Shadows of Ink: This Is Who I Am (No More, No Less)

Oh my word, WRITING (no pun intended, haha). While I was in high school, I knew I had an interest in English, mostly reading Literature; and I had a growing interest in writing poetry. So I decided it would be a good idea after my freshman year of high school to adjust my schedule to English Honors and add in a Creative Writing course. Well, I did it and have never looked back.

English Honors proved to be far more entertaining and fitting for me than the English course I had taken the previous year. But Creative Writing needs far more description. The first semester was all about short stories, establishing our writing style and doing sensory observations (basically establishing a place you felt comforting writing and writing down all the things you observed about it in person once a week, so awesome); and the second semester was all about poetry and establishing all our weird styles and practicing different forms of fixed poetry, as well as free style. Well, after being completely hooked on that class, I decided to take Spectrum the following year. Spectrum is Creative Writing 2, which is basically a more advanced form of the previous class as well as the class that pulls together the school’s literary magazine (composed of student stories, poetry, essays, plays and songs). Since I was only a junior when that course ended, I decided to take it again as a senior and became the Advertisement Advisor and Art Advisor (I was requested to be one of the Magazine Editors in Chief, but they weren’t allowed to participate in class debates of whether a piece could be voted into the magazine or not, and I didn’t want to not participate, haha).

If anyone out there can’t gather this, Creative Writing left a huge impression on my life, and I’m nowhere near ready to leave it behind. Now I want to teach it and pass it on to other possible writers that are currently living in students.

One of my favorite writers, Stephen King, wrote a book called “On Writing,” which acted as a sort of memoir as well as a teaching aid for young writers to use to help pursue “the craft” themselves. I loved how King termed writing as a “craft,” and every since I have been phrasing it the same way. Call it plagiarism if you like; it rubbed off on me, as you might call a shadow of ink.

I should explain that as well. While I was in my Creative Writing classes, I had to submit a ten-page project at the end of each year as a compilation of my best work. However, I overdid it each time. The first two years, I produced small journal-sized books – the first 84 pages and the second 81 pages. Then as my final project of my senior year, I put together a full-sized book that was 187 pages. The first project I completed I called “Shadows of Ink,” which was a portrayal of how writing was beginning to rub off on me and how it seemed completely permanent. My hands, my heart, my mind and my soul are permanently marked with shadows of ink. I’m hoping to at least leave smudges on the minds of others. . .

Okay, so to warn readers now, this blogspot is for my thoughts about writing, for random ideas that readers (or future writers like myself) might be interested in, my pursuit of Bloomington’s program and how I am going to incorporate Creative Writing into my future classrooms. My other blogspot, “Just Trying To Be Real,” is more of a focus on just some of my random ideas – and definitely opinions – of what I think could and should go on in the classroom, whether or not I have previously seen it done before (for example, I have this weird idea that involves a ventriloquist dummy. . . intrigued yet?). However, both of them are a focus on me trying to be a strictly honest person. There’s a song by MercyMe called “No More, No Less,” which I’m sure you noticed in the title of this entry; and I really hold it as a theme song for myself. I am truly trying to be a “true” person with everything “written on my sleeve.” So if you want to get to know two very big parts of me, know this writing site (which may incorporate my art interests one day, too), my teaching site and hopefully someday my psychology site (if I ever get the time to get it up and running, haha). But anyway, I think this is enough for my second – but truly real opening – to this blogspot. Hopefully I didn’t scare all my readers away; thank you for sticking around if I didn’t.