Thursday, October 7, 2010

On Writing.

When I was in the sixth grade, I won the "Best Creative Writer" award, the perks of which included a brief mentioning in the yearbook and a paper certificate that is no doubt stuffed between my long-lost collection of Breyer horses and an old prom dress. I was surprised when I received the award because, truly, I rarely received awards for anything. I don't mean that to sound as though I feel sorry for myself, it's just the honest truth. I did not play sports (volleyball came later) so there were no trophies on my shelf. I didn't show horses or grow flowers and my bout with ballet ended up with a less-than-graceful performance as a rat in the Nutcracker, after which my parents agreed that perhaps I should take up something else. Like reading. I could play the piano with the best of them, but I was too shy and lacked the confidence to participate in any sort of recital or competition.

So, I won the award.

I remember staring at it in the midst of its obvious nerdiness, treasuring its implication that I was possibly good at something. My classmates and I had voted on all of these awards (which also included "Best Athlete" and "Best Eyes" and "Best Whatever Else We Can Think Of That Will Hopefully Cause Every Student To Win Something") which meant that someone else thought I was possibly good at something as well. I did enjoy writing. My classmates thought my stories were funny ("Best Sense of Humor" came in eighth grade) and I have always excelled in self-deprecation, which is always funny. I decided then that perhaps my future should be in English. I always did well in English and continued to do well in English all through the rest of middle school and high school. Unfortunately, during college registration, when I sat with the rest of the potential English majors, I found myself sinking lower in my chair as I heard conversations of vague authors and eccentric poetry swirl around me, of which I knew none. I could cleverly tell you what I ate for breakfast, but I could not tell you the difference between postmodern and modern writing. And, frankly, I didn't care. So, I switched majors that afternoon.

Thankfully, my new major required lots of paper writing and very little math, and I did well. I also journaled. I wrote the best faux grant proposal in one of my classes and beat out the smartest girl in my class, which was exciting, as my GPA was not even cum laude worthy (a C- in Economics my freshman year and a subsequent C in Biology stunted my GPA, making my only academic recognition in college a spot on the Dean's List). In the far recesses of my mind I envisioned myself writing something that might someday be published, even though I was not quite sure what that would be. My degree required research papers that had the potential for publication, but those types of papers were not my forte. Research methods, meh. I wanted to write stories.

So, tonight, I find it ironic that I can't seem to find anything to write about. My blog is my primary venue for creative outlet, and yet I sit here in my jammies with a towel on my head from a shower I took thirty minutes ago, struggling to find a topic about which to write. And somehow, I started typing, and the result was a post about my love of writing. How ironic. I guess I do have a story to tell. It typically involves Chuck Trucks and baby jeggings and what I made for dinner, but it is my story.

And I'm glad you don't mind reading it.

Have a lovely day.

2 comments:

  1. I don't mind at all! :) You are a good writer, and you are so because you write what you know. A lot of the English majors that surrounded me for 3 and 1/2 years at OBU were full of a lot of hot air. I'd much rather hear about the real, the every day, the simple, the facts. Bring on the trucks and the jeggings.

    I'm reading.

    :)

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  2. I think you are a great writer. I enjoy reading.

    ReplyDelete