It’s the way the page bends beneath your fingertips. Or the way the pen taps on the desk, waiting to write your next thoughts. Or how your breath catches whenever you think of that one, perfect line that will send your character into their next adventure. It’s that feeling you get, that impression of rightfulness and pride, as you scurry to jot your sentences down on paper, trying to get the words down as fast as your brain is yelling them at you.
I remember the excitement I felt when I realized what was forming in my brain. I remember the giddiness as I grabbed my computer and started to write. I only had two things in my mind at the time: the main characters, and a vague plot. The ideas in my head didn’t make sense; the theme seemed too wild, too uncertain. But I wanted it. I wanted the blank Word Document to be filled with the ideas wracking my brain; I wanted to see the dialogue of the characters instead of just feel it. Curiosity was bubbling inside of me, begging me to seek out this adventure. So I did.
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I found myself in an entirely new world. A world filled with friends, enemies, love; one with flashbacks, flash-forwards, sunshine and endless rains. I wrote and I wrote, thinking that I was just going to write a page or two of vague, loose ends. I could not have been more mistaken. Seven hours, 52 pages, and 15,100 words later, I finally awoke out of my trance long enough to sit back and stare, flabbergasted at the endless amount of words I had created. It amazed me that all of this and more was inside of my brain, waiting to be written, tired of being stuck against the walls of my mind.
I read the story I had created about my characters, who I quickly became infatuated with. I giggled at parts I thought were funny, cringed at others that I quickly deleted, embarrassed by either a lack in sentence structure or at a line I thought at the time seemed perfect, but now just didn’t sit right. I got giddy from how fast my heart was beating, by how overcome I was with emotion. I had the characters’ points of views switch throughout the 52 pages, and I remember having to make the sentence structure different, or the mood a different tone, making sure each character was distinctively different and unique. I played with the syntax, I unraveled the constraints of formal diction—and I loved every single moment.
My curiosity to write led me to a new world, a dimension I never expected to experience. It led me to a place that I made up all on my own, something that was secretly, amazingly, uniquely my own. I would have never imagined that a will to write would end up being pages upon pages of a book that is still in the making to this day. Because of this curiosity, I now have a hard copy of something I made, all by myself, something that is solely and irrevocably mine. Because of this curiosity, I was led to the daunting and exciting path of becoming, hopefully, a future published author.
Curiosity leads many people to many places every single day. A curious biker wanders down a new path and finds a herd of a deer. A fish finds a new color of coral, investigating its depths. A reporter is curious on a new subject matter for an article, and writes a piece that gets her the jump start she needs. There’s endless possibly for what your curiosity can lead you to, a plethora of ‘what ifs?’ that can be unraveled only if you’re brave enough to open the expanse of your mind.
My curiosity led me to a new world of my own imagination, one with ink, parchment, and wordy riddles.
What about yours?
