Why I Write

Elephants
Elephants are big and fat.
They can squash you into a mat.
Elephants are gray.
Most of them play.
They are nice.
They step on mice.

I wrote this poem in first grade. It is the first thing I recall writing, and I wrote it for a class assignment. That teacher had us write a lot and I loved it. That poem, along with one I wrote about clowns, was published in the school-wide creative writing anthology. The poem above won first place in my age group and the other won third.

I remember writing a story in about third grade about a princess who, while walking in the woods, lost her ring and was helped by a talking cat. They spiral-bound it, with a cover and title page (they misspelled my last name), and I was very proud of it.

The summer after sixth grade, inspiration hit and, for the first time, I wrote something outside of a school assignment. It was a poem about a boy in my class and it was painfully repetitive. The poem was called "Someone" and started out "Someone sees you, someone cares, you're not the only one out there..."

From then on, I continued to write poetry "as inspiration came." I collected over 100 poems by high school, before ever taking a creative writing class.

Then, first semester of ninth grade, I was taking creative writing and I was ready to wow the teacher (she was notorious for being tough and using lots of red ink).

Then, there was Graham. He transferred into our small "family" (about 100 students in my grade, 500 in all) and I was smitten. He looked a lot like James VanDerBeek (from Dawson's Creek) and dressed like he'd stepped straight from an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog cover. Tragically, though I didn't find it so at the time, he sat two seats in front of me in creative writing.

I learned nothing; I accomplished nothing. I drooled and daydreamed and squandered that precious time away. In the class anthology at end of the semester, Graham had a short story about a nursing home and a poem about his heritage. I had two bad poems about Graham. I couldn't tell you what anyone else had in there, I didn't look.

Luckily, my dad changed jobs the next December and we moved an hour away. I was bitter and depressed for the rest of tenth grade. I visited my old town whenever I could arrange for a ride and I still obsessed over Graham.

I went to a poetry reading at my new school and met some interesting characters. They were gothic and depressing and twisted, and I loved them. I read a poem or two and we planned other readings, but they never happened.

That spring break, my grandma and her husband came to stay with us. We went to a poetry reading at a cafe and to a writer's conference together. By now, I knew I liked writing and had a feeling that I was pretty good at it.

The following summer I got a job at a summer camp with my best friend, Nylda. A lot of stuff changed there, all for the better, and I came away wondering where writing fit in with all this new stuff. I think I only wrote one or two poems all summer.

As high school went out, I wrote poems on an irregular basis. Then I graduated, went away for the summer, wrote a couple poems, then went to college.

Only then did I have to think about what I wanted to be. All along, I knew I wanted to write. I knew that wouldn't fly with my dad so I decided to be a Spanish teacher. No, an English teacher; no, early childhood ed. Wait, radio; what about music engineering? All right, I'll be an English major (non-ed). Writing will be my minor, just a hobby. On second thought, I'll double major in English and Writing. That sums up the past three years of college.

In that time, I've taken a magazine writing class and two creative writing classes. I'm registered to take a third creative writing class and a novel writing class, both next spring.

I want to go to grad school. I want to get a degree in creative writing (M.F.A. or Ph.D.) and teach it at some college. I want to write novels and poems and short stories and article after article. I don't harbor aspirations of stardom or riches. I wouldn't know what to do with either. I don't care if I make money with my writing and I know that sounds bad, but I don't do it for profit, not primarily.

I write because there is something inside me that leaps out when I put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard). I take the time to go back and edit because I respect my readers.