A curious child, she would ask why. She preferred to watch, listen, and observe instead of talking and playing. She would devour pages filled with Alexander the Great’s conquest through Europe, how earth was born, and story about a lady who would shrink, smaller than a silver teaspoon while babysitting a toddler. The girl preferred to read. Curious and bored at once, she lived inside her head. She was a monkey playing inside jungle gyms of her creation.
Life’s roller coaster of unknowns deflected her journey: deaths, moving to a new country, poverty, and the gift of language for mathematics. She excelled at math and science, eventually obtaining a degree in engineering. The analytical brain paid the bills, and the creative dreamer lay dormant.
Until she had to dig into shadows from which she hid, and awaken after a year of digging and sprouting. She started to write on anything she could get her hands on. Back of a receipts. Scrap papers. Laptop. Phone. Journal. Her mind. She would find loose leaf of paper scribbled with her illegible handwriting. Recollection of past thoughts. Reminder of human’s inflexibility to change.
She wants to write about her family spanning three generations. Her generation, her parents, and their parents. To serve as useful guides for her nieces and hopefully children of her own with a man she wants to share her life with. To chronicle the good, the bad, the ugly. Fights, laughter, sorrow, the art of starting over. To not let the same narrative survive. To break the cycle. To be grateful for those who came before us. Infinite decisions and actions that made it possible for us to be born. Every decision/hesitation matters. She imagines her writing outlasting her generation. Three years ago, she committed to write daily for a year. One word counted just as much as a well-developed paragraph. As long as she took small steps towards her goal. She got to day 250 before failing. She falls often, but she always gets back on the writing horse.
Benefits of the online creative writing course is to grow writing muscles she doesn’t have, as well as strengthening the ones she’s developed on her own. She wants to connect with other writers to support and challenge. Drive up accountability and mutual success. She wants to create a tribe of doers who tell engaging stories.
Challenges are plentiful. What fun would it be if it were so easy? She’s looking to change her career, to shift from operations to strategy. She reads more than she writes. She finds everything fascinating, but she must restraint her appetite, otherwise she’ll burn up like a moth attracted to night light. What else? She keeps physically fit and eat delicious and healthy food.
Her biggest challenge is herself. Her tendency to procrastinate. To not put her dreams and goals above everyone else’s. She suffers from engulfment and peace making. To succeed with the overall goal of writing, she’ll need to start being honest with herself and everyone in her life.
She is looking forward to the next eight weeks. She is ready to go.