Making Childhood Dreams Come True
When I was young, I read.
I read and read, no matter the time or the place. No matter if I was at a family gathering and all my cousins were playing without me. No matter if we were driving to California and all the other passengers were asleep. No matter if it was 12 o'clock at night and I had school early in the morning.
My parents encouraged this habit; they provided me with a handy book flashlight I could clip onto the cover so I could read in the dark and not keep my sister awake on the top bunk.
I traveled the world, experiencing life with the characters of my treasured novels. I went to Hogwarts with the rest of the witches and wizards. I journeyed to the underland with Gregor. I found Narnia with Lucy.
Admittedly, my focus remained with the fantasy genre for most of my childhood. As I got a bit older I was encouraged to read classic novels for my classes, and though I've desperately tried to commit myself to nonfiction or novels more suited for adults as I moved onto college, my love for the fantastic and magical worlds I learned of in my childhood stays rooted in my heart.
Although I've never been much of a writer, it was the dream of my childhood self to become a famous author one day. That dream was drowned in the sea of life trials (trials meaning the trivial problems that a teenager experiences, such as the first heartbreak and trying to understand AP Calculus) that hit me after graduating from elementary school. But one experience in 9th grade reminded me of my childhood dream, and has recently started occupying my thoughts again.
I was in Miss Schlosser's English Honors class with all the other students who actually cared about English, rather than the attention-seeking, ruckus-making preteens in my previous year's English class who cared so little about English that they would do all they could to ruin it for those that did (this seems like a broad generalization, and it probably is, but several times that year my deskmate would take off his shoes, shove his smelly feet under my desk, and fall asleep, so I feel like I have some evidence to support my claim). In that wonderful and fun English class, we were assigned to write our own short story. I procrastinated writing it until the day before it was due, classic teen that I was--though I'm fairly sure that I work 10x better when stressed. Anyway, although it didn't have to be more than 2-3 pages, my mind struck writer's gold that evening, and on my tiny little black laptop a whopping 10-page fairytale appeared like magic. It felt like I was on cloud nine after writing it, and I was convinced I would be the next J.K. Rowling.
To my excitement (and horror), my English teacher liked my story so much she decided to read it out loud for the whole class. I sat there with my head down on the desk, hidden by my arms to avoid the embarrassment of the romance I had written and all the grammatical errors my teacher had to correct as she read it to the class. But I was secretly proud.
That experience made me believe I was a natural at this writing thing, and I breezed my way through the rest of my English classes in high school and my college classes. But a natural writing ability can only get you so far... approximately where I am. I'm discovering my "natural writing ability" isn't going to cut it anymore. And if I plan to go to graduate school someday, I have a long way to go with my writing.
I digress... where I wanted to go with this post is to give some background about why I started this blog. I described my love for the fantasy genre so that my desire to write children's books would be apparent. And I shared my 9th grade writing experience to introduce my next blogpost: the story I wrote for the class!
You could say that I'm a one-hit wonder when it comes to writing stories, since I haven't written anything else like that fairytale I wrote in 9th grade. So I'm going to use this blog to practice writing some more stories with all the ideas that pop into my mind on an everyday basis.
So get ready for my first and only attempt at being an author, grammatical errors and all.
I read and read, no matter the time or the place. No matter if I was at a family gathering and all my cousins were playing without me. No matter if we were driving to California and all the other passengers were asleep. No matter if it was 12 o'clock at night and I had school early in the morning.
My parents encouraged this habit; they provided me with a handy book flashlight I could clip onto the cover so I could read in the dark and not keep my sister awake on the top bunk.
I traveled the world, experiencing life with the characters of my treasured novels. I went to Hogwarts with the rest of the witches and wizards. I journeyed to the underland with Gregor. I found Narnia with Lucy.
Admittedly, my focus remained with the fantasy genre for most of my childhood. As I got a bit older I was encouraged to read classic novels for my classes, and though I've desperately tried to commit myself to nonfiction or novels more suited for adults as I moved onto college, my love for the fantastic and magical worlds I learned of in my childhood stays rooted in my heart.
Although I've never been much of a writer, it was the dream of my childhood self to become a famous author one day. That dream was drowned in the sea of life trials (trials meaning the trivial problems that a teenager experiences, such as the first heartbreak and trying to understand AP Calculus) that hit me after graduating from elementary school. But one experience in 9th grade reminded me of my childhood dream, and has recently started occupying my thoughts again.
I was in Miss Schlosser's English Honors class with all the other students who actually cared about English, rather than the attention-seeking, ruckus-making preteens in my previous year's English class who cared so little about English that they would do all they could to ruin it for those that did (this seems like a broad generalization, and it probably is, but several times that year my deskmate would take off his shoes, shove his smelly feet under my desk, and fall asleep, so I feel like I have some evidence to support my claim). In that wonderful and fun English class, we were assigned to write our own short story. I procrastinated writing it until the day before it was due, classic teen that I was--though I'm fairly sure that I work 10x better when stressed. Anyway, although it didn't have to be more than 2-3 pages, my mind struck writer's gold that evening, and on my tiny little black laptop a whopping 10-page fairytale appeared like magic. It felt like I was on cloud nine after writing it, and I was convinced I would be the next J.K. Rowling.
To my excitement (and horror), my English teacher liked my story so much she decided to read it out loud for the whole class. I sat there with my head down on the desk, hidden by my arms to avoid the embarrassment of the romance I had written and all the grammatical errors my teacher had to correct as she read it to the class. But I was secretly proud.
That experience made me believe I was a natural at this writing thing, and I breezed my way through the rest of my English classes in high school and my college classes. But a natural writing ability can only get you so far... approximately where I am. I'm discovering my "natural writing ability" isn't going to cut it anymore. And if I plan to go to graduate school someday, I have a long way to go with my writing.
I digress... where I wanted to go with this post is to give some background about why I started this blog. I described my love for the fantasy genre so that my desire to write children's books would be apparent. And I shared my 9th grade writing experience to introduce my next blogpost: the story I wrote for the class!
You could say that I'm a one-hit wonder when it comes to writing stories, since I haven't written anything else like that fairytale I wrote in 9th grade. So I'm going to use this blog to practice writing some more stories with all the ideas that pop into my mind on an everyday basis.
So get ready for my first and only attempt at being an author, grammatical errors and all.
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