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The Day I Won the Pulitzer
About 20 years ago, I heard a motivational speaker talk about how to achieve one’s dream. “You have to write it down,” he said, “and not hidden away in a diary or a journal. No, you have to write it in a place where you will see it often and, more important, where others will see it too, so they can acknowledge it and encourage you.”
“No way” was my initial reaction. If I tell others my goal is to win the Pulitzer Prize, they will all think I am crazy for sure. Completely out of my mind. And completely delusional. I’d rather take my chances in secret and surprise everyone if my dream comes true.
Gradually, though, my hard line began to soften. What real harm could come from it? Most people think writers are crazy and delusional anyway. At the time, too, I was teaching writing to college students and trying to motivate them to pursue their passions, so shouldn’t I commit to doing the same? Of course.
So at the beginning of each semester, I began to assign a one-page autobiographical essay, and I asked my students to introduce themselves to me and to their classmates by writing three paragraphs: one about the past, one about the present, and one about ten years into the future. Since I always wrote along with my students, and since we all shared our writing in one big group, I concluded my essay with this line: “Within the next decade, I hope to…
