from there to here
so it seems like most of the college-goers on my friends list are on spring break now. even were i still in college, i wouldn't be one of these people:) my school has breaks at weird times, since they have may term, so last week was break for them. and i never went anywhere for spring break, cause my school offers service trips, where you go to south carolina for a week to build homes or other things like that, and my friends always did that. i didn't, cause, you know, i'm selfish:) i always liked having a week to catch up and recover. really, my friends are better people than i am.
and since that percentage of my friends list may be away right now, it's probably a bad time to make this post. but i will anyway:)
i was reading nightplayer's last post and was kind of inspired to ask you all something. whether you want to answer it via comments here, with a post on your journal, or you just want to ignore me completely is up to you.
what's something you're really into/passionate about, and what are the roots of your passion? what were your favorite books when you were 4? 10? 13? 16? and so on. what music do you remember loving when you were little? the first cd you ever bought? music that you feel like changed you? what were your favorite movies at different times, ones that stand out as changing you? did you start out writing poetry? or short stories? or did you keep a journal? were you a mediocre student in everything but english classes? even how your sense of humor developed. have you always known how to make people laugh? did you have any moments of revelation about what makes people laugh?
you know. stuff like that. of course, the five examples i picked are five things i could write about, but i'll just pick one. um. ok, since this is the one i'm most likely to classify as a passion, writing it is.
i can't really go back earlier than second grade. i remember little things from before that, like during church, asking my mom to write my name in cursive so i could try to learn. that's why i used to think cursive was just a series of loops--since every other letter in my name (literally) is an e, with an l thrown in for good measure.
in second grade, the TAG (talented and gifted) program at my school started up. it was me and two other girls, both of whom are much smarter than me:) our projects that year were to write books about our summer vacations, and design a restaurant. the other two girls had far superior penmanship than i, and were much better drawers to boot. so i kinda took over restaurant design instead, coming up with the concept (shaped like a giant chef's hat, the top part rotating) and getting more into that than my book.
that year, in regular class, we were assigned to write stories about the holiday of our choosing, then the whole grade's stories were copied and bound for each of us. i wrote mine about the first halloween, from the perspective of a bear, named little bear:) i remember at the time, my friend amber and i had a rivalry going to see who could write the longest piece whenever writing was involved. because of this, her piece in the collection is several really boring pages about easter.
third grade, we kept journals for class and i liked it so much, my aunt bought me my first journal that summer for my tenth birthday. my second entry was a short story, about a sad princess. i used to illustrate my journals back then:)
fourth grade i started getting into poetry. in a poem i wrote for class about thanksgiving once, i even got the old thesaurus out and made "casement" rhyme with "basement." i was pretty proud of that. but i wrote poetry on my own starting that year too, including one about the gulf war (asking why there had to be spats between leaders wearing giant hats).
fifth and sixth grade, we kept journals for english class again, and i have to admit, my entries were pretty creative. random, but creative. stories i wrote for class were heavily influenced by the two types of books i was reading the most of--ghost stories and tear-jerkers (a la lurlene mcdaniels). this gave me my first and only novel to date, the attic, and lots of short stories with names like "the girl with lots of problems."
eighth grade, i was one of only four people in my class to receive straight a's on my short stories, and the first few paragraphs of one of my stories were read aloud to the class, to demonstrate how to describe a character without just saying "she was blonde. she was tall. she was 15." at the time, i can't begin to guess how many stories i started, never getting more than a page written, more often just a couple sentences. i was great at establishing shots, so to speak, but froze up when it came to plot.
but i primarily considered myself a poet. as my notebooks full of poetry will demonstrate.
i also journalled like a maniac in junior high.
my sophomore year of high school, we got the internet, and i started chatting. i think this might be how i really developed my voice. or further developed it. i was maybe writing more than ever at this point, but i all but stopped journalling, not to resume until college, aside from sheets of notebook paper here and there. i kept writing horribly cliche poetry.
i went to college to be a writing major, as that was the only thing i could really get excited about. my first semester convinced me i was a poet, doomed to a life of fighting against the odds, trying to make a living. i decided this because the english text talked about poets' love of words, and how they'll sometimes agonize for hours over a single word. "that's me!" i thought with amazement. "i knew it!" i wrote a short poem about being a freshman in college and got published in the campus literary magazine. the only line i remember was something like "new carpet smell permeates my senses."
second semester, i took "creative writing 2: short story and drama." i give this credit with really changing everything for me. for the first time, i was realizing that i didn't need a plot like a detective novel to write a story. i discovered a real, deep love for short stories, and from that point on, more or less gave up poetry, which i was never all that good at anyway (despite having two more poems published in the campus literary magazine before graduating). i was just writing chopped up prose, and i cringe to read it now.
so here i am, with a writing degree and a portfolio of 15 or 20 short stories waiting for a final polish before i start sending them out. the other really important thing my creative writing classes taught me was that i really love workshopping, and i sometimes have really good, useful things to say (paul would bring me all his stories, and we would spend hours reading over them. he told me more than once that our prof later gave him the same advice i did). there are few things i love like workshopping, whether it be with my stories or someone else's. this is what i would do forever if i could do anything. i would teach creative writing.
and since that percentage of my friends list may be away right now, it's probably a bad time to make this post. but i will anyway:)
i was reading nightplayer's last post and was kind of inspired to ask you all something. whether you want to answer it via comments here, with a post on your journal, or you just want to ignore me completely is up to you.
what's something you're really into/passionate about, and what are the roots of your passion? what were your favorite books when you were 4? 10? 13? 16? and so on. what music do you remember loving when you were little? the first cd you ever bought? music that you feel like changed you? what were your favorite movies at different times, ones that stand out as changing you? did you start out writing poetry? or short stories? or did you keep a journal? were you a mediocre student in everything but english classes? even how your sense of humor developed. have you always known how to make people laugh? did you have any moments of revelation about what makes people laugh?
you know. stuff like that. of course, the five examples i picked are five things i could write about, but i'll just pick one. um. ok, since this is the one i'm most likely to classify as a passion, writing it is.
i can't really go back earlier than second grade. i remember little things from before that, like during church, asking my mom to write my name in cursive so i could try to learn. that's why i used to think cursive was just a series of loops--since every other letter in my name (literally) is an e, with an l thrown in for good measure.
in second grade, the TAG (talented and gifted) program at my school started up. it was me and two other girls, both of whom are much smarter than me:) our projects that year were to write books about our summer vacations, and design a restaurant. the other two girls had far superior penmanship than i, and were much better drawers to boot. so i kinda took over restaurant design instead, coming up with the concept (shaped like a giant chef's hat, the top part rotating) and getting more into that than my book.
that year, in regular class, we were assigned to write stories about the holiday of our choosing, then the whole grade's stories were copied and bound for each of us. i wrote mine about the first halloween, from the perspective of a bear, named little bear:) i remember at the time, my friend amber and i had a rivalry going to see who could write the longest piece whenever writing was involved. because of this, her piece in the collection is several really boring pages about easter.
third grade, we kept journals for class and i liked it so much, my aunt bought me my first journal that summer for my tenth birthday. my second entry was a short story, about a sad princess. i used to illustrate my journals back then:)
fourth grade i started getting into poetry. in a poem i wrote for class about thanksgiving once, i even got the old thesaurus out and made "casement" rhyme with "basement." i was pretty proud of that. but i wrote poetry on my own starting that year too, including one about the gulf war (asking why there had to be spats between leaders wearing giant hats).
fifth and sixth grade, we kept journals for english class again, and i have to admit, my entries were pretty creative. random, but creative. stories i wrote for class were heavily influenced by the two types of books i was reading the most of--ghost stories and tear-jerkers (a la lurlene mcdaniels). this gave me my first and only novel to date, the attic, and lots of short stories with names like "the girl with lots of problems."
eighth grade, i was one of only four people in my class to receive straight a's on my short stories, and the first few paragraphs of one of my stories were read aloud to the class, to demonstrate how to describe a character without just saying "she was blonde. she was tall. she was 15." at the time, i can't begin to guess how many stories i started, never getting more than a page written, more often just a couple sentences. i was great at establishing shots, so to speak, but froze up when it came to plot.
but i primarily considered myself a poet. as my notebooks full of poetry will demonstrate.
i also journalled like a maniac in junior high.
my sophomore year of high school, we got the internet, and i started chatting. i think this might be how i really developed my voice. or further developed it. i was maybe writing more than ever at this point, but i all but stopped journalling, not to resume until college, aside from sheets of notebook paper here and there. i kept writing horribly cliche poetry.
i went to college to be a writing major, as that was the only thing i could really get excited about. my first semester convinced me i was a poet, doomed to a life of fighting against the odds, trying to make a living. i decided this because the english text talked about poets' love of words, and how they'll sometimes agonize for hours over a single word. "that's me!" i thought with amazement. "i knew it!" i wrote a short poem about being a freshman in college and got published in the campus literary magazine. the only line i remember was something like "new carpet smell permeates my senses."
second semester, i took "creative writing 2: short story and drama." i give this credit with really changing everything for me. for the first time, i was realizing that i didn't need a plot like a detective novel to write a story. i discovered a real, deep love for short stories, and from that point on, more or less gave up poetry, which i was never all that good at anyway (despite having two more poems published in the campus literary magazine before graduating). i was just writing chopped up prose, and i cringe to read it now.
so here i am, with a writing degree and a portfolio of 15 or 20 short stories waiting for a final polish before i start sending them out. the other really important thing my creative writing classes taught me was that i really love workshopping, and i sometimes have really good, useful things to say (paul would bring me all his stories, and we would spend hours reading over them. he told me more than once that our prof later gave him the same advice i did). there are few things i love like workshopping, whether it be with my stories or someone else's. this is what i would do forever if i could do anything. i would teach creative writing.