As mentioned before after the writing conference and the conversation with Margo Raab after driving her to the airport I have decided that what I really want is to continue studying writing by earning an MFA and possibly MA in fiction writing.
In life every idea comes from somewhere. It was taking a class from teachers at Columbia College Chicago at the Interlochen Writers Retreat 2010 that made Columbia College the first application I am filling out and sending off. I have completed filling out the basic contact information, transcripts, and sat down today with the intent of writing my self-assessment essay. most colleges require them, even undergraduate and I've probably written about ten similar essays in my life. Each time I always feel like the boyfriend being interrogated by his girlfriend's father asking the question "So what are your intentions?" Columbia College has requested the following information:
1) Discuss Reading and Writing Background
2)Why you want to study fiction at Columbia College Chicago? What are your professional goals? (See there's the intention question!)
3)Tell us a story about yourself
4) Upon earning your MA what are your goals in terms of teaching at the secondary or college level? (Intentions again! Goals and intentions--one in the same when talking about graduate school)
In my mind this means that the perfect essay to be accepted will be a clever and entertaining piece of creative nonfiction that coincidentally touches base on all of these questions perfectly, but in that case I feel as though I have to pinpoint the very moment I became a writer or answer what should be THE EASIEST QUESTION IN THE WORLD: WHY DO YOU WRITE?
I cannot think of a moment or illustrate when I became a writer because it was never a conscience decision, it was something I always did once I knew how...can a person just be born with the impulse to write?
But the truth is...I don't remember when it started. I remember my mom had these flashcards that taught my brother and me our letters and we learned to write the letters from these cards, but then we couldn't spell and I can still picture the little girl I was sitting at the dining room table trying to write a story without knowing how to spell anything. I would scream to my mom who was usually in the kitchen washing dishes..."MOM! How do you spell..." with every single word I would want to write. So I would shout "How do you spell...ONE?" then "How do you spell...DAY?" It had to be the teacher inside of her that tolerated it, thinking about how her sweet little girl was becoming literate one step at a time.
Now that's a story about how I learned to write, but it doesn't explain my intentions for Columbia College really. I could add on and continue by talking about when that little girl who shouted "MOM! How do you spell...?" all the time grew into her kindergarten nightgown and socks. Rubbing the sleepiness away from her eyes sat at that same kitchen table, but this time she knew how to spell...well not every word, but she was at least learning how to sound the words out. She would be hugging a stuffed animal of choice for the morning, usually her glow worm-but sometimes a teddy- and she would say "What kind of adventures are you going to get yourself into today?" And since her and the glow worm could go no where she would write down everything she imagined would happen to the stuffed animal.
These stories about me learning to write are still not everything I need them to be, I wish I had one solitary story about why I write, so as far as the essay goes I'll have to be stumped for now. In the meantime, here is a list of reasons I could think about my impulse to write:
1)"I really had no choice but to be a writer." -Tennesee Williams
2)"When One is nothing, One invents. It fills a void." -Diane Setterfield
3) Writing is a natural to me as breathing and I do not think I am being too over dramatic when I say that if someone took all the paper, pens and computers and made it so I could never write again I would fall over dead.
4)Writing relaxes me when stressed
5)Writing Energizes me when I'm tired
6)When put in writing things either get dramatically better or dramatically worse
7)There are so many stories in life that need to be told
8)There are so many things we imagine to be true that we can only make happen within the writing world
9)There are aspects of life we fear are true that shouldn't be and we can only triumph over them with the written word.
10)It's entertaining to say what you need to say on paper and have a million people read it, when no one would listen to you tell them.
I wish this essay was as easy as the one I wrote to get into library school, but the truth is it's not because there is not a single story or a single moment that can truly illustrate why I write. I just do it because I have too, and I always will regardless of who reads it or publishes it or if those two things never happen.
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