My Dream. The Beginning, The Pause, and The Play

For the longest time, I have wanted to be a fiction author.  Not sure why.  I just did.  Maybe it was just my version of being a rebel.  Nothing says rebel more than sitting with a notebook and pencil and creating a story, right???

Anyway, last year I had the chance to actually start practicing my dream.  I went to Columbia College Chicago for, wait can you guess it?  If you answered fiction writing, congrats.  If you're answer was underwater basket weaving, sorry, that major is still in the works.

It was great.  I didn't just expand my horizons by being in Chicago (I'm from a corn field), I could actually see improvement in my writing.  Stories became longer without much force.  People seemed to enjoy what I wrote.  I was told that I was really good with getting into the details, which is apparently important.  I even made it through a whole semester of classes without freaking about how being at an art school was going to cause problems for my future and how I wouldn't be able to make it in the business.  I left that for my parents to tell me.

Actually, the making it in the business thing was a lie.  I was worried.  Self-doubt consumed me each and every time I opened my word processor.  But what could I do?  This was my dream.  It had been my dream since I picked up my first chapter book, Harry Potter.

And if the doubt itself wasn't enough, I received the grade for my most important class of the semester, Fiction Writing 1.  I got a C-.  A freaking C-!!!  To put it lightly, it hurt.  The grade put me into a mild depression, made me feel small.  Insignificant.  So I had to repeat the class, which, thinking back, was good for me.

My ideas for stories changed over Christmas break.  My writing style changed.  I was pretty much a different person.  I spoke up more in class (I think being quiet was the downfall of my first class).  I worked on my stories sooner, not much sooner, but a day was better than a few hours.  Low and behold, I finished the class with both an A and a recommendation to be in Fiction Writing 2.  Not too shabby, right?  Now what I assume you are going to be thinking is that I would return to the city, take my classes, and continue on until I graduate. eventually becoming the starving, drunkard artist... kind of like Hemingway, just without the success, I imagine.

Instead, I transferred.  Gasp! Right?  Why would I give up the chance to fulfill my dream?  I was already on the path, why deviate from it?  Well, I got scared.  That C- I wrote about earlier, it dug deep into my soul, poisoning my thoughts about what I might be able to do for a future.  It still does, as a matter of fact.  Then you add the talks about how students come out of school with debts as costing as much as a mansion in the '50s, parents who want 'best' for their kids, and anything else that could go wrong.  All of that and more was going through my head.

So I transferred.  Went someplace that was supposedly safe.  Cheap compared to Columbia.  Closer to home.  Boring.  Depressing.  You can insert other words that describe the makings of a terrible future.  Or you can call it what it is, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.  I can't even decide on a major!  And the classes... don't even get me started on the classes I have to attend everyday.  I have to fight to stay awake, let alone actually learning the material.  Facts come into my head and I really have nothing to show for it.  They may even go leave from the left ear, it's been feeling clogged lately...

I used to write. Create.  It made being in school worth while.  I learned and retained! the information that was being dished to us.  My history classes would inspire in me some actual stories.  You ever wonder what it was like to befriend a famous historical figure?  I bet I had a story in my head to give you their entire damn life, seen through someone else's eyes.

I think I am done with boring.  I stopped caring if I am going to be screwed if I go to an arts school.  I'm screwed if I stay here.  I'm screwed if I drop out all together and travel.  I'm screwed if I go into the military (I'm not exactly the type of person to be in the military anyways. GO PEACE!).  Because of previous generations, I am screwed.  If you are reading this and are a high schooler, college student, or graduate, you are probably screwed.  And it is all the baby-boomers fault.  But, at least for me, I am going to take something from them.

You're parents ever tell you to follow your dreams?  Reach for the stars?  Anything like that?  Well, I think it's time to start taking some of that advice.  That is why I will probably be returning to Chicago, to Columbia, no matter what others tell me.

 After all, I'm screwed one way or another.  I might as well enjoy myself getting there.