Introduction

[rosaioko]

Well, I'm here now, and have run and deleted some random test posts, so I suppose I should explain a bit.

In 11th grade, we did a whole bunch of practice college essays, one of which I titled "Dreamer" which I felt was as much of myself as was ever put on paper.

It could probably use some editing, but I can't edit worth anything, so it's staying as is. So, ladies and gentlemen,

Dreamer

 

I am a dreamer. I have always been a dreamer. Most of my life has been spent with half my attention on the real world, and the other half off in my latest book, or the last movie I saw, or sending the characters from either the book or the movie off on an adventure of my own choosing. Having a new story in my head every day, or maybe even replaying an old one. I can count on one hand the times that I have been completely focused on the ‘real’ world:

Chatterbox Dance, eighth grade. Music pounding, in my mom’s old velvet dress, dancing with my new friends, singing my heart out.

Standing at the bow of a cruise ship, speeding across the ocean with the wind in my hair, and nothing but ocean in sight.

Sitting on a boat off Grand Cayman Island, racing across jewel-blue Caribbean waters to the sting ray sandbar, laughing, warm sun on my shoulders, wind in my hair, everything smelling of salt and sunshine; pure glory.

My first time behind the wheel of a car (panicking).

And that’s it. Seventeen years of life, and only four times, just four, that I wasn’t off somewhere else. That I didn’t have a daydream in the back of my head.

When I was little, I would shut the door of our family room and put on music, and walk. Just walk around and around and around our couch and chairs. Sometimes over them. Up onto the fireplace, the bay window. When my parents looked in on me, that’s what they saw.

But that wasn’t what I saw.

I saw myself in magical lands on a dragon, or in the book that I had been reading that morning. Fighting alongside the power rangers (an old obsession). Racing across fields on a horse, inside a magical castle. I could be anywhere. I could be everywhere. The family room was a magical place. It would stretch out, and change, and there would be people and places and anything that I could want. And it only did it for me. Only I could see it.

Even now, if music is playing, my dreams will take shape, following the beat, the rise and fall of the melody portraying the emotions of my character. Or other characters. It is never just music. Not to me.

It’s because of all this dreaming, all this imagining, I think, that I find creative writing so easy, and so fun. All I have to do is take one of my daydreams, one of my stories, one of the pictures in my head, and put it on paper. And I’m so much more picky with those stories, because they have to be perfect. Because it is my dream and it was in my head and I want everyone who reads it to be able to see what I see. To be able to hear and smell and feel every bit of my dream, the way that I do.

Granted, I do have to alter them. My dreams star the characters that are other people’s making. From books, from movies, from mangas and animes. I change them just a bit. A new name, a new appearance, perhaps. But the same personality. I make them just the slightest bit mine, just a bit, so that I can keep the dream that I want to express.

I truly love creative writing.

But I love fanfiction even more.

Because with fanfiction? I don’t have to change a thing.

Since I am not sure if you know, fanfiction is when a ‘fan’ of a certain book or TV show or movie, takes the characters and the world and the ideas of that book or TV show, and writes their own version. Or continues the book or story. Or goes back and changes it completely, deciding to write what could have been, instead of what is.

Some of these stories are good.

Some are terrible.

And some are absolutely incredible. So incredible that it is as though the actual author decided to write a fanfiction of their own book.

These stories can never be published. They cannot be recognized in the ‘real’ world.

But they are perfect, for me.

Except for one thing.

A few years ago, I decided to write a fanfiction – a crossover, or a mix of two or more books/movies/etc. So I took a dream that had been in my head for a while, and I started to write it out. But then I got busy, and the site wouldn’t let me post my chapters. So I stopped. And the dream faded. Once I put it on paper, once I had it out of my head, it faded. When I went back to try and write it, not only had my style and my interest changed, but the dream was gone. I couldn't remember what was supposed to happen next. I didn't even recognize the character that was based on my best friend! So now, I’ve learned. I keep my more precious dreams to myself, and never write them down.

Creative writing is so easy for me, and fanfiction is just another creative writing story. I run into problems, though, with the analytical essays.

They are so much more specific. Thesis, body paragraphs, quotes, correct grammar, the proper flow. It's so structured. I’ll want to say something to express something and won't be able to fit it into the essay. It won't match my thesis, or it will change the topic of the paragraph, or it just won't fit in with the rest of the essay. What’s the worst situation is when I have to write an essay on a book that I hated. Because I’ll have no desire to write the essay. I’ll have had little to no interest in the book, I’ll have disliked it, but I’ll have to write the essay anyways. It is nearly impossible. It is for those essays, that I always procrastinate. And stare at the blank WordPerfect document for half an hour trying to figure out how to start. Or start, and then get stuck halfway through.

And revising is the worst.

Because I’ll go back, and I’ll see things that I want to change, but I don’t know what to change them to so that it still works. Or something won’t flow right and I won’t know how to fix it. Or I realize that my thesis doesn’t work with the rest of essay. Millions of problems, and just writing the darn thing once was hard enough!

I try to plan ahead. I do outlines. Ask the teacher for help or inspiration. Try to twist the topic to suit me.

It mostly does not work.

But I try. Very hard. Extremely hard. And usually manage to scrape together something passable in time to turn the paper in. In my mind, the only good thing about writing an essay on a book that I didn’t like, is the fact that we won't be reading that book any more.

I will read the books that we are assigned this year.

I will probably read ahead.

I will do my essays and my homework and try to learn the vocabulary.

But I won't like all of them, and you’ll probably be able to tell when I don’t. It will probably be obvious in the essay.

I apologize in advance. I’m sure they’re all wonderful works of literature, and have great cultural meaning, but most of the literature I’ve read in class so far, has not been to my taste.

My taste is Tamora Pierce, JK Rowling, Patricia Wrede, and Anne McCaffery. Eoin Colfer, Meg Cabot, L.A. Meyer and Diane Duane. Fantasy. And magic. My taste is Yoshihiro Togashi, creator of one of my favorite manga-turned-anime series, Yu Yu Hakusho. And Natsuki Takaya, Fruits Basket. Yoshiyuki Tomino and Hajime Yadate, Gundam Wing. Hiromu Arakawa, Fullmetal Alchemist. Those are the authors that line my bookshelves. That I go to Barnes and Nobles and sit and read for hours. That is my taste. That is what I go back too, what I write about in my fanfictions, and where the characters for my dreams come from. Those people. Their books. Their TV shows.

Their worlds.

Their worlds that are funny and full of crazy coincidences. Their worlds that are full of magic and battle. Their worlds that portray the ‘normal’ world that suddenly becomes abnormal. Only in their worlds can the Grim Reaper turn out to be a blue-haired, pink-eyed girl floating on an oar in a pink kimono who says “Bingo” a lot. Only in their world can there be a family that’s cursed to take the forms of the Chinese zodiac when hugged by a member of the opposite sex. Only in their world can mankind be already living in space. Only in there world can there be Speech, a language that all things (living and nonliving) understand. Only in their worlds can there be off-planet wizardry exchange students and vacations that take you halfway across the galaxy. Where your dog discovers new universes. Where there are elves with technology living under the earth’s surface. Where dragons are ridden and used to patrol, where a girl can have a power to understand every animal, where an eleven year old boy has a birthday in a hut out to sea, and is greeted by a half giant who starts fires with a pink umbrella, that is where I am. Every day, every minute, half of me is there. In those daydreams, in those stories, in those worlds. Half of me is always gone.

Granted, the other half is sitting in English class reading The Scarlet Letter like a good little girl, but every day, every single day, half of me is off with those characters, with those people, running free.

And it is there, Mrs. ~~~~~, that I find my voice.

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