When
I was in the third grade we had to write creative stories for class. My imagination is what got me through that
assignment because I could always think of the most bizarre scenarios and
stories. The story I wrote was about a
group of campers who encountered a werewolf. It was about a page and a half
long with barely any details just the outline of what happened. From then on, I wanted to create fictional
stories that appeal to all ages, for the rest of my life.
“Devin,
you could be a real author someday if you can keep creating stories like this.”
Mr. Santos (my third grade teacher) told me, after that I thought of other
ideas. I thought of a ghost story that involved two brothers who were the only
people in the house that could see and understand what was going on. The
parents were too old to see what was happening around them, the kids had to
figure out how to get rid of the ghost on their own. The idea was great;
however, it was being able to write it in a form that could be expressed as a
novel that screwed me up.
I
began reading books like Goosebumps, or Dragons Don’t Throw Snowballs,
trying to open my imagination even more and take it to a whole different level. I only read the books that involved the
mythical creatures that I loved such as dragons, ghosts, werewolves, vampires,
etc. A lot of the stories I thought of however, were just my own adaptations of
the stories that were told about each of these creatures. I had the imagination to create my own it was
just that the stories I was reading were so much better and I couldn’t finish
one.
The
problem I had was keeping my thoughts straight in my head. I never just wrote
down my ideas because there was so much going on in my head that I didn’t have
a single outline. I just wrote down what I thought of in story form. I never could finish a story because one
thought would lead to another. In many instances, I would start a story and in
the middle of writing it start thinking about a whole new topic. As I grew up,
my imagination stayed the same, however my drive to write stories failed. I could think about it all the time, but getting
my thoughts on paper would never work like I wanted it to. Frequently I would
get side tracked, not being able to finish what I started.
Once high school came around I had to write papers for my
classes whether it be a book review, a research paper, or even my college essay.
I ran through the same troubles I went through when trying to write
creatively. I had so many ideas but
couldn’t get them on paper fast enough. It took me days to finish normal five
paragraph essays because I would always get writers block and not be able to
continue writing that day. Throughout
high school, however, I grew as a writer and learn how to focus on a topic and
jot down ideas as they come to me and from there build upon my actual
essay. Hopefully, as time goes on I can
get my creative writing skills back and be able to write any stories that come
to my mind in an organized manner.
