Our lives are all stories in some way or another.
As a creative writer, I see everything as a story. We have a beginning (our birth), rising tension (everything that leads to our decisions, small accomplishments and problems), climaxes (our biggest successes and failures), and resolution (our death.)
As of right now, I’m learning how to reach those successes as an introverted, indecisive person. My first step was during my junior year in high school, when I decided that some way, somehow I was going to go on the trip to Europe that a teacher offered at our school. I think we all have some sense of adventure, whether it’s reading a book, within our everyday lives, or traveling to see the world.
I have always had a love for travelling considering I lived in a small town my entire life. I knew I could never simply ask my parents if I could go. The trip was expensive. I knew I would have to save up all of my money from my seasonal part-time jobs, birthday, and Christmas to be able to go. I ended up achieving that goal, and thanks to graduation money, I had spending money too. I went on my trip and never wanted to go back, but college and adult life was calling my name.
If there’s anything I recommend doing, it’s going abroad.
My second step was to accomplish something big, my senior project. The senior project was required for every senior in the school in order to graduate and had to be career related. At the time, I wanted to be an athletic trainer, but because I’m not a people person. I decided to focus on a hobby: creative writing.
I was an avid reader and started writing stories in 2nd grade. I decided that I was going to self-publish a book, despite trying to save up all my money and doing the work of three AP classes. Even though with the previous novels I had written, it had taken me about a year to write. Thankfully, I was in my high school’s creative writing class, and it introduced me to Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month), which occurs during November.
To win Nanowrimo, you needed to write 50,000 words in a month (1,500 words a day.) I had to reach that in order to be able to finish my project on time. I wrote, where some days I achieved the word count and sometimes I didn’t. We wrote for Nanowrimo in class. Thanks to getting my wisdom teeth out during Thanksgiving Break, I did nothing but sit in the big green recliner in my family’s living room and wrote.
I ended up reaching 50,000 on Thanksgiving Day, but the thing was I wasn’t finished with my novel. I decided to take a two week break and aimed at finishing my book before the New Year. I continued to write with a 1,500 word count a day, and at one a.m. at the beginning of New Year’s Eve, I was on fire. I wrote over 5,000 words that night and finished.
However, the process wasn’t over.
I had to edit and figure out format for my novel. At the end of March, my book was officially up for sale. You can still buy it on Amazon if you really want to. (Although I only recommend buying it if you like romantic young adult novels.)
The third step was to figure out what I wanted to do in life. After I completed my novel, I had doubts on my want of becoming an athletic trainer. I love anatomy, but my personality just doesn’t fit the job. So at SOAR (orientation at Georgia Southern University), I changed my major to International Studies because I loved to travel. But because you have to learn a language and me freaking out in my elementary French class, I decided that I would never have the motivation to be proficient in a language in the way I need to be.
In the October of my freshman year, I decided to make my hobby into a career by changing my major to Writing and Linguistics. I decided I would make my dream of becoming a successful author the real deal.
Now in my sophomore year at Georgia Southern, I’ve learned if you’re going to order to reach your dreams, you just got to learn to make decisions and go for it.
