u201d, just fair and I wondered why\u2026 She told me the paper deserved an \u201cA+\u201d but she was certain it wasn\u2019t my work as she had judged me incapable of that level of excellence. She also plainly told me she couldn\u2019t \u201cprove\u201d who wrote it for me or where I had copied it, so she assigned it a \u201cC\u201d. My honesty was attacked!<\/p>\n

No amount of explanation made a difference. I was butting heads with an ignorant, arrogant, extremely poor excuse of a teacher. She didn\u2019t deserve the title of teacher and no longer had my respect. She obviously didn\u2019t care about me.<\/p>\n

Yes, that day changed my life in a small way. It didn\u2019t stop me from writing. She had told me the paper was worth an A+! \u00a0In my heart I knew there was nothing wrong with me. What I learned was that teachers could be so very wrong. I never respected any teacher after that until I felt they were working for my benefit. That \u201cperson\u201d had given me a vivid lesson in dealing with life.<\/p>\n

Back in my preteen grade school, teachers were \u201cGod\u201d and given automatic respect, at least in my day. Maturing is a process of seeing life the way it really is and making adjustments. For me this story was an adjustment. I was fine; it was the world that doesn\u2019t play fair.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is about something that happened over 50 years ago, that changed my life. One of my very favorite things to do today is publish on the Internet. I think it is just because I can. I wasn\u2019t born or studied to be a writer. I am definitely not a professional, but for some reason I have enjoyed writing for half a century. It must be the lasting power of the printed word. It hangs...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[100,55],"class_list":["post-3252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musing","tag-publishing","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3252\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}