Although I was taught some English in middle and high school, I had only visited New York City once and never read a book in English until my husband and I moved from Paris to California in 1990.

Waiting to Exhale by Terry McMillan was the first American novel I read in English shortly after our move. The plot and the characters were easy and engaging enough for a novice equipped with a dictionary, and I enjoyed this book. When Ms. McMillan came to a local bookstore, I was eager to meet her.

She opened the event with a few jokes. Well, I guessed they were jokes since everybody laughed. I squirmed in my chair, concerned that I might have trouble to understand. I’ve read the book, I thought. I’ll be fine. Yet when Ms. McMillan started to read a passage from Waiting to Exhale, a wave of incoherent sounds washed over me and I was drowned. Was she reading from another book? I slipped away before the end of the event. How could I have considered introducing myself to Ms. McMillan? She wouldn’t have believed for a second that I had read her novel.

At that moment, I would have given anything to be back in Paris. I was exhausted from always trying to understand people and to be understood. But my life was here, in California, so that night, under the vast starry sky, I made a promise: I would not only read English but also speak and understand it like a native.

The following day I sketched my plan. Every afternoon while my two baby daughters napped, my notebook and dictionary next to me, I would read the daily paper from the first page to the last. The recipe for fluency seemed, even to me, a little extreme, and I hoped it was the right one. Indeed I could soon read entire pages without my dictionary. Yet I still had to repeat many of my sentences to puzzled cashiers and answer countless questions about my origins. Although my plan somewhat worked, something was still missing.

My daughters loved the show Sesame Street. As they sang with Big Bird, Ernie, Oscar, and the whole crew, I caught myself singing as well. When both girls were at nursery school, sometimes I slid a Sesame Street videocassette in the VCR and practiced the lyrics. One day, Sesame Street came to town and I took the girls.

“Who loves Sesame Street?” shouted the show-host.

“Me! Me! Me!” shouted back the children.

And my little one’s clear voice added, “Maman, too!”

I shrank in my seat, aware that I had to find a more legitimate way to improve my English.

I thought I had the answer when I spotted an advertisement promoting English classes for non-native speakers. The classes promised quick results and were offered at a high school, a mile from our apartment. Full of hope, I walked to the first class. Dozens of people, also hopeful looking, waited in line.

The young teacher handed us a questionnaire and a test. We had to complete both and wait for her assessment. A quick glance at the questions confirmed that my plan had been a good strategy. I finished quickly and the teacher walked up to me.

“You did great,” she said.

Good! The last year had been a little rough and my self-esteem needed a booster shot.

“Your English level is above what I can offer,” she added. “There is nothing I can do for you.”

Nothing? If there were nothing she could do, who would do it, then?

As if she had read my mind, she said, “Your grammar is decent and your vocabulary will grow with time.”

I know that, I thought. “But my accent,” I said.

She smiled. “It’s a lovely accent.”

I was tired of my lovely accent. I didn’t want an accent. If this teacher couldn’t promise anything, I was on my own.

“You just have to do what you’ve done so far,” she went on, still smiling, encouragingly. “It takes time, but you have an advantage.” She lowered her voice, taking in the people who were still completing the test. “You can write.” Her warm eyes met mine. “Written words don’t have an accent,” she said.

“Thank you for your time and advice,” I said.

“You’re welcome.”

Outside, a late evening breeze blew, bringing the promise of a beautiful morning. But I wanted more than a beautiful morning. I wanted to wake up and speak like an American. I would need more than a night of sleep to achieve this goal, and I would need to continue practicing. Although the idea of trying yet again tired me, I returned to my routine.

I borrowed countless children’s books at the library for my daughters. Over time, as I read to them, words started to play music and the symphony brought me joy. The English language sounded as evocative as only French had until then. Beyond this satisfying feeling, the experience pulled at me in an unexpectedly strong way. I understood that no matter the language, words well chosen and stories well crafted had the power to move readers in a universal way.

Years passed, marked both by several professional moves and the births of two more children. My days pulsed with the infinite tasks and pleasures that define life with young children. As they grew, our home became a blend of two languages, none of them perfect. This can’t last, I decided, and I started to teach my children the basics of French grammar.

“This is hard!” My oldest one complained, when we sorted the verbs in groups.

“Why so many different spellings when we conjugate them?” her sister asked.

“I don’t like the “tu” and “vous. I like “you” better,” my son argued.

At the time, I taught French to enthusiastic preschoolers, but I was unsuccessful with my own children. My failure highlighted a crucial fact: The children who willingly speak their mothers’ native language belong most often to large immigrant communities. My own children couldn’t feel connected to a language that no one else spoke around us. Besides, everyone kept commenting on my cute French accent, and I easily understood my children’s discomfort. The last thing children want is a visible parent.

This experience cast a line that I slowly reeled in until the young teacher’s words emerged on the shores of my mind. “Written words don’t have an accent,” had only been words, which had grown into something larger that I hadn’t been able to pinpoint. Back when I hoped to lose my French accent I had not comprehended the full possibility of these words, although I understood now that they had always been inside me.

A mix of apprehension and anticipation filled me. If I couldn’t speak English without an accent could I still write in English?

By then I understood that well-written stories filled with human emotions could touch readers in a universal way, regardless of the language. Now I wondered if I would ever be able to do the same in English.

Fear keeps us away from trying new things or going new places. In the case of immigrants, so much is new that we can’t possibly let fear rule. Writing in a foreign language is, however, daunting, and I was frightened beyond words.

When I finally submitted my first manuscript I had no expectations and was surprised to win a local fiction contest and even more to sign a contract with a children’s magazine. I didn’t immediately grasp that I wrote English well enough to compete with native speakers.

Even with much improved English writing skills and more published work, I’ve completed enough manuscripts and received enough rejections to wallpaper half of my home. Is writing without an accent ever possible? I still often wonder. So whether I work on a story, a novel, or a blog post I still rely on the teacher’s words.

I’d like to take full credit and claim that I was ready to hear these words. But as a writer I know how hard finding the right words is. From our brief conversation I only understood that I had to keep practicing. What the teacher really told me remained cryptic and dormant for a long time.

When I received a recent contract for a short story with a distinct French flair, her words crept to my memory.

Written words don’t have an accent, I remembered. My story certainly held foreign ingredients. She never told me to get rid of my foreignness, I realized.

In the United States millions of people, like me, speak their native language as much and sometimes more than American English to communicate on a daily basis. This is one of my adoptive land’s characteristics that I love most. However, unless they hire a full time personal translator, writers know that in order to share their stories with readers they must master their language.

While many people envy my bilingual status and encourage me to keep my foreignness alive, I need to apply diligent and constant attention to my writing if I want to be understood and read. Any writer knows how much work and determination are behind any manuscript. Someone who writes outside her native language must at least double the amount.

Years ago, I went to a class hoping to lose my French accent. I ended up writing in English. I’m still a work-in-progress. Once in a while discouragement lurks at the edges of my brain. When this happens I compare my writing journey to a child who learns how to walk. Step-by-step. A child falls countless times before finding the right balance. A child stands up, again and again, before reaching a steady gait.

Oh but the joyful smile on the child’s face when she has surmounted the difficulty and moves on to the next step.

P.S. I still dream of speaking like an American. But that’s another story…