“You’ll never get anywhere without going back and rewriting at least a little”, These are words that have stuck with me since my 9‘” grade year, and those are the words of my English teacher. Well, how wrong he was I sit here now and reminisce about the time that led up to my teachers‘ statement. It was early in my 9″1-grade year when I had to write an essay on a topic of my choosing, I chose to write about something, or should I say someone, who is very dear to me My dog Eva. To me she‘s the perfect subject, I can go on and on about how beautiful and amazing my little puppy is and how much she means to me, and that is precisely what I did I started my story off like I would any other. I introduced my subject to my audience, raving about how she was a Labrador—Rottweiler mix who had beautiful soft black fur with brindle scattered throughout.
About how she had a serious illness that plagued her throughout her life, yet still fought on to live it to the fullest About how she was a fighter, my fighter, I could have wrote a book about her, let alone an essay. The words just blossomed from my mind, as if it were a field of daisies on a warm spring day, I‘ve written countless times before about a vast array of topics, Some of my previous writings included other things I was passionate about, like music for example, yet none of those writings compared to the simplicity that was writing this one. I knew I had this essay in the bag. Or at least that’s what I thought. I handed in my rough draft to my teacher after only using one of the seven days we had to comprise it, sure that it was going to be next to perfect. Low and behold, I was right!
The teacher loved it, he said I gave such good emotion in my writing and was surprised that it only had a few grammatical errors. I was ecstatic! I was pleased to know someone thought my story about the puppy I hold so dear to my heart, was good, Once I knew that my rough draft was given the clear to be made into a final copy I went for it. I rewrote word for word exactly what had gone into my rough draft, only stopping to fix the few grammatical errors there were That was it, my essay was done, and in my eyes it was perfect, so I submitted it. It was about a week or so later and the grades were in for the classes essays, I waited anxiously to receive my paper back and see what I thought would be a perfectly scribbled “A“ on the front of my paper, Then it came, my teacher handed me my paper face down and I flipped it over with great excitement and as fast as the excitement came, it went?
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For the first time in my life, in any class, especially a writing class, I seen a big, fat, “F”, l was crushed, a million thoughts went through my mind? Why? How? But I thought my rough draft was perfect?! To say I was furious was an understatement, It was more like a mix of angry, irate, and flat out pissed off. I didn’t understand how this perfectly written paper could have possibly gotten me an “F”? This is where I learned a lesson that has come into play every time I’ve written anything since, I went to my teacher after class and asked him how I could have gotten such a lousy grade on such a well written paper, His response was simply, “You didn’t change anything, you merely corrected your grammar and punctuation? It’s still the same story from your rough draft, and you should take time to think about how your writing could evolve from the draft to the final copy.”
That’s when it clicked I understood what he said, he wasn’t saying my rough draft wasn’t good enough or that it wasn’t perfect, because it was. It was a perfect rough draft, I realized that my mistake wasn‘t in copying what I had already wrote, that my mistake was just not elaborating on it more Not thinking, how could I make this better? Is there a better way to explain what I’m saying? If not a better way, are there better words to use? To this day, something that hurt so much at the time, is now the reason why I write the way I do, As a writer, in everything, whether it’s a note, an essay, 3 birthday card, I always take time to think about what I’m saying and then I take Lime to rethink how I said It.
