Zachary McGinnis Instructor: Malcolm Campbell English 1103 August 27, 2013 Room 301

The thick smell of tar hung in the air as students filed into the classroom, finding their desks in preparation for class. But we werent moaning like zombies as they would in any other class, their buzzing voices made the intercom announcements inaudible. Football jocks were in the corner chatting up the artists and the rappers were making good conversation with the dancers. There were no barriers separating the class, no bullying, only we were a united machine, working together to produce the best out of each other. Being interested in engineering, I typically took all of the science classes I needed along with the higher level math. Creative writing just seemed like another class that would help boost my GPA when I was sitting in the crowded counselors office filling out my schedule. The reason I signed up for it is that I had heard that the teacher was a great guy and that the class was fun, not to actually become an avid writer. A lot of my friends had signed up for the same class so it was looking like we would be up to our usual shenanigans and just cause trouble in class. But on the first day of school when we were all huddled together in the hallway frantically exchanging schedules, I realized that all of my friends had been placed in a different period of

creative that I had. Without knowing anybody in the class to start off, I was anxious about the first class. Over the months of summer, my high school had been trying to redo the roofs of my high school, but had failed to complete the project so the first time I stepped into room 301, I was slammed by a heavy odor that swallowed me whole. The air was thick and I immediately began to worry if the entire year was going to be this uncomfortable. Looking around, most people in the class were seniors so I was one of the youngest people in the room being a junior, so I began to worry if I wasnt going to make any friends. In big black letters, the words STARTER #1 were written across the write board. Mr. Albright, our teacher, quickly explained to us that this was a time to free write about anything that was on our minds, just keep the pens moving. I had never really kept a journal or written on my own so I wasnt quite sure how to approach it. Being the comic that I keep trying to tell myself that I am, I decided to write a story about a man who had just eaten a burrito before starting a marathon run. I got a few laughs out of myself and thought for a first story, it wasnt half bad. When it was time to share, I wanted to be one of the first to read my story aloud. But slowly, after each person shared their story, my hand fell back to my desk. Other people were writing short stories about how a soldier was arriving home after being stationed in Iraq for years or about an abusive mother that was scaring her kids away. It wouldve been unfair to even compare my story with theirs. Even down to the details that they used made my story seem like a script out of Dora the explorer; just repeating the same thing over and over again until I thought that the readers would understand what I was trying to say. It was very challenging at first for me to get in the mindset of writing. Weather it was free writing, or trying to come up with a poem, I had to really dig deep to produce something worth turning in.

Week after week I started to feel more welcomed in the classroom and in turn my writing started to drastically improve. I started writing with much stronger detail and with more confidence as the number of friends I had in the class grew. I started to enjoy reading others papers and giving them insightful feedback on their writing which taught me how to improve my own. About a quarter into the class I had written countless short stories and class openers, but nothing longer than two pages. Mr. Albright did this to ease us into the flow of writing so that people didnt run out of the room crying their eyes out like a newborn when they saw our first major project. We were to write a short story longer than 2000 words about anything we wanted, anything at all. At the time that I first read the assignment off of the old, expo-marker smeared board, alarms started going off in my head. I knew that the assignment wasnt that long, but I couldnt seem to find a snooze button for the intense ringing in my head. I had never tried to write a story that long before and I was scared that if I tried to turn it in, the teacher would wrap it into a dunce hat and stick on my head. That night I sat down in the dimly lit corner of my room, hunched over the blinding light of my lap top monitor trying to come up with something to write. I tried casting a fishing rod into my imagination to try and see if any ideas might bite, but the good ideas just seemed to swim away after stealing the bait. After one very long, agonizing hour, I had a total of three things written; my name, the date, and the word the. As pathetic as I knew it was, nothing seemed to enlighten me about a story. And then I heard the unmistakable voice of Tom Hanks coming from the downstairs television. I began to listen the slightly audible voices from one of my favorite movies The Green Mile. The floorboards that were creaking underneath me gave the sound just enough room to reach me and after a few minutes, my fingers went to work. They flew from one

side of the key board to the other in a drastic fashion. My eyes were unable to keep up with the paragraphs that I was producing on the monitor in front of me. It had all hit me all at once, I was watching my story unfold in front of me. It was as if the hours of fishing finally paid off as I effortlessly reeled in to find a monstrous fish on the end. My story was coming to life. All of a sudden the walls of my room disappeared and what was left were the dull, shadowed concrete wall that imprisoned my main character. The guard towers looming in the distance shining its vicious light over the dead brown grass in the courtyard. This creation was pouring out of my imagination onto the page right in front of me. I could hear my characters speaking to each other with their rough voices, while looking into their dark eyes. I had never put this much effort into writing and it felt great. It felt more than that, it felt rewarding. As if what I put onto the page was giving me back something in return. When I had originally started writing, I was terrified that I was going to be well under the required word count. But while I got closer and closer to the end of my story; the climax growing ever nearer, I began texting my classmates asking if they thought that Mr. Albright would be mad if I was a few hundred words long. Never in my mind did I think that I had that kind of writing ability in me. I had never just let my thoughts pour out of me like that. I arrived the next day with my story in hand, proud of the work that I was holding. I had gone from writing about a marathon runner eating burritos to a well-developed story that was rich with details and with an unsuspected twist. But that wasnt the only twist that wasnt expected; as we sat down, Mr. Albright turned to us and said;

Alright class, I have taken each of your stories I received in my email last night and made copies of it for your entire class. I have taken your name off them, but now you can get the chance to get live feedback from your entire class. After his comment had finished, my anxiety came back to me. Thoughts like What if nobody likes it? and What if I made a huge grammar mistake that is super embarrassing ran through my head. All of a sudden all of my confidence just funneled down the drain and I was left empty. As the first few stories were passed out, I was crossing my fingers that my story would not appear on the hardwood desk in front of me. The last thing I wanted to happen to me in this class was to be judged. To make it worse, the stories that my class mates had written were great, no, exceptional. They were amazing, I was hooked on all of them when I was only two sentences in, and I couldnt put them down. Then the moment of fate happened as I all too well recognized the opening paragraph of the story that slid its way into my view. I tried to act like that words displayed in front of me were foreign as I peered over my shoulder to see how people were reacting to my story. Every time I saw a pen moving while marking something on my paper, I had a mini heart attack. Even though I had no idea whether or not they were positive remarks, or lines going through each paragraph telling me that what I wrote was atrocious (which nobody would ever do), but it still crossed my mind. This went on for about ten minutes until the lunch bell rang which gave me some time to catch my breath before we went over my story in the second half of class. Even though I tried to keep it out of my mind during lunch, I couldnt focus on the fresh quarter-pounder with fresh bacon on it (which is hard to resist) because of the thought of all of the negative feedback I might receive when I walk through the thresh hold of room 301. But all of my fears were for nothing.

The moment I got back from lunch I was hearing nothing but positive things coming from people around the room about my short story. Things that I never thought that could be said about my wring of all writing; it felt amazing. The teacher went on to describe the class the level of imagery and attention to detail that had been used in the story. I was utterly shocked because I kept scanning my paper in front of me over and over again because I had no clue in the world where these comments were coming from. That was the first time that I had felt a huge surge of confidence about my fiction writing. All through grade school we were taught about rhetorical analysis, responding to prompts, and formal writing. But this was the first time that something that was completely original, and something I could claim as just mine was received in such a high regard. Now it wasnt the best piece that the class produced by far, but it hadnt received a single negative remark. If it hadnt been for the workshop that had been done on my short story, I would have never been able to produce the amount of courage to start writing my own novel. No longer were things over my head when it came to writing, I could just let it flow.