How can a writer feel that his writing is good enough? 

And how can a good writer get over the feeling of not being good enough? 

Where do we get those feelings and how do we overcome them?

Sometimes, one incident in childhood can effect how you face the remainder of life. When I was a second grader, at the end of the school year the teacher was dividing the class for where we would be placed for third grade. I remember sitting in a circle and learning that my cousin was going into the top class of best students, and I was to be in the middle class, with students who were not good enough to be in the top group.

I wasn't able to analyze and understand that my cousin Hazel was almost a whole year older than I was. I didn't know that because I was shy and wouldn't talk that the teacher thought I couldn't do much. I don't even remember what I did when she had told me earlier to go to the back of the room and scream as loud as I could so she would know I had a voice. I only remember how devastated I felt at not being good enough to go to the same class with Hazel. 

Of course, I feel sure that's not the only incident that determined my feeling of not being good enough. I'm sure there were others, and perhaps that only confirmed what I already felt. It's the only one I remember, and the one that has plagued me all my life. I was labeled a "B" student. 
That's what I expected from myself. That was who I was. A "B" student makes "B's." So I was satisfied with doing "B" work and receiving "B" grades.

When I stayed out of school too often as a freshman, and the principal called me in to discuss it, I told him I didn't like school and would quit if I were old enough, but knew my mother wouldn't let me. I tried to make up for not being good enough by doing everything for everybody—at home, in the church, and the neighborhood. Whatever needed to be done I did it. I took take care of my younger brother and sisters and the house while my mother worked, I took care of children in the neighborhood, cleaned houses, cooked, sewed, and became a hair dresser. Saturdays became hair day and I'd do women's hair, so much that the beautician in the neighborhood threatened to turn me in for not having a license. And, of course, I worked hard in the church, teaching classes of children not much younger than I was, cleaning the church, planning activities. Just a few weeks ago my sister told me she was talking to people in the church who were telling her about all the things I used to do. They still remember it after more than fifty years.

And I got glasses. I'm not sure how that worked out or where I got the money for glasses, but I thought they made me look smarter than I was. We moved from town to a little rural school when I was a junior, and when the teachers expected more from me and told me how smart I was, I thought it was because the students in that little school weren't as bright as the town kids and because I'd gone to the city school I'd learned a little more. When we took some kind of intelligence test and my score was at the top of the group, I thought again that it was because I'd gone to the city school and had somehow learned a little more there. 

I'd learned early I could make my "B's" by just being in class and doing a little work. Most of the time I sat in the back of the room and read my novels. The principal called me into his office and told me the teachers were concerned that I didn't enter more into the classroom activities, only sat and read my books, and wanted to know why and what could be done about it. 

He told me I was very bright and could do anything I wanted with my life. He said I could become just a nobody, or I could become a leader and do great things. His talk had an affect. I put away my novels and began to work in class. That must have been my first year there, for by graduation I'd made enough "A's" that I got into the Beta Club, for the brightest students. At graduation time I was listed as the youngest in the class and the class poet. One of the teachers pulled me aside and said the voting for those things had come from the students. The teachers had voted that I was the one most likely to succeed. 

I worked and saved my money. I'd always made a little along the way with fixing hair and cleaning houses, and had saved it. I worked in a hosiery mill for a semester and saved what I made. As a freshman, I worked hard in class. Again I was the youngest, only sixteen. I studied, read the text, and took notes. My roommate read my notes and made an "A" on the test. My "B" was accepted as proof that I wasn't as smart as Ruth. When the counselor called me to his office to discuss why my grades weren't better and told me I was smart enough to be making "A's" as I walked out the door I thought, "Boy, my glasses sure fooled him."

That kind of incident happened regularly during my college years. Why didn't it change my feelings about myself? Why did I keep going back to the second-grade class and the feelings I instilled in myself? Why couldn't I get rid of it? When in graduate school I met the man I decided to marry, I'm sure part of the reason I chose him was because he told me his IQ score. It was the highest of anybody I'd ever known. I thought his high IQ would balance my low IQ and our children would be smart. 

And I began making "A's." More than thirty years later I received an international award for excellence in teaching.

Now, I'm retired, seventy-three years of age, finally feeling secure enough to put my writing out for the world to read. I felt my writing was not good enough for publishers to accept. I knew I had a story to tell that was important, yet when rejection notices came, they confirmed my feelings about myself. 

Finally, a publisher I found on the Internet accepted my book. The editor had lots of criticism, such as I needed to decide on a focus and only tell one story. So I hired an editor to help me get it in shape. Barbara did not have a college education. What she had was confidence. She had decided to be a writer and editor when she was in her thirties, and taught herself. 

As I watched her work and worked with her I realized that the difference between us was confidence. Occasionally, I thought her writing was not exceptional, yet she had no fear of reading what she wrote to groups and did not fear criticism.

I always thought everyone else could write. I thought of myself as a teacher who wanted to write. Now, with the first book being published, I feel confident enough to get others ready for publication. Maybe now I can truly believe I'm a writer, and maybe it doesn't matter whether I'm an "A" or a "B" writer. 

Maybe the story is more important than how it's written. And maybe I'll always need a Barbara to go over what I write and get it in shape. I am now a writer who happens to have been a teacher. I am good enough. 

Dee Oglesby is the author of Teachah Don't Know Nothin,

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