writing

That one kid

| Linda DeMers Hummel

After two retirements, and with lots of trepidation that I was too old to launch myself into yet another career, I became a substitute teacher. Before I got too far ahead of myself in the worry department, though, I calmed down when I realized the word “substitute” itself puts it all into perspective: I am in charge of a classroom for a day or a week or (in some cases) longer, but I’m not the real deal. I’m never your real person, kids. He or she will be back soon, and then we can all get on with our lives. So instead of romanticizing my new role and seeing myself as a more mature Robin Williams in “Dead Poets Society,” I pride myself on staying in my lane.

I love this job. The school sparkles, with rules and standards that reach out beyond academic skills, things like kindness and taking responsibility. As a bonus, because I live in the community, I’m often spotted at the supermarket or in Target to the wide-eyed astonishment of first graders who believe I sleep at school. I will never tire of hearing, Mrs. Hummel, what are you doing here?!”

In the faculty room at lunch the first question is always, “Who are you today?” The second: “How’s it going?” On a good day I might answer, “Well, no one lost an eye yet,” hoping for a laugh. On a bad day, I know I can sit down with this smart and caring bunch, and they will hear me and give me a cogent piece of advice. Sometimes I don’t share at all, not sure where to start when I’m front row in the life of child who seems up against more than is fair. Even in the best school like this one, teachers carry some of the massive sorrow that some students bear. It comes with the territory, but that doesn’t mean it’s not overwhelming sometimes.

So, there are mornings when it is tough to get going. If I’m honest, sometimes it’s just lack of sleep or achy joints, and on gray winter days, in particular, I wonder why I’m not more like my friends who are joining book clubs or getting really good at flower arranging. On those days, I pop an Advil and eat breakfast.

Then there are mornings I wake up thinking about a kid who had an awful day. And I talk myself into this one thought, although at times, I admit, it seems self-important. Today there may be one kid who needs something from me. . . Maybe it’s something small, but maybe it’s something I’ll say that the kid will remember forever. This thought does not strike me as too much to hope for. After all, when I was 12, my teacher told me I was a good writer, and I’ve believed it ever since.  

In my silent little pep talks at 6 AM, I don’t ask for much. I’m not looking to overhaul education. “Just one kid,” I tell myself.

On the last day of the school year, the entire faculty lines the steps at dismissal, and the last group to come down are the fifth graders. Everyone applauds them and hoots and hollers since next year they’ll be off to middle school. You can see it on their faces as they trot down the steps – they’re sort of a big deal right now, and they’re loving every minute of it.

A kid whose first name I think I know was halfway down the stairs when he looked back at me. He smiled so intentionally that I looked behind me to see who he was looking at. Then he walked back up the steps. To me. Without a word, he hugged me. And left. I watched the back of his blue jacket in the crowd as he joined his friends and ran down the sidewalk.

So, on a day I can’t remember because I never knew it, I did or said something I’ll never know, to someone who did not forget. He was that kid. That one kid. All I needed.

My 7-Word Brush with Helen Gurley Brown

| Linda DeMers Hummel

The phone rang while I was making dinner. My kids were underfoot. It was 1986, we didn’t have Caller-ID yet, and I always suspected telemarketers at that time of day. I tried to answer with an attitude, making it clear we didn’t need new windows or a timeshare in Jamaica.

The voice on the other end was low and commanding, and her name was Myra. She was a senior editor at Cosmopolitan, following up on a query letter I had sent a month before. She was quick and to the point.

“We’d like to hire you to write the article you’ve proposed. We can offer $3,000 with a kill fee.”

I was not yet calling myself a writer back then for fear I would be outright lying. I was piling up meager checks here and there, mostly from parenting magazines and newspaper op-eds. When she said $3,000, I was conscious of not hyper-ventilating into the receiver.

I had queried Cosmo about an article idea I knew nothing about — not unusual for me back then (or now, come to think of it). The topic was the relatively new phenomenon of single career women deciding to have a baby on their own, without a husband or even a boyfriend in their lives. Tame by today’s standards, there was a time when this was groundbreaking.

Myra wound up our conversation with this: “The first draft will be due in six weeks. Of course Ms. Brown will have final say. I’ll be in touch after she reads it.”

I got off the phone, positively giddy. Then I realized Ms. Brown was Helen Gurley Brown. And my knees shook a little.

The next day, I began my research. Since email was not yet the communication of choice, I did everything by phone while my kids sat in front of the television, eyes glazed over by Gilligan Island reruns. It was not my best mothering moment, but — hey — I was going to have a byline in Cosmo.

I felt a connection to the women I interviewed even though I’d gone the conventional route toward motherhood. They were smart and savvy. Their stories were poignant, about their dreams to have a baby, about running out of time. Myra had made it clear in our first conversation that the magazine did not approve of this new way to form a family and my piece should reflect that slant.

I thought I knew better. On the day I put my draft in the mail, I believed I was going to make journalistic history. A few days later, the phone rang. It was Myra.

“We received your draft and Ms. Brown has seen it.  I’m going to read from her memo.”

Here is what Helen Gurley Brown thought of my draft: “This writing is smug, small, and sanctimonious.”
I’ve always loved the idea that she brought forth alliteration to cut me off at my writing knees.

Here’s the good news. There was a kill fee waiting for me that exceeded my wildest expectations. I thought HGB was wrong about my writing, but I still had some wounds to lick. So I licked them. And I developed a clever answer for  friends who kept asking when my article was going to appear in Cosmo.

And the bad news? There wasn’t any. My keyboard was still waiting for me in the morning, with all its possibilities. So I sat down. And I got back to work.

The Other Rules for Writers

| Linda DeMers Hummel

All the sage wisdom that begins with “Write what you know,” and ends with “Show, don’t tell,” is there for the asking. Here are some other rules you probably haven’t found in any writer’s handbook. Perhaps one of them will unlock that bestseller that’s inside you somewhere.

1. Let your wall inspire you. Furnish the wall near your desk with meaning. Frame or tack up little things your eyes can drink in when you wonder why you thought writing seemed like a good idea in the first place. My wall sports, among many things, my favorite New Yorker cartoon of a penguin flying high above other penguins, saying, “We just haven’t been flapping them hard enough.” It also has a framed note from Anne Tyler, telling me sweetly why she couldn’t read and critique my manuscript I had sent her. I keep that note to remind myself to be that gracious if I ever win the Pulitzer, and as commentary on my boundless optimism that I really thought she would read my stuff in the first place.

2. Make a negative list. Create a list of all the people who doubt you as a writer. If anyone has said, “Many are called but few are chosen,” put that person at the top. Same with someone who has used the words “writing” and “starving” in the same sentence. Give your parents a little slack. (After all, their job is to worry, so don’t include them.) When you’re finished with the list, fold it carefully and tie it with a ribbon before you throw it away.

3. Make a positive list. Make a list of 12 living people in your life, present or past. Choose one each month and write him or her a letter. E-mails, texts, and cards don’t count. Make peace with your old college roommate; tell someone why you’ve always admired them; make the day of someone who wasn’t expecting to hear from you. Good writing is about relationships, so resurrect, enhance, create or feed some of yours.

4. Don’t throw anything away. Keep a notebook and take it everywhere. After writing becomes your way of life, you may find you dream in already constructed sentences that delight you. Write down phrases and sentences that come to you even though they may have nothing to do with what you’re writing at the moment. And then never throw away your notebook.

5. People watch. Got to a ballgame, even if you don’t like baseball. Sit on a park bench. Give blood. Have lunch alone in a restaurant and listen to the way people really talk. It will help you in writing dialogue more than any workshop ever will.

6. Start over every morning. Let your accomplishments excite you, but don’t let them placate you. Let your rejections teach you something, but don’t let them paralyze you. A writer’s life is like that of any other artist — a composer, a painter, a sculptor. There is nothing there until you sit at your desk and create it. You’re in charge, and there’s no one in the world who can string words together the way you do at that moment, on that day. Now go. Create.