This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Gettysburg chapter.
It feels like my best friend just died. Except that Harper Lee never knew me. I was just a student in a classroom that taught her book on a syllabus full of other friends I got to make that semester. She was just another author on my bookshelf that I went back to when I needed a familiar voice. She never knew me, but I knew her novels and her short stories, and that’s more than I could ask of anyone else in this world.
As a young writer, I thought I needed to impress my teachers if I ever wanted a future in writing. I thought I needed As in all of my classes, and eventually needed a degree in English or Writing to give me credibility. I spent hours agonizing over everything I wrote, making sure it was funny enough or said something original or important. Eventually, I stopped writing fiction and focused on writing essays. Essays came with guidelines and prompts, and I convinced myself that getting an A on a paper was much more worthwhile than trying to write for fun. Besides, who would listen to me? Essays have answers, but fiction takes convincing before an audience would accept you. Harper Lee didn’t write to inspire. She wrote because she wanted to write. She dropped out of law school because she couldn’t imagine a life where she was doing anything other than writing. And as a result, any child with access to a local library has access to her novel. She is celebrated in schools across the country as one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, if not of all time. Harper lee writes the way other people hope to love and to serve and to be great: passionately, fervently, and neverendingly.
Suddenly, writing didn’t mean impressing my teachers anymore, or getting the highest grade in the class, or even entertaining my friends. It meant writing because I wanted to. I don’t have to feel important enough to say it, or even believe that what I’m saying is going to change the world. I don’t need any qualifications to write. Writing is my voice when I don’t trust myself to speak. My audience is the people that I want to listen, rather than anyone who will listen. So thank you, Harper Lee, for reminding us all that writing is important because someone decided to say anything at all.