Dear Mom
I glad I Finall got to wright to you. I having a great time. Were going on a sleep-out tonight. All sleep-outs we go out on it rains. We alway's go out on trips but somthing alway's goes wrong. Please send me a letter!!
Love, !
Charles
My almost-100-year-old father likes to tell a joke about the stranger in New York City who asks an old Jewish guy on the street, "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" And the guy says, "Practice, practice."
Let's just say I've come a long way since composing that semiliterate missive, thanks to some excellent teachers, lots of reading, and the word "autodidact." As the title of this post indicates, writers are made, not born.