Finding Creativity Again....Maybe

Once I get out of law school, I am going to rekindle one of my lost passions-creative writing. This has been a lost art for me for a long time, so I should probably tell you about how the creative juices first got flowing.

Probably my first foray into this began in the fifth grade. I was attending a visual and performing arts school at the time. This was a new school in the Akron public school system that was made to bring in children with talents in drama, visual art, instrumental and vocal music, and dance. In the mornings, we attended what was called the "exploratory wheel", which meant taking each of these classes for about 6 weeks. Then, in the afternoon, we would each go to our "specialty" class, kind of like a fifth-grade version of choosing a college major. A small group of us would then work one-on-one with the drama teacher, learning about acting and the different types of performing arts, such as plays and musicals. Being around other people who were interested in the arts made me decide to try creative writing.

I started out small. Up until about 6th grade, I loved to play with GI Joes. I would draw stories about made-up characters represented by action figures (my favorite was "Powerman", a secret agent with different special abilities, sort of like the X-Men). By the time I had reached sixth and seventh grade, I was writing short stories about Gary Grant, a boy who took time out of his busy junior-high schedule to fight crime. Even though they were cheesy and kind of cliche when I think back on them today, I still smile thinking of all the fun I had drawing them.

By high school, I had read books like the "Chronicles of Narnia" and decided I wanted to write a fantasy story. Other books that had an influence on me growing up were "Redwall" by Brian Jacques, about animals (mostly mice) that fight off rat invaders, and a book called "Goblins in the Castle" by Bruce Colville. By the time I reached high school, about three or four years had passed since I had read them. This was enough time to start formulating ideas in my head about what would make a readable and entertaining fantasy story that would also be a lot of fun to write. I decided I would devote my free time to the project until I had a manuscript in hand.

Then came my sophomore year of high school. From here on, my focus changed to academics and extracurricular activities like choir, plays and musicals. This meant I had less, if any, time to think about creative writing. I gradually shifted to poetry, since it took less time and it was a more efficient way to express my thoughts. I still would work on formulating a story idea and characters every once in a while, but it gradually got pushed aside as I got closer to graduating and moving on to college.

Every once in a while, I think back to those old stories again, and how there weren't that many things I enjoyed quite as much as writing. It was just like reading a good adventure story, like "The Hobbit" or C.S. Lewis-something that really sparked your imagination and balanced out the more left-brained subjects like math or biology. But what kind of story will I write someday (and I will write it someday, even if I have to wait until I retire)? It will be a fantasy/adventure story, like so many others. But it will be my own, and I will find a way to make it unique.

Right now, I have continued to move on to other things, and the creative writing hobby I used to have has faded over time. But it's definitely something I would like to start working on again after I graduate, depending on how much spare time I have. So come 2008, I will be getting out that chapter synopsis again, putting pen to paper, and indulging my creative side once more.