写作的正确方式：放手去写！13　The Write Way：Write Away！

The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.

～Sylvia Plath

A Step Back

Sweat was coursing down my forehead, falling in tiny drops, smearing the ink of my notebook pages. My heart was a sprinter, with a finish line that seemed to get farther and farther away.Here I was, in the second year of my Bachelor of Education degree, in writing class-and today, it was my turn.

The professor picked up my portfolio and loudly announced，“Today, we'll be critiquing the work of……Charles Baker.”Those who knew me turned to look at me and smile. Others soon saw the direction of the stares, and within a few seconds, eyes singled me out.I blushed and slid down a few inches in my seat.

The teacher selected a piece at random. He put the overhead sheet on the projector for all to see.When I looked up to see which piece he had chosen, I breathed a sigh of relief-he had chosen my best poem.

Then my dream became a day mare.

“The first problem with this is……The next thing wrong with it……What the writer hasn't thought about at all is……And can you believe……I'm not sure the writing world is ready for you yet, Mr. Baker.”

Nowhere to hide. The eyes that glanced back had different looks now, ones filled with pity, sympathy, curiosity, and in some cases, fear-knowing their turns to trip up would come soon as well.

I made two vows in that moment：never to pick up a pen again, and never to treat my future students the way I'd just been treated. I kept those vows for nearly ten years……

A Step Up

When I decided to earn a second diploma and was registering for classes, I was thrilled to see that I got into all of my main courses, but the electives I wanted all seemed to be filled. I was running out of choices, and then one blinked back at me like a neon sign-a writing course.

I took a deep breath and punched the class code into Telereg. It might be full too, I silently hoped……but then I got the confirmation.I was in.What had I just done?

A Step Forward

To say that this writing class was“a bit different”would be like saying Shakespeare could“string together a few words”. We had speed contests with our teacher.He'd write with us, and then those volunteered would read out the drivel they'd written and laugh with the rest of the class.

“It's okay to write garbage，”he told us.“I write garbage all the time-sometimes pages and pages of it, and sometimes entire journals of it. But then along comes that one idea！”

He read one of his more polished works, a piece about growing up in a small town. It was powerful poetry that moved us all.Then he showed us where it had come from.He read three pages of a journal of truly horrible writing-words my previous teacher would have reveled in tearing apart.From hundreds of words, he pulled out one six-word phrase that he liked-the words that had led to his masterpiece.

I was encouraged. I found my energy.I wrote more for him in that class than I had in all my previous years of schooling.I wanted to write；I wanted to find words that could move.I made two new resolutions：to never put down my pen again, and to publish a piece of writing.

No Turning Back

The rejections flowed back to me in a constant stream, but my professor just called them“proof that you're writing”. He showed me a binder with what must have contained a hundred or more rejection letters of his own.“When you have this many, then we'll talk again.”

I didn't have to wait that long. The pressure was off, and I was free to write about what mattered to me.I decided to try a short humor piece about the worst date I'd ever had.When the story was published in a local newspaper with a circulation of over 200，000 readers, and they paid me for it on top of all that, something changed.I caught my second wind for writing.

Since then, I've published hundreds of magazine articles, a collection of poetry, and other fiction and nonfiction books-and, better yet, I've become a writing teacher.

This year, I've had the best surprises of all. One of my grade eleven students won a national writing contest, and one of my grade twelve students learned how to plan a novel in October, wrote 50，000 words of it in November, finished it over December holidays, and sold it to a publisher a few months later.It was published this past summer and is one of more than eighty published works that my twenty-six writing students wrote in a single term.

I've become the writing teacher I always wanted to be, and best of all, I've inspired others to want to write too. We've crossed that finish line together now, hundreds of my students and I……and we can't wait for the next race.There's no turning back now.

～Charles Baker

创造力最大的敌人，就是自我怀疑。

——希尔维亚·拉斯

出师不利

我大学读的是教育学专业。大二的时候有写作课。我每次写作总是满头大汗，滴答滴答往笔记本上落，打湿了上面的墨迹。我的心怦怦跳，就好像冲刺的短跑运动员，但是“终点线”却离我越来越远。今天，该我出洋相了。

课堂上，写作老师拿起我的作文本，大声说道：“今天，我们要讨论批评一下……查尔斯·贝克的作文。”那些认识我的同学马上把眼光转向我，笑了起来。不认识的人跟着大家的眼光一起看过来。不一会儿，大家的眼光都集中到我一个人身上。我满脸通红，身子顺着椅子往下滑了几英寸。

老师从本子里随便选了一篇，放到投影仪下，好让大家都看到。我抬头看了看他选的是哪一篇，这一看才放心地长舒一口气——他选了我最得意的那首诗。

然而，我的作家梦一下子成了泡影，甚至变为梦魇。

“这首诗的第一个问题是……第二个问题是……作者欠缺考虑的是……你们能相信……我觉得你现在还不适合写作呢，贝克先生。”

我真想找个地洞钻进去。大家的眼光又回到了我的身上，眼神里什么表情都有：惋惜、同情、好奇，也不乏担心和恐惧。那些人之所以害怕，是因为知道离自己出丑的日子也不远了。

就在那一刻，我给自己下了两个决心：从此再也不写作；将来绝不能像这个老师这样对待自己的学生。十个春秋过去了，我一直恪守着这两个决心。

再次备战

后来，我要攻读第二学位，于是去网上选课。我很高兴地发现，自己所有的主修课程全都选上了。可是喜欢的选修课好像都被选满了，再不选就真的没得可选了。突然有一门可选课程像霓虹灯一样映入我的眼帘——写作。

我深吸一口气，在注册框里输入了写作课的课程代号。我默默希望这门课也被选满了……注册结果出来了：我选上了。我做的这是什么事儿呀？

重整旗鼓

我要是说这门选修课“有点与众不同”，那就跟说莎士比亚“会遣词造句”一样，都是明摆着的事情。我们上课的时候会和写作老师比赛写作速度。他跟我们一起写，写完了有人主动读自己刚刚写的胡话，然后大家一齐哄堂大笑。

老师跟我们说道：“写点垃圾没什么的。我就一直在写垃圾。有时候，一写就是好几页，甚至满本子都是垃圾。但是，写着写着灵感就来了！”

一天，老师给我们读了一篇他字斟句酌的诗歌。诗歌讲述的是在小镇的成长故事，很有情感，我们都被打动了。读完之后，老师告诉我们这首诗的写作过程。他拿出本子，读了三页糟糕透顶的文字。这些狗屁不通的文字，要是换成我们前一位写作老师早就给撕成碎片了。在这成百上千的字里行间，老师选出了自己喜欢的六字短语，就是这短短的六字短语成了他这篇大作的点睛之笔。

我备受鼓舞，找到了写作的动力。我在写作课上挥笔不断，写下的东西比以往上学写的所有东西都要多。我渴望写作，渴望找到能打动读者的文字。我又下了两个决心：笔耕不辍，孜孜不倦；写篇好作品，付梓出版。

一往无前

我不断投稿，不断地被退稿。老师安慰我说，这证明我一直没停下笔。他拿出自己的文件夹，里面至少有上百张退稿信。“等你的退稿信数量赶上我的了，咱们再谈。”

但是，我不用等那么长时间。我跟老师谈完后就没有了压力，开始随性而写。我想试着把自己最囧的一次约会写成一篇短篇幽默文章。这篇文章被当地一家拥有20万读者的报纸刊登，我拿到了稿费，这让我有一种“柳暗花明又一村”的感觉。我的写作动力由此倍增。

自那以后，我在杂志上发表了数百篇文章，出版了一篇诗集、几本小说和纪实作品。更令人高兴的是，我当上了写作老师。

今年，我收获了最大的一份惊喜。我教的11年级班上有一个学生在全国写作竞赛中获奖；还有一个12年级的学生在10月份构思了一部小说，11月份写了五万字，在12月的假期里完稿。几个月后卖给了出版社，今年夏天就出版了。而这只是我写作课上26个学生在单个学期里出版的80多本作品中的一部而已。

我很高兴自己终于当上了梦寐以求的写作老师。更欣慰的是，我激发了那些孩子渴望写作的热情。现在，我和数百个学生一起冲破了“终点线”。此刻，我和学生迫不及待地渴望另一场“赛跑”的到来。我们将一往无前。

——查尔斯·贝克