While growing up I never understood why my class mates despised English class so much. While I understood their hatred for grammatical rules and regulations (I am sure that I myself have committed over 1000 grammar faux pas in these few sentences alone), I had always extremely loved the idea of creative fiction. The only time I ever scored well on the mandated writing prompts at my school (another facet of English that I agreed should have been severed, maimed, razed, and destroyed in its entirety long long ago) was when the topic was that of creative fiction. As I continued through secondary education I saw that the levels of creative writing assigned diminished, and the levels of non creative pseudo-thesis papers assigned rose. I lost the drive to write at school. I still continued to write in my spare time though. This dramatic shift in academic tone also (slowly but surely) urged a major and revolutionary shift in my narrative voice as well. Long gone were the old days of stereotypical happy-go lucky hero boys prophesied to rescue the princess. In the heroes place the princess took over and took a chance to try to save her corrupt kingdom, often failing. I never really realized how allegorical my writing was of my everyday life. I was the nobility everyone thought could not help themselves, and every I tried to right a perceived wrong, it tended not to work out so well.

Once I graduated from high school I had assumed this trend was over. The world was my page and college would be the beginning of the metaphorical inkwell I would use to write upon it. For a time this held true. I was endlessly free to write...when I did not have class or extra-curricular obligations. I often run myself ragged trying to actively participate in as many art-oriented activities as possible. It takes a toll.

I first joined Odyssey for the opportunity to allow my voice to travel onward into the world and naturally spread in a similar fashion to painting with watercolor (the water pulls the paint as far as it can and if you wish for the paint to move further the slightest touch causes it to do so). I am a dreamer it would seem, at least in half of my thought processes. Odyssey does allow my voice to be heard, but it is not the appropriate medium for the stories I would like to tell. I am going to continue writing for Odyssey at least until I can find an outlet for my creative writing. Thankfully I can still build a readership. It is a start at least, and a start is all I need.