On How I Became a Writer (Part 1)

The first post in a series about how I discovered writing as a powerful form of self expression.   

During a text conversation with a good friend, the topic of children's books came up. At some point, I confessed that I had written one for a ninth-grade English assignment. Through the course of the exchange, I attempted to outline the story. It is a rather sad, disturbing tale. By texting the details, I began to unravel quite a lot about the emotions behind this attempt at storytelling. Later on, I began to analyze my responses to her questions, and realized I needed to find this assignment. Furthermore, the discussion pried loose tucked away memories of other creative writing assignments from high school and college. However, I did not act upon this nostalgic feeling right away. Instead, I let it linger, like pieces of a nearly finished difficult puzzle scattered in frustration across a table top. I yearned to pull the pieces back together and finish it, but the bad taste left by my irritation discouraged any attempt to restart the process. 

Two nights later, while standing in my closet, getting ready for bed, I spied that Pandora's box. It contained the only copies of my writings from ninth grade on through college. Echoes of the earlier text conversation reverberated in my head, calling me to action. The desire to travel back in time stirred within me.  There in the corner, beneath hanging clothes that I no longer wore, hid a plastic container of folders filled with loose papers. And spread across those typed pages were the raw thoughts and emotions of my teenage years. I hesitated. There was an odor among those fading papers. It was a musty scent, most definitely, but there was a hint of something else. Something primal. It was a warning. Taking a deep breath, I decided to ignore it, and dove into that forbidden portal into my past.

Going through those unedited short stories, novellas, poems, and journal entries was like sifting through high school yearbooks and prom photos. Opposing emotions compete together: acceptance and regret. On occasion, it tickled certain memories, causing me to smile. But more often then not, it planted a sharp, hard slap, sending streaks of crimson across my face. Picking up a stack of poetry, I read a few of the titles, and cringed--I could not bring myself to read through the verses and stanzas. Then I pulled at another stack, and discovered journal entries from college. Something about an infatuation I had for someone who was not interested in me, written as a letter to them I never intended to send (oh good God! the entitlement and condescension--what the hell was I thinking?) I Followed that awkward moment with some loose papers haphazardly shoved into a hanging folder. They revealed some pretty pretension and ridiculous notions I had about philosophy and life in general. Shivering, I shoved those back into the shadows.

This stumbling about like a remorseful fool continued. A paragraph about some snotty freshman girl in my dorm, that made me realize how obnoxious I was to some people. A silly poem about a lighthouse, and some child running up to it. Then more amateurish attempts at reducing the world to lyrical prose. A quote I took from some Russian writer, and the personal rant about how I am alone that it inspired. Some ramblings concerning the stupidity of other people on one page, followed by some description of an embarrassing mistake I made on another. And littered through all of it, cheap souvenirs bought at the shop of prophecies and premonitions: so many colorful trinkets celebrating life-changing revelations, whose flaking painted surfaces scarcely hid my inevitable failure to follow through on sworn promises and lofty intentions. A graveyard of adolescent musings, complaints, observations, and wishful thinking.

But the humiliating search and rescue finally paid off. Nestled between a collection of college papers, and some random story outlines, was the children's story that I referenced in my early texts with my good friend. Smirking to myself, I pulled it out. During the process, two stapled packets decided to tag along. Both turned out to be works of fiction from that same class. One, a fifteen page short story. The other, a forty-two page novella. Both were only supposed to be four to six pages long, and both were written the night before they were due. In the end, my ninth-grade English teacher, who would end up being an important high school mentor, never bothered to punish me for failing to follow directions. It was the very act of writing those two works, and her positive response, that started me down this crazy path of exposing myself through writing. 

For me, those two stories are the foundation of my journey as a writer.

And that children's story? After finding it, I started reading through it. Halfway, I stopped. Skipped the rest of it, as I headed for the ending:

Somewhere, deep within a dying forest, stands the ruins of a tower. To one side would be a pile of stones in the shape of a person. To the other, a bare spot, marked by an outline of once living tree. It would be a silent place. Yet, if one listened carefully, one would hear, floating on a passing breeze, the heavy sigh of a lonely, forgotten wizard.

Sigh. Sounds just like the kind of ending my fifteen-year-old self would have written to a children's story.  

(to be continued...)