I don't know why I was thinking about this, but when I was in the 7th grade, I wrote a story. It was an assignment that was put up on the chalk board, we were to pick a topic and write a story about it. I chose to do mine on a character that had run away from home.
This boy, Bobby, ran to the Bronx where he met up with two shady drug dealers, Ira and Snake. Now Ira and Snake were not all bad, they did encourage the boy to return home by the end of the story. They had convinced him that the life they led was not as glamorous or as satisfying as Bobby thought it was. They asked him if he was sure he wanted to live as they did, with no families, not knowing where the next meal was going to come from etc. etc.
Well, my writing was so good that it got me called on to stay after class. The teacher wanted to talk to me about my story. She thought that I had based it on fact, that I was actually the main character in the story and that I was telling it from first hand experience. (LOL! umm...yeah because at eleven years old I knew how to find my way to the Bronx. Hell half the time I couldn't find my way to my next class much less out of the state.) Seriously it took me about 15 minutes to convince this woman that I had indeed made it up, she was ready to call my parents and talk to them. LOL!
Throughout junior high and my Sophmore year of high school, I continued to write really long, good stories for English class assignments. My teachers found them entertaining and believable, I was a straight A student in English. Then in my Junior year, I got HER for a teacher. Mrs. T was a hateful, bitter woman. Everyone that had ever been in one of her classes despised her with a passion. I didn't dislike or like her, I actually felt nothing toward her. Until it came to the one creative writing assignment for the semester, then I wanted to strangle the wicked witch
The assignment was to be 5 pages long, hand written. I loved to write so it was no problem for me to whip out one awesome story, except it was like the little energizer bunny, it kept going and going, before I knew it I was up to 12 pages. We always had to do a rough draft in pencil before turning in the final copy, just so Mrs. T could see how we were progressing. When I handed in my story to be looked over, the old bat had the gall to tell me it was too long and I needed to bring it down to 5 pages. So, like a good girl, I did what I was told and my story suffered a horrible rewrite.
Mrs. T critiqued it with red pen all over the margins, with scribbles that said stuff like, needs more detail, explain the relationship, blah-blah-blah. In the original 12 page version everything was detailed and tied in nicely, but I had to shorten it. If I remember correctly I got a C on that paper and my writing was never really the same afterward.
I used to be good at creative writing and now I am not. It took me writing a daily blog to notice that my creative edge is gone. At this point, I'm not sure it will ever come back, it has been 25 years since I was in high school and to just now notice it was gone...I dunno. The writing ideas used to flow through me so easily back then and now it is a struggle to come up with an interesting blog post. Half the time, I resort to posting things that were forwarded to me in an email, the other half I am putting up a video I found on the internet.
The only thing I will say and I've said it before, the music videos/songs that I use usually relate to something that I am feeling or experiencing or they remind me of people I know and what they are going through. Now that I've thought about it a little more, the forwarded emails that I post from time to time, they usually express what I am feeling or how I think. So in a way, I guess that I have found ways to express myself. I am just using others words and writings instead of conveying my thoughts and feelings through my own writing.
I might have exaggerated about the amount of emails and videos I use for posts, but that is just me being me. :D A good number of my posts have been written by me from my heart about people that I love and care deeply for. Sometimes I can still reach deep down and pull out a good expressive piece of writing, but the instances are few and far between.
Hopefully I can find a way to get my creativity back. I didn't realize how much I missed it until I remembered a boy named Bobby and a story I wrote way back in 7th grade.
Have a great day!
Hugs~Felinae~
