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Unfortunately, the undergraduate years weren’t great for getting a lot of fiction writing done. The farther along I got with my degree, the harder the classes got, so I did have to concentrate more on studying than writing. Plus, of course, I was living in Hawaii. There was a lot of fun things to do and that took time away from concentrating on writing. After that first submission and rejection, I didn’t get around to submitting anything else for several years. But I was still writing. I considered myself a writer at that point and fully intended to write as a sideline to my career as a scientist.

In my last semester, I needed a random, non-required, three credit course to fill out my schedule. And there just happened to be a writing class I’d been eyeing for several semesters. It was a beginning writer class, half the semester concentrating on short fiction, the other on poetry. Now you should know this about me—I am NOT a poet. It is not a form of writing I’m drawn to or very good at. I’m better at essays, if that tells you anything.

So a good friend of mine, who’d taken this class already, gave me a little advice when dealing with the professor who taught the poetry part of the course. He said to make sure I put my science text books out on my desk so she would know I was a scientist and not think I was a writer. She’d go easier on me that way and not push me too much. Since my other classes that term included Genetics, Microbiology, Vertebrate Biology, and Organic Chemistry, having a relatively easy class sounded like a lovely idea.

And the short story part of the course was pretty easy. After all, I’d been writing short stories for several years at that point. I knew the form and I had learned enough about the craft to get by without excessive work.

Then came the poetry section. I did as my friend suggested, I put my genetics and microbiology books on the desk in plane sight so the professor would have no doubt I was a scientist. And for the first assignment, we just had to write a descriptive passage of one visual image. I could do that, it wasn’t a poem, it was description and I did that in short stories. I got a good grade on the assignment and thought, “Great, this is working. I can concentrate on my other classes and not worry about this one.”

Unfortunately after that, I actually had to write a poem. And in the same week that we had to turn in that poem, I had a big genetics test, a mid-term which made up a major part of the overall grade. I aced that test—highest score in the class. I got a D on my poem. And not only didn’t I get a good grade for the poem, I had to bloody well rewrite it! When genetics comes easier than poetry, a girl can come to only one conclusion. I’d chosen correctly in deciding to be a scientist first and a writer second.

The poetry professor had a meeting with each student individually and discussed our work and how to improve it. I went in thinking, she knows I’m a scientist, she won’t push. I was wrong. She pushed, hard. She pushed me the entire last half of the semester. She made me WORK for my grade. Somewhere along the lines, she’d figured out I was a writer and she insisted I live up to that, even if I also happened to be a scientist. In the end, she taught me more about using words than anyone else before.

I came out of that class a better writer—whether I liked it or not.