The first time I wrote, I used pencil, thinking to erase everything wrong and making it perfect.  It was on ruled paper with the red line for a margin on the left hand side.  It is easy to feel creative when what is objectionable on the paper can be replaced with something real and beautiful.

I was a child whose hands could not span the space of the keys on a computer, or, even on a typewriter.  I was, nonetheless excited about writing something called a “story” or what is called “fiction.”  It was a simple story about going home after school.

It didn’t even take up for than a page, and I was “skipping lines,” or, as is the computer-speak, I was “double-spacing.”  I loved the story.  It was fun for me to write about one of the things that always made me happy….  And excited.   It was about home.  It was about change of time.  It was about having the control for myself to decide that I’d be leaving school and walking home.  It felt like I was making the decision.  It felt like the absolute right thing to do.

I handed it in to the teacher.  She had given us class time to write it….  The idea of homework in those olden times was objectionable.  It wouldn’t be until we were at least in grade five or six that there would be an hour of homework a night  and sorts of projects that parents were supposed to help out with.

We didn’t know what our teacher would really do with the stories, but, surprise, the next day, she returned them to us, fully marked with red pen and encouraging words written to support all the markings.  She told us to bring them home for our parents to read!  We were completely excited.  At least I felt like that, as I had always loved books and the stories that teachers read out loud to us, and story tellers told us.

In addition to the sweet,  sweet, chance to have my mom read it and tell me she loved it, was the chance the teacher surprised a few of us with.  Myself and three others were asked to read our stories out loud to the rest of the class!  I was in “Writer’s Heaven!”  Not only did I have the satisfaction of writing something fictional….  But I was going to have people hear (and if I included my teacher, people would read) my work, and I would have the glow of feedback.  These were my friends.  These were my peers.  And….  It was like an International Juried Fiction Prize had been awarded with the authority of my teacher all over the page I wrote!

At this age, I was not a good speller.  And, truly, it was not always the first thought on my mind.  Nonetheless, I knew what the words were. even though they were mis-spelt, so there was no difficulty in creating understanding when I read it out loud.  However, from this high and excitement of class, and then going home, I had quite a great fall.  I showed my mom the page, and she praised me for the work, creating agreement between my mom’s and my teacher’s points of view.  My mom even asked me to read it out loud….  And just like in class, I read it out loud.

We handily clipped this precious page to the fridge.  My pride swelled.  And, now, I was waiting for my dad to get home, and see it too!

As soon as I heard my dad unlock the door and come into the foyer, I happily ran to greet him.  He was excited to see me too!  I quickly told him to go look at the fridge and read my work!!!!

Within minutes, he called to me to come into the kitchen.  “Elissa,” he said, “Do you know something?”  And I was confused, and shook my head as a “No.”

“Well,” my dad said, “I think you have made a spelling mistake…  In fact two spelling mistakes!”

I confusedly shook my head…  “It looks like you don’t know how to spell ‘Arthur’ or ‘light’, “my dad said.”  “Arthur” was our dog’s name, and I had mis-spelled  “streetlight.”  My dad continued, “It is not perfect.  So, the ‘A+++’ your teacher gave you is not real…  You only made an ‘A’.”

My disappointment was great.  I think even at that time, when I was so young, I already thought of myself as a writer.  I was sure that I would always write.  I took a deep breath, and swallowed up my pride, being unable to try to counter argue with my dad.

Even now, when I am so lucky to have ‘Spell Check’ and an ability to read dictionaries, I find the need to double check all my spellings very important.  Sometimes, I nonchalantly disregard the highlighted red markings on the computer screen, but, I am never truly satisfied until I have “fixed” the spelling.