and that’s on “Writer’s Block”

"You have about three weeks from today to complete this assignment. Lateness? F! Grammatical errors? F+! It’s illegible? Back to grade school you go! And if you plagiarize...you’re only PLAY-ing yourself. I’ll know right away. Class dismissed!"

The students ran, grabbed all belongings and raced outside to their designated “bestie”cliques...except for Karina, a silent sufferer of dysgraphia, who stood behind in utter disgust. Why you ask? Her handwriting was the bud of jokes in class. The classmates often compared her notes to that of a kindergartner. In addition, the teacher would join in on the action unaware of her ailment. And those instructions?! Felt like a passive aggressive shot at her handwriting.

“I’m tired of writing stupid essays for you!” she yelled to her teacher. He ignored her and to no avail, she stormed out of the class room.

Upon arriving home, Karina was approached by an angry mom and a little black book. “Since you HATE WRITING SO MUCH but can T-E-X-T so often, your phone is mine for the next month and this moleskin journal has your name written all over it. I expect it to be full of entries and if it’s not? No phone for you. You can’t allow your illness to consistently get in the way of progress. You’ve got to push it to the limit. Gen Z is so lazy!”

Karina grabbed the journal, and went straight to her room. Four weeks without Instagram or TikTok? No way to text friends? No YOUTUBE? It was the end of the world for her...at first. Until...

On the fifth day of this unique punishment, desperate to get her thoughts out to someone, she began using the journal as her personal “iMessage”. Every joke, any thought and any question that popped to mind, she wrote in this journal. It was relieving to know that no one would judge her handwriting. And for once, she allowed her creativity in all of its “illegible” glory, to shine through.

The relationship with her journal grew so intense, that she mistakenly abandoned the class assignment, filling it with personal prompts.

On the assignment’s due date, Karina gave the journal to her teacher and exclaimed “Because of you, I was forced to write all my life thoughts in a little black book AND lose out on IG. I hope you like it. Cause I did not finish your assignment. I need extra days.”

The teacher, irritated as ever, accepted the journal from Karina and randomly selected a prompt. The title? A Spin on Writer’s Block. As he read her entry, he was impressed by how well she formulated her thoughts. So impressed that he offered her a deal: if she allowed him to submit the journal prompt in a competition and win, she would receive an A grade as compensation. Determined to avoid extra work, she obliged.

A week had passed when her mom received a phone call from the principal asking to meet with both her and Karina.

Worried and confused, they sat in the office awaiting bad news. Karina had no clue what she could have done wrong but if the principal called it had to be bad right? Or so they thought.

“Congratulations Karina! Your journal prompt was selected as a grand prize winning story and I have something to give you. Take this envelope and open it.” Karina opened the envelope and immediately bursted into tears “$20,000! Mom! $20,000! My sloppy handwriting got us $20,000! How?!”

The principal chuckled. “Mr. Morden signed her up for a competition and used a journal prompt from that book you gave her as punishment. Turns out...you were on to something.”

Her mom then responded, “Ain’t nothing like a mother’s intuition to cure writer’s block.”