Yesterday I had a stiff deadline. I had to turn in one-thousand word articles to two separate legal publications (that’s two articles for a total of two thousand words).
Yes, my writing skills were honed a bit in college. But as a freshman at Northwestern, in some of my initial classes I would get A’s on my essays when other kids from more pedigreed high schools would suffer C’s.
This was because a couple of teachers in high school busted my balls when it came to writing. Frau Hugg, my AP European History, dished out C’s to my essays until I could write a cogent, forceful argument, and Edna Neely, my English and Journalism teacher, took me to task for everything I did wrong.
It was a bit painful at the time but I truly believe I wouldn’t be able to deliver written content without the training I received from these two educators.
I would also like to take the opportunity to embarrass my wife, Dina Roth Port, once more. When we lived in New York she edited national magazines and now generously reads my legal technology articles that no one outside of our vertical wants to read. And she busts my balls all the time for all sorts of gramatical issues which I’ve never even heard of.
So thanks to the three classy ladies who forged a survivable writer out of an utter verbal idiot.