Writing Review Week

          After re-reading my stories I’m amazed at the creativity I have been able to unleash. I came into college with my English credits done and have not really written since then. That’s been a couple years now. Writing was SUCH a struggle for me growing up. In elementary school I always had a very difficult time with not only sentence structure but also the ability to harness my thought into meaningful text. I hated writing. I loved to read, but I could never understand how to write something for myself. That all changed in 5^th grade when I had the most wonderful English and reading teacher that realized this struggle and knew exactly what to do about it. It may seem like a stupidly obviously statement, but she told to just write. There is no wrong or right, no points to be given or taken away; she simply wanted me to write and worry about the technical aspects later. In that year alone, with the encouragement of one single teacher, I soon prevailed far beyond my classmates and found joy in writing like never before. I was always excited to get a writing assignment. When most would cringe, I would giggle with glee because this was the one thing I knew that I could do, and could do well.

          I say all that to say that it is so wonderful to be able to simply write for a class again. My thoughts on the readings are never verbalized, but they become something so much more important: stories. Each storytelling assignment, I literally sit down with my laptop and babble until a story is formed. Half the time I don’t know what I’m writing until it’s done. When else do I get the opportunity to babble for class credit?! I really am lucky. I still can’t spell anything to save my life (thank god for Microsoft word) and I have no idea what to do with commas or semi colons or quotation marks other than just sticking them in somewhere that looks right, but that’s what my peers are for right? (ha ha)

          Storytelling has become such a unique way to let thoughts out. I somehow found significance in a little bird that was mentioned once in the beginning of Buck’s Ramayana and make it my own. This creativity thing is really a light that can easily be extinguished, and so often is. The openness of the storytelling assignments lets that creativity light (and apparently my metaphors) grow beyond expectation. It truly is a wonderful, rare, thing.

This image provided by Wikipedia was also a contender for the image I would
use in my story "The Songbird's Fate"
I'm glad I now have an excuse to show this pretty little image.