T is for therumtumtugger

“The ABCD’s of That Moment”.

I was fourteen. Stuck in the lonely wasteland of teenage wilderness. My life stretched out in either direction with nothing to view but exams, angst, more exams, and more angst.

Mrs Smith was my English teacher, and I liked her. Well, I tolerated her. She was better than some other teachers. She set us a piece of long homework which ran over several weeks. We had to plan out the plot of a novel, and write a chapter for it. This wasn’t something to dash off in few minutes during Neighbours. This piece of homework became a labour of love. I poured my time, effort, heart and soul into this piece of homework, and handed it in with trepidation.

At the end of the next lesson she looked up as we were leaving, “Rum Tum Tugger, could I have a quick chat?” I trailed obediently up to her desk, and slouched there, frowning nervously, as was my wont.

“RTT” she gestured incoherently towards my precious chapter, on her desk, as I clenched my fists with nerves. “I’ve read your piece. It’s – it’s amazing. Tell me – do you want to be a novelist?”

And there it was. Years of animal stories. Months of horse stories. Notebooks full of tales and snippets and diaries and ideas and characters, and an entire lifetime spent devouring books and reading voraciously… it was all rolled up into that moment and from all that time and effort and obsession emerged one very small word,
“Yes.”

And until that moment I never realised that being a writer was exactly what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to do anything else. That moment I realised that I had always wanted to be a writer, and indeed had never really ever contemplated doing anything else.

Mrs Smith was my mentor. She talked me through the chapter, and gave me constructive criticism as well as praise, and as she talked about writing, and about her writing, a small secret place inside me, away from all the teenage angst and the nervousness and the social agonies… a small place inside me began to shine. And it hasn’t stopped since.
RTT
xxx

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For more information on what this is all about, see charmingly neurotic’s diary….