Sharon Dow

i began my teaching career with a grade three class. I loved the children and their sweet stories, but I knew I was not at the right grade level. The next teaching year, I was given a grade 7, 8, and 9 position teaching all the English subjects and Music. Instantly I knew I had found my niche. I loved it. I loved the humour junior high students display, I loved their thinking patterns, I loved their desire to learn, I loved their up and down emotions. Some days it was like a roller coaster ride, and I loved it!

I quickly became involved in student activities leading the choir and writing and producing Christmas programs. Still writing; but in a different setting. As I interacted with them, I soon discovered that I was learning as well as teaching! When a teacher bonds with his or her class and really listens to them, the teacher begins to learn as well.

One day in my grade 8 class, I accidentally knocked some papers from my desk. I was frustrated with myself as I bent down to pick them up from the floor. One of my grade eight boys ran to the front and began to help pick up the mess. He looked at me and said, "Miss Galbraith, don't sweat the small stuff." I've never forgotten that. It was a life-lesson learned from a student who didn't have all the advantages I had when growing up. Thanks Junior, I'll never forget you. (New Albert School circa 1967)

Literature had always been my favourite subject and now Creative Writing was beginning to close the gap. I often found the creative writing assigments in the text books boring so I started writing my own. For those of you who suffered through my assignments, I hope you found them more interesting than you would have found the ones in the text.

Then the marking would begin. Page after page of grade 8 writing assignments. Many of them were weak and not at a grade 8 level, but in between them would appear one that shone. I would soar with you as you let your imagination create superior stories. I still wanted to write that book, but I was content to guide others on their own writing journey.

The weak ones worked and soon improvement would be seen. Everyone has the potential to improve. My hat is off to those of you who worked so hard to improve your skills and tasted success!

I continued to learn as I read their papers and as I taught the mechanics of writing. Never stop learning. It is a life-long venture. Learn as long as you live. Love learning as you love life.

April 20, 2010

Writing has always been an interest. I loved writing stories for school and trying my hand at writing other things. I wrote some mediocre poetry and soon admitted to myself that it was not my gift. I still write some just for my own amusement, sometimes to add to a scrapbook page.

But the dream to write a novel and have it published came probably during my high school years. Literature and History were two of my favourite subjects and I soon was able to identify that historical fiction was my favourite genre. I began to avidly seek books set in England, Russia, Southern US, and a few other areas. I discovered Charles Dickens (I think my all time favourite author), Jane Austen, The Bronte sisters, Frances Parkinson Keyes, as well as a host of more modern writers. I absorbed not only their content, but their writing styles. I recognize now on looking back that they were forming the style that would one day be my style, a combination of what I liked to read.

In University, I focused on Literature, History, Psychology, as well as enrolling in a Creative Writing course. I want to be totally honest in this blog and tell you the good with the not so good. This writing course falls into the category of 'not so good.' It was not my most successful venture. It turned out to be a small group (about twelve) who met for three hour seminars once a week along with the professor. We sat around a table and were given a writing assignment each week. When we would meet again, each person would read their piece and the class and professor would proceed to tear it apart.

It was bruising to the ego. By the end of the semester, I'm not sure I even had an ego left at all. Some of the students had been involved in this type of class before and knew how to write what the class and professor wanted. I was still writing what I was feeling and what I felt was the right thing to write.

My work was shredded by times. The complaints ranged from not enough violence, no bad language, no sex scenes, not true to life etc. etc. Somewhere along the way I decided I didn't want to write the way they thought I should but I did tighten up my work, make every word count and finally did receive some very limited praise. I hate to admit it, but when the course was over, I was so upset I destroyed all my writing from that class. Don't ever do that. I wish I had kept it. It would have given me a basis to look back on what I was thinking and feeling at that point in time.

Enough of my woes for today. Things did get brighter.

Monday, April 19, 2010

This is my first post, the first of many, I hope. I want to journal each step of the way in hopes of encouraging some of you who also have the dream to write and publish. I also want to keep a record of my own journey and sort out all the steps in my own mind.

And it has been and still is a journey. A wonderful, incredible, unpredictable, amazing journey!

It all began many years ago when I was a very small child. I have no idea how old I was when my mother started reading to me. I'm guessing very young as I don't remember a time when it didn't happen. It early on became a bedtime ritual. But the times I remember best, were the times when I was sick (usually tonsilitis, or measles, or chicken pox etc.). I would beg my mother to read to me as it distracted me from the discomfort I was feeling.

I soon became close friends with Heidi, Black Beauty, The Bobbsey Twins, Alice in Wonderland and a host of other classics. The love of reading was well entrenched by the time I started school. Learning to read was a joy as now I could read my books on my own. Little Women, Little Men, Anne of Green Gables, Ginny Gordon, Trixie Belding, The Hardy Boys and others joined the list of my favourites. My brother had a set of Dave Dawson War Hero books and I devoured them, too.

When I had nothing else to read, I read stories from a set of encyclopedias we had. I had become addicted to reading! It has served me well in many areas of my life and it is still something I do every day. Whatever else you may do as a parent, make sure you read, read, read to your children.

Check in again, and read more of my journey.