I can still remember the feeling of wet, muddy clothes clinging to my skin. The smell—oh, the smell—was worse than the fish I had caught that day. And the sound of my sisters giggling about it in the car ride home? Let’s just say I wasn’t exactly in the mood for laughter.

It all started with a simple high school English assignment. Mrs. Orme, my teacher, asked us to write a personal story. At first, I struggled. What could I possibly share? As an overachiever, I wanted to write something good, something that would earn me a decent grade.

But the only story that kept coming to mind was one I didn’t want to tell.

When I was around ten years old, my sisters and I had gone on a fishing trip with our Godmother. We had been asking to go fishing with her and she finally decided to honor our wishes. It had been a beautiful day, and to my surprise I was the first one to catch a fish. However, my “I caught one first” victory was short-lived because, in all my excitement, I slipped and fell right into the lake. Note: this was not a lake that was created to swim in.

Now, before you worry, no—I wasn’t in any danger of drowning. The water was shallow. But I was soaked, covered in mud, and completely miserable. And my sisters? Well, they had a field day at my expense. The long ride home was filled with laughter—most of it at me—while I sat there, smelling like muddy water and fish, wishing I could disappear. I wanted to go home, take a bath and go straight to bed. Thank God, my Godmother had a towel for me to sit on.

The last thing I wanted to do was relive that humiliation on paper. But something in me knew that this was the story I had to tell. So I did. I poured my heart into every word, recreating the scene, the emotions, and even the smell in vivid detail.

When the grades came back, I was shocked. 
98% A+

But more than the grade, it was Mrs. Orme’s words that stuck with me. “You are a great writer,” she said. “You have a future in writing.”

I had no idea at the time how prophetic her words would be.