I love to write. I better; after all, it is my major. I’m not sure I would have discovered this passion if not for my school’s fourth-grade requirement. I would have continued to be an avid reader, but I don’t think I would have attempted to create my own stories.

In fourth grade, my elementary school introduced the concept of writing to its students because the state had decided to test out the new Writing FCAT (Florida Comprehensive Assesment Test). I hated math, especially since fractions first appeared that year, but writing was a new subject that I was curious about. We had workshops that taught us the format for a proper expository essay: hook in the introduction, first paragraph, second paragraph, and the conclusion. The hook was my favorite part because that was where I could use my creativity to whip up a flash fiction story. Daily journal prompts that were meant to be only a page long became pages.

In middle school, eighth grade was the year of the very important, overly stressed final Writing FCAT. A new style of writing was taught – the persuasive essay. Now, essays were required to have transitions and quotes or statements of fact instead of fictionalized hooks. I was a bit upset about the dampening of my creativity, but my teacher was excellent. She focused on the variety of ways to strengthen her student’s writing skills and techniques such as developing a better vocabulary.

I wrote some short stories, but I mostly read in high school. Other authors’ influences greatly improved my writing, but it wasn’t until senior year that I actually learned and practiced fiction. It was the first and only creative writing course offered and I was lucky to be accepted into the limited class. The most impacting lesson I learned was that I could break the rules of traditional writing. I didn’t have to follow the format that I had been taught and I didn’t even have to write complete sentences if it showed the character’s personality. This is when I finally began writing what I was reading.

In the first two years of college, I took an ENC1101 course focused on the literary impact of food in writing. It was a fun class, but the final was a six-page essay on the topic of food. The options were the generic topics of GMO modification, healthy eating, or vegetarianism. But all those years of fostering my creativity through writing led me to look for something interesting while still complying with the guidelines. I wrote about the diets of animals compared to that of humans and presented the information in the fashion of a cage match. Each paragraph introduced the contenders and their abilities. For instance, the pen-tailed tree shrew can drink its weight in fermented palm nectar and not get drunk while humans exceed the proper blood-alcohol level rather quickly. The little rodent won that round, but, in the end, humans and animals tied. This class taught me that I could apply my skills to make a boring subject interesting.

Finally, I made it to UCF and took my first major-specific classes geared towards creative writers. All I can say is that they have been the most valuable classes I have ever taken. I was able to learn not only from my professors but also my peers. I was taught that word choice and placement can affect tension and setting can mirror the protagonist. I have learned so many lessons through writing and I am grateful for every day I can write one sentence more.