I was in grade 9 in high school when a teacher of ours gave us a school project. The project was for us to write a short play. Of course we were to be broken down into little groups of 3 -4 people and we were to get our heads together and collaborate on this play.
Now I'm sure many of you have been to high school, and in any given class there are always those that depend on others to get them through. There are also the others that are basically just taking up space till they are either arrested, or get pregnant, just to get out of going to school!
I was stuck in the group that depended on others. I wasn't the brightest bulb in the package, but I wasn't a complete idiot either. I also wasn't connected to the teachers ass by my lips, if you know what I mean.
Anyway, I had three girls for partners in this project. Two of whom should have been consider brain dead, the other, well i really have no description that seems to fit at the moment.
So each day in this particular class, we would circle our desks and collaborate on this project.Which usually meant two of the girls would yap with each other about their latest boyfriends, the other would stare of into space and from time to time check the clock on the wall to see how much more of this class she had to endure.
So it went everyday. When I got home in the evenings after school, I would "do' this project. I wrote a short play about... being in a high school class, and wrote it with a funny twist. The deadline for the project arrived, and I passed in our "groups" project. I didn't even get so much as a thank you from any of the others, but really didn't expect to or even care.
Two weeks later the teacher gave us all our marks for the project, and "our groups" project had the highest mark. Before the bell rang for dismissal, our teacher asked if I would stay a few minutes, he wanted to talk to me. I figured I was in trouble and braced myself for the worse. So there I was sitting there, and Hal, thats what we called him, his real name was Harold Theriault, gave me a chewing out about doing the project myself. He knew I had, because he had observed what had transpired during class. He than also praised the work I had done and asked if I had ever considered doing more writing.
I told him I enjoyed it, but never gave it that much thought. he told me it might be something I would want to look into.
Well two years later I quit school, thought I had learned enough I guess. Went out into the real world, where I found I didn't know as much as I thought I did. I wqas lucky though, I eventually was brought into a trade I came to love for 25 years, the printing and publishing trade. It was after the last plant I worked in closed that I began blogging.
So you see, here I am, doing something else I came to love, writing/blogging. it all started with those words of praise from a teacher over 45 years ago. If I wasn't doing it here, I would be somewhere else, although I do blog here, there, and everywhere at times. So when it comes down to making money from all of this, to me it is a bonus, a good bonus. I never plan on being rich, not in the monetary sense, I'm rich already, with a loving wife and family.
So if you are making money from the things you write, I am happy for you, but to me, writing is fun, money is just a bonus!
all pics from Google images...