Sir Thomas Foxwell Buxton, the British Abolitionist, once wrote that “with ordinary talent and extraordinary perseverance, all things are attainable.” This EVEN applies to those brave souls who go for it, ALL of it, on “American Idol.”
In my prior post, “You Go, Girl!,” I talk about my not-so-great-start in writing. For all of those budding writers out there among my Beyond Blue readers, this might be consoling. If I became a writer, trust me, so can you!
To get to the piece, click here. Following is an excerpt.

“Success is 99 percent perspiration and one percent talent,” my business-savvy father told me back when I was unloading Thin Mints as a Brownie Girl Scout. “The only thing that separates the winners from the losers is perseverance.”
Dr. Seuss received 27 rejections before “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street” was published; a skinny 5’11” Michael Jordan was cut from his varsity basketball team; Colonel Sanders drove from restaurant to restaurant with his pressure cooker and famous recipe of 11 herbs and spices before he made history with KFC; and didn’t some opinioned jerk tell Katie Couric in her early days that she didn’t have a face for TV?
I sure as heck wasn’t born with the ability to write.
My eighth grade English teacher, Mrs. Kracus, read aloud my essay as an example of how NOT to write. My SAT scores were so low (especially verbal) that I lied about them for 18 years. Any aptitude test I took suggested I pursue a career in math or science. The profile of a writer fit me about as well as Dolly Parton’s bra: an intellectual permanently glued to a book, ready to discuss any classic, from Plato to Hemingway. (God showed mercy on me the day CliffsNotes went to press.)
Oh yes, and my “American Idol” moment, when I asked a professor in grad school to write a letter of recommendation for me. (I was applying for a job as an editor of a Catholic magazine.)
This man of the cloth (a priest) took me outside in the hall to drop the bomb.
“I’m sorry,” he said, squinting his small brown eyes that shot daggers through my heart. “I can’t do that. It just that you…you don’t use words correctly.”

P.S. I sent that sweet professor a care-package awhile back of my first four books with a little note: “Thanks for your advice. I’m so glad I didn’t take it.”