I have never
enjoyed writing. Growing up, the only
writing I ever did was for school assignments, and I pushed those off until the
last minute. I never kept a journal or a diary or wrote anything just for fun. So, I was not looking forward to taking
creative writing second semester of my senior year of high school. But, I had a
hole in my schedule and I heard the class was a breeze, so I took it, figuring
it would be an easy ‘A’. I had done my
time in high school, got good grades, got accepted to all the colleges I wanted
to go to, and was ready just to cruise through my last semester. But, I wouldn’t be telling this story if that
were the case. The truth is that my creative writing class, the final
assignment in particular, was one of the most challenging, but rewarding assignments
that I’ve ever done. This is the story
of how I came to love creative writing.
On
the first day of creative writing, my teacher, Ms. Boss, asked the class what
we like to read, kinds of writing we enjoy writing, how often we write, etc.
Students were raising their hands saying things like they were in the process
of writing a book, or they wanted to be a creative writing major. This took me
aback: I thought the class was going to be full of people like me who just
needed the credit. I was already feeling in over my head, overwhelmed, and
inferior when Ms. Boss told us what the class’s final assignment would be-a
25-page piece. It could be about whatever we wanted, in any format we wanted
and we would start working on it second quarter. My friend Tee and I exchanged horrified
glances. She was like me, just in the class to fill a hole. As we were muttering things like “are you
kidding me?” and “there’s no way” to each other, the rest of the class was
eagerly writing down notes and whispering possible ideas. It was like they were
buzzing with excitement. Most of them
probably had 25 pages written several times over and the assignment would be
just something fun to do.
Since
we didn’t have to start working on the final until second quarter, I put it out
of my head and did the smaller assignments for the class. They were all simple
and I didn’t need to put much effort into them to get full credit. The class
was turning out to be that easy ‘A’ I had wanted. But then, second quarter came
around and sure enough, on the first day, we were brainstorming ideas for the
final. Ms. Boss told us it could be one long story or a collection of short
stories or poems tied together with a common theme. It really could be anything
we wanted, we just had to explain our idea to her and get it approved. She gave
us a schedule telling us when each five page increment was due. We had a couple
days to decide before we had to meet with her. But, most of the people in the
class didn’t need the time. They were presenting their ideas on the first day. I
heard the scratch of pencils on paper, computer keys typing away all around me,
and Ms. Boss telling people she loved their ideas and couldn’t wait to read the
finished product. And there I sat, my desk empty, struggling to come up with
even one idea. I don’t know what I was more intimidated by, the length of the
assignment or its open-ended creative format. Probably equal parts of both. The
longest thing I’d ever written was probably 10 pages, double-spaced. And I
hadn’t written anything fiction or creative since elementary school. I relied on structure in my writing- a clear
prompt with bullet points or a checklist of what needed to be included.
Tee
couldn’t come up with a topic either, so we went to talk to Ms. Boss after
school one day. She told us we could expand on something we wrote during first
quarter since we were having trouble coming up with something new. I went home
and thought about what she said. The more I thought about it, the more I liked
her idea. I had written this short story about a teenage girl getting kidnapped
and her family had to come up with the ransom money. It was barely five pages
long and didn’t have much detail, but it was the best thing I had. The next day in class I told Tee about how I
was going to take it and transform it into a 25-page story. She wanted to do something similar with a
story she had written about a high school. As we were talking about directions
for our stories and characters, I stopped and said, “What if we are writing
about the same girl and we merge our stories?” Tee loved the idea, and we
immediately went to Ms. Boss to ask if we could do that. She said we could, and
that was the start of me loving creative writing.
We
had some difficulty figuring out how our two stories would be connected because
separately, they were totally different. But, we ended up deciding that Tee’s
story would be about the characters in high school and it would lead up to the
kidnapping of our main character, Katie. My story would start with Katie’s
parents getting the ransom note and then follow their efforts to get her back. We spent the whole class period lost in
discussion about who our characters were going to be and how we were going to
bring them to life. We were behind the rest of the class and had five pages due
coming up, but for the first time, I was excited about writing. And I was
excited about getting to create these characters and figuring out what happens
to them.
That
night I went home and I started writing. I was surprised that ideas were coming
to me and that I was actually enjoying it. I wrote the first five pages to turn
in. Tee and I would go to the small back room of our high school library every
day in class to write. It was hot, cramped, and right behind the library
secretary’s desk- she always had to tell us to be quiet, but that’s where our
story came to life. We’d laugh and laugh, plan out plot twists, and talk about
what actors we wanted to play our characters when the story got turned into a
movie. When we would write at home, we would always text each other with
changes to the story or for help. It wasn’t long before it stopped feeling like
an assignment and creative writing became my favorite class. I had so much fun thinking
of ideas, characters, feelings, dialogue, plots, and not worrying about a
checklist. I was truly enjoying myself.
We
finished our stories on time, and they were even over 25 pages. I was so proud
when they were coming out of that library printer. Ms. Boss loved our stories
and loved that we collaborated on them. I put mine in my senior presentation as
one of my best works. I ended up getting an A in creative writing. But, I’m
glad it wasn’t the easy one I was looking for because then I never would have
found out that I actually do like to write.
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