Thoughts on Being a Writer
I never thought of myself as a writer. I was a math person. I loved math. I loved its structure and predictability, its rules and logic. In the last two years of my elementary education, I attended a “school without walls” – a progressive education initiative of the early seventies. We were encouraged to explore our passions, to attend daily “interest areas” and excel in whatever we wanted. I chose math. I spent each day completing as many math lessons as possible and neglecting all of the other disciplines. (The school still exists, but now it has walls and a mandatory curriculum!) I do recall being required to keep a spelling folder. I remember this mainly because of my misspelling of the word “spelling” on the folder’s beautiful, hand painted cover. (It was that inconvenient second “L” – how embarrassing!) Thankfully, my parents had always read to me, and I had learned to read in a traditional elementary school classroom. I loved to read for pleasure, but I did not see the correlation between the words that I read, and the possibility of putting meaningful words together myself. It wasn’t until high school that a favorite teacher showed me that writing, like math, could be structured, predictable and guided by rules and logic. It was during this time that I began to enjoy presenting ideas through the written word. I found that, if I followed the formulas and obeyed the rules, I could earn good grades on my writing assignments. It was obvious however, that I was not “a writer”.

After high school, I attended college and majored in engineering. Mine was not a well-rounded, liberal learning kind of an institution, and my coursework was entirely technical in nature. I was required to take one freshman composition course, but that was all. I didn’t take any other writing courses. But, did I write! My laboratory courses - physics, mechanics, dynamics, thermodynamics, electronics – all required weekly in depth analyses of data. I wrote descriptions of theory, process, procedure, and conclusion, including what seemed like constant explanations for unexpected results. My classmates and I joked about our creative writing skills in those conclusions – carefully woven, researched, complicated stories of temperature and humidity changes, material flaws and equipment malfunction. We never suggested the obvious, of course, which was human error! I discovered that, through my writing, I could do very well on my laboratory reports. I would still never have considered myself “a writer”, though.

My college was several hours away from my home, and since this was during a time before email, IM, text messaging and unlimited long distance minutes, my only option for outside communication was through letters. I wrote newsy letters to my parents, my sister, my grandmother, and my friends. I also wrote love letters to the man who would become my husband. Writing letters and receiving responses helped to stifle my occasional pangs of homesickness, and I waited eagerly at my small dorm mailbox each day after lunch. I read and re-read each letter, and always wrote back quickly to keep the conversation going.

After graduation, I worked in a series of manufacturing facilities, designing tools, dies and gages for the production of photocopiers, medical equipment and aircraft gears. I was an adequate tool designer and a neat and organized draftsperson, but I found that the most enjoyable and natural part of each project was its final process documentation. I loved writing procedure in a way that would enable anyone to understand my design and its use. It soon became apparent to my co-workers and supervisors that I was the rare engineer who could write, and I was often given the responsibility of explaining processes with drawings and narrative as well as editing other’s procedures. Having struggled as a woman in a male dominated field (I was actually asked once in an interview if I had a brother who liked to cook and sew…), I was quite sensitive to this discovery. I felt that, based on my gender, I was being used as some kind of “technical secretary.” I imagine that on some level I felt that my writing abilities were gender based, and even though I enjoyed the documentation process, I resented this perceived stereotype. So, I suppose that in my early career, I actually fought to not be “a writer”.

Shortly after this time, I had the opportunity to make a significant career change. While routinely perusing the want ads, I came upon an advertisement that intrigued me. A local vocational institute was looking for an experienced engineer to implement and teach in a newly established design and drafting program. I had always been interested in teaching (ironic that this is a traditionally feminine vocation), so I decided to accept this new challenge. Since the program was in the development stage, I spent the first two months happily writing curriculum in a classroom filled with textbooks and reference material. I found that, by researching topics and writing curriculum, I was able to understand engineering concepts that I never really “got” in college. Our vocational program began with fifteen students, and within a year had grown to seventy-five. I loved developing curriculum and teaching, and found that my most effective teaching methods stemmed from the process of writing curriculum. When I boiled complex information down to the written word, I found that I could prepare and deliver lessons easily and clearly. It became apparent at this time that much of my academic and professional success began and ended with writing. I found that to be very interesting, since I really was not “a writer”.

Becoming a parent expanded my interest in writing even further. My experiences with writing grew into different areas of my life as my daughter grew. I planned preschool classes for her and her friends, and began to write bible school curriculum for the children in our church. I organized events and provided procedural manuals for church functions. My job as “The Read-a-thon Mom” at my daughter’s elementary school required that I plan and write procedure and prepare publicity for this yearly campaign. I wrote creative pieces on motherhood and faith and produced yearly devotional handbooks of my own writings as well as those of other writers in our community. I found, during the time that I was at home, a surprising and remarkable creative outlet through writing.

When I returned to work at our local community college, I was surprised to see how drastically technology had changed the workplace in the five years that I was away. Email was now the preferred method of communication. The occasional memos of the past were replaced with a barrage of daily email messages carrying all levels of information, from the extremely important to the remarkably mundane. I discovered that the quality and content of these messages reflected hugely on the writer. I formed my own opinions of employees at the college who I had never actually met based on the quality and clarity of their writing. I realized that others were judging my own competence on the emails that I sent, and became very careful of the content and accuracy of my electronic correspondence.

In retrospect, I realize that all of the progress in my life has been fueled by writing. It has been the constant in my life that has connected my evolving goals and dreams. I see now that my writing is not defined by my gender, my age, my experience, or my vocation, but is rather, a mosaic of those pieces of me. Writing has been integral in my success as a student, as an engineer and as an educator and it has enhanced my life as a daughter, a friend, and a mother. Writing is academic and personal, technical and creative. It can document an idea, describe a concept or explain a procedure; it can weave a story, portray a mood or express love.

So, of course I am “a writer”. I have always been a writer. I am a person who expresses herself on every level of life through writing. Writing has been, and will continue to be, my most diverse and valuable communication tool. I am glad that I am a writer. I hope to remain a writer for the rest of my life.