My Writing Metaphor

Writing for me is like teaching the five-to-eight-year-old kids I coach on my pool’s summer swim team how to swim breaststroke.  A few kids have the natural talent to be able to do the “in, out, and around” movement that goes along with bending their knees and awkwardly pointing their feet at an outward angle; other kids try over and over, going through the motions in the pool, while sitting down on the deck, and even with me attempting to move their legs for them, but still never quite catch on. In the end, I know I can get most of them to have, at least, a legal stroke, but it takes time, patience, and more often than not, a lot of tries.

Teaching breaststroke seems almost instinctive to me; as a kid, I was a natural at it.  In junior year of high school, oddly enough the same time when my swimming career ended due to becoming sick, I realized my inherent talent for writing. Just as swimming breaststroke came easy to me, the more I wrote, the more I realized writing did as well.  My English teacher that year commented on this to me one day as I received my third ‘A’ in a row on one of his papers. He told me that he tried, but couldn’t find a reason to give me a grade any lower. He also recommended I apply to be in one of the two advanced English courses offered senior year, AP English and Creative Writing. I took the Creative Writing course senior year, where my love of the “craft” only grew.

Writing may be a natural gift of mine, but that doesn’t always mean it comes easy. Often, my final products, like most writers, come after many attempts and many drafts. I never like what I first put onto paper or type out. Mostly, the work I hand in has been worked and reworked. And then worked again. Dillard spoke about how the image in her mind never actually makes it onto the page. It is warped and changed to the point it is barely recognizable. I think this happens with many writers, and is part of the overall process. At least I know I’m not alone in that respect. But as I coach my kids into swimming breaststroke, I can coach a good, or at least respectable, piece of writing onto a page.