As a boy, I wasn’t like everyone else. My front teeth stuck way out. My teachers, the neighbors and my parents all didn’t think I was too bright. And…I stuttered. Wearing braces, although sometimes painful, took care of the teeth. A variety of review books and hours of studying dissipated the concerns over my intelligence (or the lack thereof). Those were pretty easy to solve compared to the stuttering.

Throughout elementary school and junior high I attended special speech classes. The teachers were genuinely concerned for my well being. Their eyes told more than what they said. They cringed as I tried to speak. Everyone had a suggestion on how to stop the stuttering. One speech teacher suggested that I try to speak more slowly. Didn’t work. Another suggested that I deliberately repeat the first sound of troublesome words until they would be able to pop out of my mouth like a jack-in-the-box. Didn’t work. There were too many words to think about. One person even told me that if you sing you don’t stutter. Unfortunately, I couldn’t sing either. Of course, everyone suggested that I try to relax. Although relaxation may help to reduce your heart rate, it didn’t help reduce my stuttering. 

My parents were upset and probably embarrassed. Their only child was so different from the others on the block. In my Brooklyn neighborhood, I was the only one who stuttered. For about the first ten years of my life I never even heard another stutterer. Friends tried to help by saying the word that I tried to say and added to my frustration. I don’t remember if I was made fun of more for my over bite or the slowed speech.

The summer of 1962, between junior high and high school, proved to be memorable. We moved from Brownsville to the Glenwood Projects in East Flatbush. I had to adjust to the new apartment, the new people, and worry about starting the fortress that they called Tilden High School the next fall.

That was probably my best and worst summer ever…because it happened. I remember it as though it happened yesterday. I went into that plain white bathroom, looked into the dirty mirror and started having a conversation with myself. “You look as good as anybody else,” I said. After thinking for a minute, I added, “You can do whatever others can do.” The conversation ended abruptly…and so did the stuttering! That was it. A thirty second pep talk and the stuttering that lasted for more than ten years ended…suddenly.

When the fall came I was put into a special class for stutterers at Tilden. The teacher couldn’t understand why. According to her, I wasn’t a stutterer. I spent that time looking at the other stutterers and thinking about how I had felt a few short months before. They looked down upon me as an outsider who could speak normally. The subject of how I stopped stuttering never came up. It wouldn’t have helped anyway. I’ve never heard anyone say that they stopped stuttering the way I did in all the years since that fateful day in 1962.

I’ve since read of various methods used to help stutterers including one where they tell people to speak with marbles in their mouths. Sorry, I don’t know why.

All I did was have a talk with myself. Why did it work? I have no idea. But, it worked!

Occasionally, I hear myself hesitating when I speak. However, it never interfered with my life after that. During my 33 years as a teacher no student ever made a comment about my speech…and kids always look for something to criticize. Over the years I have gone out of my way to speak in public. I’ve given dozens of workshops for adults. On a couple of occasions I had the opportunity to speak in front of audiences of more than a thousand people! After one such occasion a colleague said, “You didn’t even look nervous.” I wasn’t. I know that public speaking is supposed to make folks into nervous wrecks. The opposite is the case for me. I like speaking in public. I’m comfortable with it. All because of a pep talk in a bathroom in apartment 2A in Flatbush.

They were or are stutterers…

Aristotle
Joe Biden
Wilt Chamberlain
Winston Churchill
Charles Darwin
Tommy John
James Earl Jones
Nicole Kidman
Marilyn Monroe
Isaac Newton
Michael Spinks
James Stewart
Elvis Presley
Bill Walton
Bruce Willis
Tiger Woods
and me.

When my father was a teenager in Poland, he made shoes. He would take his horse-and-buggy and go from town to town getting orders for shoes. He would then go home and make the shoes from scratch. Once he came to America, he worked in shoe factories for his entire life. After decades of work, he retired.

After being home a few years, his brother, also a shoe maker, told him about a job offer. They both agreed to help a young factory owner and went back to work as shoe operators. Operators were the workers who worked on sewing machines making leather shoes. The other operators were young men, mainly Hispanic, who were making minimum wages.

My father and uncle worked for a couple of years and decided that the travel was getting to them. Getting up at five in the morning was too much for them. The problem was that they felt funny about quitting. Their old fashioned sense of loyalty made it difficult to tell the boss that they wanted to retire…again. So…they came up with a plan. Instead of quitting, they decided to ask for a raise that they knew the boss would not agree to because they were asking for a 30% raise. My father went in to speak to the boss. He came out with a 30% raise!

Another six months went by and they really wanted to stop working. They asked for another raise. Again, they got the raise. Now they were making about 60% more than the workers who were doing the same work!

After about three months, you guessed it, they asked for another raise. They really, really wanted to stop working. Again, they got the raise. Now, they were earning twice what the other workers were making!

Within a few months they finally quit! The travel finally got to them.

At about this point, I asked my father why he got the raises. He smiled and said, “When they needed to make a new shoe style, I was the only one who could make the sample, without a form.” His experience in Poland, fifty years before, was the reason he was worth the pay.

You never know … when your education and experience will pay off … big.

Jane Yolen has written 400 books (maybe more by the time you read this) and I have written 1. Does that mean that she is smarter than me? Does it mean that she uses a better computer than me? Does it mean that she uses better pens and pencils than me? Maybe.

What else could explain the difference in writing output?

The answer is that she writes regularly, usually everyday. I don’t. I’ve talked about writing for decades and have actually written very little.

So how does one move on and compete with Jane? Easy. Beginning today, I’m going to be writing. I’m not going to tell you how much I’ve done each day. No one cares. I will mention when I SUBMIT something to a publisher. It might take weeks, months, or years.

The journey begins.

[By the time I submit one book, Jane will probably be up to number 425. Good for her!]

1. Do not blame anybody for your mistakes and failures. ~~Bernard Baruch
2. Switch your point of view. Would that make your story better?
3. You can re-start your life right now! If you weren’t a writer yesterday, you can be a writer starting right now!
4. Life begins every second. Don’t waste time thinking about it, start writing.
5. To be creative, you might want to do things the un-techie way (for example, postcards instead of emails).
6. Start your next short story by writing the last line first.
7. Go for perfect! Book writing has never been easier. Years ago, when I had to change a word I had to re-type (with a typewriter) the whole chapter.
8. Can you tell your “story” using a series of pictures (with and/or without captions)?
9. Try writing a short story that incorporates a line from The Story Starter.
10. Follow less, lead more (especially on Twitter and Facebook).
11. Watch less TV and write more.
12. All of the writers on the best sellers lists had (and probably still have) the same doubts as you.
13. Read a magazine you never read before. It’s full of ideas for writers.
14. Starting a sentence with an “ing” word is a great way to start.
15. Whenever you want to say “someday” substitute “today” and you’ll do better.
16. Many procrastinators masquerade as writers. If you want to be a writer write. Period.
17. Gardeners will tell you that you have to be patient to see the fruits of your hard work, sometimes it takes years!
18. Get an almanac! Read through it when you have time. You might (probably will) come up with article ideas.
19. Fine writing, like fine wine, doesn’t happen over night.
20. If you can write a 5 paragraph composition, you can write a magazine article. Same thing, just a bit longer
21. Does your character transform for the better or worse? What would happen if you switched it?
22. You can learn more going to a place you’ve never been than spending hours online. It must be the air!
23. Going to the movies is nice, reading a movie script gives you a sense of how the story comes together.
24. To learn how to write, study gardeners, photographers, poker players, pizza makers, etc. Learn from everyone.
25. Just like the tango, it takes TWO to write: one writer and at least one other person to read. I’m not big on writing for myself.

In September of 1969 I became a New York City junior high school social studies teacher. In the winter of that year, the principal asked me to speak at the monthly faculty conference. The topic was How to Use an Overhead Projector. Back then overhead projectors were very high tech.

On Tuesday, I walked around the school to see how many teachers were convinced that using an overhead project would make their jobs easier and more effective. The grand total of overhead users was ZERO. The problem was that I was the only teacher in the school who had a working projector.

I learned a lot that day. You may get something out of it. What I learned is universal.

1. Before you volunteer to speak, get to know the details.
2. If you are going to suggest a major change, be sure that people are physically capable of doing what you will suggest they do.
3. If it’s a big change, one mini session isn’t going to work.
4. People lived without new technology…you must convince them of the advantages that a new technology will be for THEM.
5. What you love may not even be liked by others. You are not right or wrong. They are simply different.
6. Learn from your mistakes. I did.
7. Your best presentation can be your worst…it’s all relative.

Beware.