Writing

I pulled out my writing prompt book again today. What follows is the story that came out of it. I don't think I like it, but I'll post it here anyway.

--->This is a story, fiction, not something that happened in real life.

Writing

“Sometimes I feel just like a gerbil, running around and around on his wheel!” I concluded.

“What sort of nonsense is this, spinning like a carousel, running around like a gerbil on his wheel? Why don’t you just sit down and write your story? Quit making it so difficult.”

My instructor had never been known for his sensitivity. However, he was particularly well informed on what sort of story sold to the masses. The last quarter before I graduated I had enrolled in a creative writing class. Our instructor seemed to not know the meaning of ‘writer’s block’ and had been giving me a hard time since the class began.

The last week of classes we prepared for finals. Our final for writing class was simple, so the instructor said. All we had to do was write a short story that included our favorite fruit. I wrote, what I thought was, a cute little story about strawberries having a conversation in the patch before being picked. I handed in my paper satisfied that I had written a story that would pass and walked out of the class.

A week after finals I went to pick up my final and see how I had done. The department secretary had all of the blue books and I collected mine. Opening the blue book I saw my grade. A “D” stared at me from the front page. I didn’t understand it, I had finished the story, there were no spelling or grammar errors, why a “D”? I asked the secretary when the instructor would be back and she told me that he had just left. I knew if I hurried I might be able to catch him in the outer hallway.

Running down the stairs and out the door I saw him a few yards away.

“You insensitive prick! We can’t all be such asses in our writing!” I yelled out to his retreating figure.

He stopped and slowly turned around. After looking at me for a moment he started towards me. My anger was quickly replaced with a growing sense of dread. What had I said? I couldn’t believe the words that had just come out of my mouth. All of the sudden he was before me.

“That is how you should write,” he stated.

“Huh?” was all that would come out. I was shocked, he wasn’t mad or upset at all, in fact he seemed pleased.

“You have been holding it all in. That was the first time I have seen or heard any passion from you. That is what your writing has been missing, passion. You don’t have to ‘be an ass’ as you put it but you must be passionate about whatever it is that you write. Never forget that.”

“Why couldn’t you have just told me that to begin with? It would have made the class so much easier.”

“Maybe so. But now you’ll never forget the lesson.” With that statement he turned around and again began the walk down the hallway once again.

Suddenly it all clicked. Passion was the key. If I was passionate about something then there would always be words bouncing around in my head. There would never be writers block because I would always have something to say about something I was passionate about.

He’s right, I haven’t forgotten the lesson.