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| Highly edited photo of a sticker at the bottom of a street lamp near our apartment in SF. |
Now even though I wanted to be a writer, I didn't really spend a lot of time writing. I wasn't bad at writing, but I didn't do it unless there was a reason - an assignment, report, paper, etc. On the other hand, I loved to read. Summers were spent waking up to pull the novel from my bedside and reading it until I could barely walk downstairs because I was fainting with hunger. Libraries weren't safe from my methodical hand (still aren't) as I would check out as many books as they would allow at a time.
Still, the idea of writing books was so strong in my imagination that I purposefully went to a university with a Creative Writing program. Ever the over-achiever, once I was at college, I found myself adding a second major - Music - and soon falling in love with Dance, which would become my minor on top of my two majors. As a side note, they don't let students at my university have two majors and a minor any more and I totally understand why. Yet somehow, amidst all of the rehearsals, classes, performances, my campus job, studying abroad, etc, I managed to get myself in the position of writing a thesis for my Creative Writing major during my senior year.
Now a thesis for a Creative Writing major sounds great, right? No research. No documenting sources. No experiments or data. Just doing what I had dreamed about doing - writing. My thesis was to be a novela that told the story of young girl from an Arthurian story I had read in one of my literature courses. She was a minor character in the story who did an amazing thing that was glossed over to get to the more important parts about, you know, the men. So, I was going to give her a voice and story. Sadly, she ended up stealing mine.
Early on in the process, I started to panic a little bit. Over three years, I had never created a habit of writing so actually making the time to do it was very difficult. And when I did make the time, I couldn't think of anything to write. After a few months of struggling, I had pretty much psyched myself out. My story revolved around my character doing nothing over and over again. I couldn't articulate my problems to my advisor, so I just kept trudging along, alone and afraid of when everyone would find out that my work wasn't really going anywhere.
Needless to say about three weeks before my thesis was due, the lack of anything substantial in my writing came to light. And the stress and negative feedback from my advisor over the following weeks was enough to make it completely impossible for me to write for the next two years. Slowly over time and with help of amazing mentors in the dance community, I was able to begin writing again. It's been seven years this May since I graduated from college and I still struggle with writing today.
But each little step - carrying a notebook around to jot ideas in, writing a grant for the organization I worked for, starting a blog with my mom - is helping me get over the trauma of that experience and to continue struggling towards my dream of my own dog-eared book.
Still, the idea of writing books was so strong in my imagination that I purposefully went to a university with a Creative Writing program. Ever the over-achiever, once I was at college, I found myself adding a second major - Music - and soon falling in love with Dance, which would become my minor on top of my two majors. As a side note, they don't let students at my university have two majors and a minor any more and I totally understand why. Yet somehow, amidst all of the rehearsals, classes, performances, my campus job, studying abroad, etc, I managed to get myself in the position of writing a thesis for my Creative Writing major during my senior year.
Now a thesis for a Creative Writing major sounds great, right? No research. No documenting sources. No experiments or data. Just doing what I had dreamed about doing - writing. My thesis was to be a novela that told the story of young girl from an Arthurian story I had read in one of my literature courses. She was a minor character in the story who did an amazing thing that was glossed over to get to the more important parts about, you know, the men. So, I was going to give her a voice and story. Sadly, she ended up stealing mine.
Early on in the process, I started to panic a little bit. Over three years, I had never created a habit of writing so actually making the time to do it was very difficult. And when I did make the time, I couldn't think of anything to write. After a few months of struggling, I had pretty much psyched myself out. My story revolved around my character doing nothing over and over again. I couldn't articulate my problems to my advisor, so I just kept trudging along, alone and afraid of when everyone would find out that my work wasn't really going anywhere.
Needless to say about three weeks before my thesis was due, the lack of anything substantial in my writing came to light. And the stress and negative feedback from my advisor over the following weeks was enough to make it completely impossible for me to write for the next two years. Slowly over time and with help of amazing mentors in the dance community, I was able to begin writing again. It's been seven years this May since I graduated from college and I still struggle with writing today.
But each little step - carrying a notebook around to jot ideas in, writing a grant for the organization I worked for, starting a blog with my mom - is helping me get over the trauma of that experience and to continue struggling towards my dream of my own dog-eared book.
