Leap of Faith Friday #2

Today is the second installment in our 5-part series, LEAP OF FAITH FRIDAY. If you haven’t already done so, be sure to visit BD at the Busy Dad Blog and Piper of Bliss in Bloom who both posted their LEAPS in a much more timely manner than I have today. But without coordination there seems to be a common theme in all three of our posts… a look back at the past.

My leap of faith this week was to contact my writing professor from college.

When I was a freshman at UNC-Chapel Hill I had grandiose ideas about becoming a writer. Really, I had decided to become a writer in the 4th grade, so the idea of college seemed to bring this plan some much needed energy. It was finally time to get started. I was so clueless, I have no idea how I managed to land a coveted spot in a creative writing class with Doris Betts, but somehow I did. Doris Betts was a distinguished southern writer, and a professor of celebrity-like status on campus.

I remember what I wore to class the first day. A white Ralph Lauren polo collared shirt with navy stripes, and its inverse navy Ralph Lauren skirt with white stripes. Here’s a leap within a leap when I also share the painful memory of some cream-colored buck shoes. In my defense I’d attended an all-girls’ school with a uniform for seven years, so clearly I didn’t know how to dress myself for going out in public.

Immediately I fell in love with the creative writing program. My writing classes were among the few that I would actually attend with regularity. There were only about 12 students in each class so my absence was conspicuous. Not to mention I couldn’t miss the opportunity to hear what Doris Betts was going to say.

As far as I was concerned she was as cool as a woman could be. Always just a moment late to class, juggling a pile of notebooks and papers, and clutching a fistful of pens. She always had ink on her fingers and a sparkle in her eye. She had energy and backbone and wit and humanity. And a great laugh!

During my four years at Carolina she was working on a novel – her first one in almost a decade – and every so often she would share gritty details about gruesome medical research she was up to. We felt so special any time she would give us a nugget from the book, although once I read it years later I realized how little she gave away. Doris Betts can write Southern as well as anyone. Her delicious tales of macabre spirituality leave you feeling as thought you were draped in Spanish moss.

She once told me that my stories surprised her. That my writing was much darker than I seemed to be as a person on first impression. I swooned.

Although given my hideous preppy Ralph Lauren outfit, I’m sure that wasn’t too hard to pull off. But I carried it with me as a compliment nonetheless.

I had Doris Betts as a professor for three out of my four years at Carolina. I can still hear her feedback:

-- “Show Don’t Tell.”

-- “We’re only together for 90 minutes. So if there’s something good in your story, let’s just assume you put it there on purpose. Our job is to tell you what’s not working.”

-- “Please don’t have your characters hand each other pretty little packages of dialogue, like they are just passing them back and forth, tied up with a pretty little bow.”

-- “Sometimes reality is just too complicated to be believable in a fiction class.”

When I left Carolina, I said goodbye to Doris Betts and my plans to become a writer. Instead I became an Assistant Buyer at Neiman Marcus. And then an Account Executive at an ad agency. Eventually Managing Director of a consulting firm. A wife, a mother, an ex-wife. A freelancer.

When I list it all out like that, it seems like such a long, long trip. Sometimes I feel like I went so far off-track, but other days I feel like it was a complete circle. Because this morning I decided to send Doris Betts an email with links to a few Chicken Fried Therapy posts. Here I am fifteen years later, once again wondering what Doris Betts thinks of my writing.

We’ll see if she responds! I think the spirit of these LEAPS is more in the “doing” than in the “outcome”, but I will let you know regardless. In the meantime I will confess that I chickened out on one part of the LEAP.

All these years I’ve had a question about her novel ‘Souls Raised From the Dead’. This is the book she was writing when I was her student. It was published a year or so after I graduated and the antagonist is named ‘Christine’.

I’ve always been a teeny bit curious where she got the idea for that name…

But I just like thinking it was me. So, Doris, if you do read this, can we just pretend that it’s true?

…………………………………….

Please check out the other blogs who participated in LEAP OF FAITH FRIDAY. If you did a LEAP and it's not listed, please mention it in a comment here so we can all make sure to read it.

bliss in bloom
busy dad blog
bizzylizzie
keep believing