This is going to be a short blog because my answer is... none!!
Outside of school that is.
I was a huge reader as a teen, but not a writer. I know there are girls who loved to write their deepest, darkest feelings in a journal and, as hard as I tried, I wasn't one of them. I have "journals" completely blank except for the first page, where I promise up and down to write something every day. I didn't. And I'm sort of sorry. I'd love to know what a teenage me was thinking back then, as my memories are bound to be revisionist in retrospect.
As a matter of fact, I don't have a single piece of writing from high school. In college I did a little, but only because I took creative writing classes. I didn't major in English and didn't even minor in creative writing because, while I loved the writing courses, I hated the literature courses that were required. I took a total of 1 and 1/16 literature classes in college (I lasted for four classes before dropping).
Hated the one lit class I took Freshman year. Then, senior year, I decided to try again. Ugh. Yuck. Why would I want to spend time being forced to read books I didn't want to read when I could read books I wanted to read anytime I wanted? So I dropped the course. Which meant going into my last semester senior year I was short a single credit that I needed to make up!!! (I'd taken summer courses at other colleges that made up for the rest of the credits).
Faced with a dilemma - add another course to my schedule or not graduate (not an option), I found a 2 credit course in Middle Eastern Dance. Otherwise known as Belly Dancing. Yes, I walked into the dance department for my first time ever my last semester of college. And had a great time belly dancing and learning all about the art of Middle Eastern Dance. And I graduated.
So, long story short - didn't write in high school; didn't write in college outside of class; didn't major in anything remotely having to do with writing or reading; learned to belly dance.
There you go.
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4 comments:
And look at you now:)! So how did you get into writing? And very cool on the belly dancing class. I always wanted to take an interesting class like that in college but never did. I thought it would've been really cool if they offered underwater basket weaving!
I took a belly dancing class, but my belly couldn't get the hang of it. It was fun trying, though.
The best book I remember reading in literature was LORD OF THE FLIES. It scared the crap out of me, but it made an amazing impression.
I'm with Danielle--I want to know what the turning point was that led you to a writing career!
I audited a modern dance class in graduate school, just to have something to do that was totally unlike reading James Joyce. I was almost as bad a dancer as a poet, but I enjoyed it!
I also want to know the turning point that led you to writing. But belly dancing sounds super cool. I have a bellydancing dvd but something tells me learning from that might be hard!
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