The Joy of Writing

We started a recent staff meeting with a little warm-up exercise: Tell the person next to you about writing.

I told my partner that I can’t remember a time when I didn’t enjoy writing and I think it’s because I’ve enjoyed reading all my life. 

I have a very clear memory of being read, “Where the Wild Things Are.” That book was published in 1963 and it was a pretty new book when it was first read to me. I remember reading it to my boys and it endures as one of my favorite children's books. 

I can’t say Maurice Sendak inspired me to write, but he didn’t hurt the effort one bit. His language and imagery are beautiful and they ignited my young imagination.

For me, reading and writing have always gone hand-in-hand. I’ve been reading for as long as I can remember and writing for almost as long.

I remember a writing assignment in the third grade. We had to write a fictional story. My story was about Pink - a little creature who lived in the grass in my backyard. The teacher was so taken with “The Adventures of Pink” that she had me read the story aloud in class, made copies for all the other students and then had each of them write a fictional story about Pink. 

After college, I did a lot of freelance writing. My work was published in the Providence Journal, Boston Globe, Block Island Magazine, Air & Space Smithsonian, Aviation History and more. Later, my wife and I started a newspaper business and we both wrote day and night.

I still write. I have three blogs going now:

• This blog about teaching;

• I have a blog for my video business where I discuss converting video, movies, slides, photos, etc. to a digital format;

• I also have a personal blog where I allow myself to spout off about topics that interest me.

As a teacher, I ask my math and science students to write regularly. I don’t think they much care for essay writing but it’s good for them. It helps them think through the topic a little more than the typical-seven word sentence I get on a test or quiz does.

I like giving them writing assignments and they’re going to see more and more of them as the year progresses.

To paraphrase Mr. Sendak: “Let the wild writing rumpus start!”