I am calling for your help for suggestions and critiques. This is very important to me and I would appreciate any constructive input...in other words don't just tell me it's bad, tell me what I may do to improve it or what would be an awesome ending.
Again I remind you of the requirements for the essay:
1)2 single space pages (I have about two lines left)
2)Discuss reading and writing background
3)Why do I want to study fiction at Columbia College Chicago and Professional Goals
4)Story about self
5)MA/MFA goals in terms of teaching writing
And Now Here is my essay thus far:
I do not think I am being overdramatic when I say that if someone were to take all the writing supplies out of the world and make it so I could never write again, I would die. How long can a person live without air? I think I heard somewhere it’s about three minutes. Well, without writing it would probably be about three minutes until I fell over dead. Since I learned to write it has not only been my emotional crutch, but it has also been an involuntary impulse and a part of my life that is as natural as breathing.
Just ask my mother if you do not believe me, she’s the one who taught me how to write. We lived in Canton, Michigan on Longfellow drive, which was parallel to Whitman Rd and adjacent to Lowell Street. I am not talking metaphorically, all the streets in my neighborhood were named after poets. There was also a Whittier, Marlowe and Rand, the perfect streets to birth a writer. My mother was a teacher and her kids’ education took priority. She taught my brother and me how to write by our letters off flashcards. Before Kindergarten, I could identify and write every letter in the alphabet. Writing stories is how I would entertain myself, while my mother cleaned the house or cooked dinner. Only, even though I could write every letter in the alphabet, I had no idea how to sound words out yet, so I would constantly be shouting, “MOM! How do you spell….?” with every word I tried to write. Our house echoed with me shouting every two seconds. “MOM! How do you spell ONE?!” And then…“MOM! How do you spell DAY?!” Until I had written my entire story.
It did not come as a shock when my mother signed me up for story time at the local library, probably for some peace and quiet around the house. One story in particular was about a lonely brown bear at the zoo. He kept finding different colors of paint and painting himself with them at night, so the zoo’s visitors would crowd around him the next day, keeping away the bear’s loneliness. The librarian illustrated the story with a plastic bear container, pouring food coloring inside the bear to make him change the color he did in the story. At the end of the story, the bear became a little greedy and wanted to make himself brighter and more beautiful than ever. The naturally brown bear tried to paint himself with all of the colors but, all the colors mixed together just made the brown bear brown again. The next day, the brown bear had more visitors than he remembered ever having before, proving once and for all that the best and brightest color was his natural color all along.
I tell you about the brown bear because I tried on many different colors throughout my life career wise. Kindergarten through twelfth grade, I wanted to be a ballerina or scientist. After that in college at Eastern Michigan University, I studied to be an English or Communications teacher. I soon dropped that cmajor, after a magical study abroad trip in Italy, where I had transformed into an art history major. I was all set to graduate at the end of my fourth year in winter two-thousand-and-seven, when I was up late one night writing in my journal. When the words “I do not want to be an art historian” came out on the page. I stopped writing and was taken aback a moment. “What do you want to do then?” was the next line that came out of my pen. Looking around at all the journals I had filled, all the stories saved on my computer and the desk drawer that contained the manual script I was currently working on, the only response I could think of was “The brown bear is brightest and most beautiful when the brown bear is brown.” Writing was something I had always done regardless and I wanted to be a writer. I tore up all the graduation paperwork and hung the cap and gown in the closet to wait. I stayed at Eastern Michigan University a fifth year to study nothing but creative writing.
That last year at Eastern, I looked forward to my writing workshop classes where we analyzed and discussed the different factors of what makes a good story. I met a lot of uniquely brilliant classmates and professors that allowed me to examine my writing in ways I had not thought about before. However, at the end of the year I was left unsatisfied with my education. I knew there had to be more conclusions to draw about the factors of a great story that I had yet to discover and learn. My writing education could not end there. I waved happily as I walked across the stage at graduation when I received my bachelors, but I knew one day I would move on to earn my Masters of Fine Arts in Fiction Writing. The new problem was I began to drown in all the different application possibilities of graduate school.
Out of college, I worked odds and end jobs at coffee shops and libraries, but often found I was unhappy because these jobs lacked meaning. On my days off, I would work on my writing and find books to read that would improve my craft or help me get toward publication. I came across a book entitled Get Known Before the Book Deal by Christina Katz. She suggested I volunteer at community centers as a writing teacher and go to as many writing conferences as I could, the idea being that the more people heard of you, the more likely you are to get published. It turns out these were the best two pieces of advice I could ever be given, because they led to two very life changing experiences.
The first experience happened when I started volunteering at a non-profit literary center for children 6-18 called 826Michigan. There were a variety of programs this center ran such as after school tutoring, writing workshops and field trips, where classes would come and write a collaborative story at 826Michigan. I started by helping with the writing workshops and the field trips, but that soon changed. One day, when I was helping with a field trip of second graders, we let the students break off individually, so they could each write their own ending to the story that up until this point they had written together. I saw one little boy, Bradley, with his head down on the desk crying. I knelt down next to him. “What’s the matter, Bradley?” I asked. “I don’t know how to write.” He cried. I paused for a moment. His mother did not teach him his letters like mine did? “Why don’t you tell me what you want to say, and I’ll write it for you today?” He perked up and nodded. “I gotta lot of ideas!” Then, Bradley went on chattering about robotic mermaids and spiral spaceships. I wrote as he talked his little heart out. I was able to discuss the different elements of a story with him and his face that was dripping with tears just a half hour ago was glowing now. It was a very rewarding experience and the first meaningful thing I felt I had done since graduation. I told him at the end of our session that if he wanted we had after school tutoring where he could learn to write if he wanted too and I would even work with him. “Okay.” He agreed brightly, but unfortunately I never saw Bradley again. However, that is how I became an after school tutor at 826Michigan and began enjoying working with students of all ages on their writing. I would like to be able to work with more students in the future in order to discuss what makes great writing, because even though it is something that can be considered subjective, I believe there are specific elements that can be agreed upon and therefore need to be discovered.
The second experience was what led me to believe that Columbia College Chicago is the proper school for me. This summer, I attended the Interlochen Writers Retreat and took a four day journal and sketch course taught by Patricia McNair and Philip Hartigan. This writing retreat was one of the most happily freeing experiences I had since graduation. Patty and Philip mentioned that they taught at Columbia College Chicago and I figured that if the courses at Columbia were anything like the course that Patty and Philip taught at Interlochen, than earning my MFA/MA there would be tremendously wonderful. I also learned that Christina Katz the successful author who led me to these experiences earned her MFA/MA at Columbia College and I also took that as a sign to apply to Columbia.
My entire life, since my mother taught me my letters. Writing has been an impulse and I will always be a writer. Earning my MFA/MA would be the next best step for me to explore more about the elements of a great story and learn how to teach them.
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