As school children, we put a value on the written word based on grades. An "A" meant we had pleased the teacher and might have a future in writing, or it could just be that our penmanship was better than all the others. A "B" meant we had somehow missed the mark and needed to improve. A "C" trumpeted average, a "D" that we were defective and an "F" that we were clearly failures.
How many writers survive this trial by grading? Sadly, I don't believe we will ever be able to quantify this soul-sucking attempt to judge and destroy.
So if you are reading this as someone who still sees that grade on your fifth-grade paper, the one where you took flight on a spaceship to a planet where killer broccoli attempted to destroy every child who landed...take heart.
You created that story, that writing, believing in an imagination and story that could not be bound by alien vegetation, much less the subjective view of an adult. Be kinder to that young storyteller.
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