My favorite class in high school was Creative Writing. It was a one semester course, and it was one of those classes a teenager would be actually willing to report to every morning at eight a.m. As much as I loved it, the class didn’t come without its challenges. I tend to be a rather meticulous person, and I like to make sure I follow the instructions given. If I have another idea or want to do things a little differently, I ask.
“Is it okay if I don’t follow the instructions exactly?”
Ms. Arda, our teacher, answered without missing a beat. “This is Creative Writing! Stop following instructions!” She paused to smile at the four writers who sat around our table. “But, if you don’t know where to go, follow the instructions.”
In Creative Writing, instructions were more of guidelines – there to give us a place to go when we were lost but not to hinder our quest for creativity, or rather, our quest for ourselves. Creative Writing told me that who I am is worth exploring, that only I see the world as I do. I write, Ms. Arda taught, because my story is worth telling.
Stories and writing have been a part of my life ever since I was little. I learned how to read early, and from then on reading became my favorite pastime. In our house, instead of being told to turn off the television and go read a book, my siblings and I were told to put down our books and go play outside. I knew my favorite books backward and forward, and I had my own library card in elementary school. Reading programs at school or the library were simple – I read more than the required amount anyway. Stories were my treasures; they were and still are a part of who I am.
That love of stories eventually led me to writing. My two best friends and I were among the very small selection of middle schoolers who chose to play pretend at recess instead of racing to get in line for four square. Our three nameless characters went on adventures to save our imaginary world from impending evil, borrowing from our favorite stories as we went. As we moved from elementary to middle school, our world began to stabilize. The vague locations became specific settings; our characters gained first names, then last. One of my friends started writing our story, leading the other two of us to write it along with her from our own characters’ perspectives.
My first foray into the world of writing was, to say the least, terrible. Over the next few years, that story would go through draft after draft, some of which were improvements, most of which had more plot holes than they had plot, and none of which got past the second chapter. Even so, that first story of my own was important to me. It became a part of my story. Like the books I read when I was little, it became a part of who I am.
If middle school was where I first discovered that I was a writer, then high school was where writing grew into something I loved. My first high school class was English 1, coincidentally taught by Ms. Arda, who would later teach me Creative Writing. Through that class and the English classes that followed, my teachers encouraged me. I began to write more outside of class. I attended Calvin’s biennial Youth Writing Festival as a freshman and again as a junior, organizing the group myself the second year so that we could go. I took Creative Writing. I submitted work to Scripta, our school’s annual art and literary publication, every year of high school. I participated in National Novel Writing Month twice and completed my novels both times. I actually enjoyed writing and revising most essays.
Then, the spring of my junior year, I took the ACT that included an essay. The writing section was scored out of twelve points. When we practiced in class, I earned a ten. On the actual test, my score was a six. Seven or so months later, I took the SAT with the same result.
I’ve said before that my writing is a part of who I am. Those essays were standardized, the prompts were dull enough that I don’t even remember them, and I didn’t have enough time to put in the work I usually give to my writing. Even so, those failures are a part of me. I’ve succeeded and failed in many places, both within the realm of writing and without, and they’re all a part of who I am.
While my writing is only a part of who I am, it’s also something that seems to connect all these different parts of me. I would not be the person or writer I am today without the people who have encouraged me along the way. My family, friends, and so many others are essential characters in my story, whether they provide me with instructions or remind me that it’s okay sometimes to let them slide out the window. This story isn’t one that I can walk alone. As a human being, I am meant to be in community. We all have our own stories, and we are all a part of a larger story that we walk together – God’s story. My writings, my story, and my very self are founded on Him. They, and I, belong to Him and are in His hands.
I still have that first story I wrote back in middle school. A few drafts of it are scattered around amidst the old files on my flash drive; the one on my computer is hardly recognizable as the same story that I began in elementary school and put to paper a few years later. In some ways, this draft isn’t very different from the others – I like to think it’s an improvement over the last one, though it still has plot holes and it still isn’t past the second chapter – but that’s okay with me. I haven’t touched it in a long time. Maybe one day I’ll make it better, patch up the plot holes, and finish it. Like the others I’ve written, that story is a part of who I am, and I am a child of God. His story – and as one small part of it, mine – is one worth telling.
