A Dose of Nostalgia

“A+ I can hear your voice through your writing!”

This was the note my fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Burns, left me on the Write a Paragraph About Your Family assignment.

Reading this note was extremely validating for me as a young writer.

However, this wasn’t the first piece I ever wrote.

Let’s go a little further back in time.

We’re in Mrs. Armstrong's second-grade class, and I’ve been reading non-stop! I started reading the Junie B. Jones series, Beezus and Ramona, Goosebumps, and Animorphs. While reading, I fell into the worlds these books created. I’m a visual thinker, so reading was like watching TV during school. At a young age, I wondered how people could write and make something like this. Just create whole worlds out of the creative ether. (Ether is a fancy word I know now, but not when I was in second grade.)

In second grade, my favorite book was One Day at HorrorLand from the Goosebumps series. I know, I know. What is up with this eight-year-old reading this scary book? Well, what I appreciated from the story was the theme of a family working together to fight and survive their situation of being stranded at a Monster-infested theme park. I imagined my family and I strategizing our survival together, and deep down, I knew we would win. In my head, I pictured these monsters so surprised at my family's fighting skills that they would start begging us for mercy. Muahhahahaha!

Sunday nights before school were my favorite. Before bed, I would decompress my weekend by reading. (This is a routine I continued as an adult.) I took out my night light and opened One Day at HorrorLand, picking up wherever I left off. My room was my sanctuary. I had the typical early 2000s funky room. My walls were painted a calming and bright Cyan, with fuzzy lavender-colored pillows, a purple satin bedspread, and the tiniest night light so no one could tell I was awake.

As I’m about to get lost in the story, I start hearing yelling in the kitchen.

Oh man, my Sister and Dad are arguing again. It happens often, so I’m used to it. I set my book down and try to listen to what is being said this time. A few words (not good ones) were shared before my Sister walked out and slammed the front door. I rush to the window and see my Sister start her car and drive away. It was always a gamble when I would see her again. Tomorrow, next week, a month, next year. It depended on the type of fight she would have with Dad.

I head back to bed and try to read my book. It’s not happening. I’m wide awake now.

Then, I had the brightest idea! What if I try to write a scary story like R.L. Stine?

I grabbed a pen and my pink diary with a lock. It was so cute, it had a key and everything.

Okay, How do you start a scary story?

It was a dark and stormey nite.

Hmm. No. I don’t want to write about rain, because it’s not raining.

I’m blanking. I don’t know how to write a scary story!

I didn’t know what to write about, but I knew I had to write something before I went to bed.

Dear Diarey,

It’s night time. My dad and big sister were arguing again. Theyre always fighteng. I don’t know why theyre always mad. I tried to write a scary story like my goosebumps book, but its hard. Anyways. I have to go to bed or my dad might yell at me too. Talk to you later.

I closed my diary and told myself I’d write tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that. Eventually, that pink diary became full of my journal entries, and writing every day helped me develop my voice.

Now, almost twenty years later, I can say…at least I’m better at spelling.

It wasn’t until I graduated college I realized I used writing as a form of coping and escapism. Every writing piece before this realization was an educational assignment, like a college essay, thesis, or some type of academic paper. Yeah, I would write in my journal when I had time. It wasn’t anything grandiose, just me expressing my day in 500 words or less. I didn’t spend time writing for creative purposes till I took a playwriting class in my sophomore year of college and learned how to take my experiences and create visual stories through act structures.

After saying goodbye to the academic setting I've known for sixteen years. I began writing stories for myself. I started writing short stories, which led to short scripts and lead to short films. My perspective is all about writing from the heart and in the moment, not forcing anything out because writing is a form of therapy for me. With the chaos of life, I turn to writing to process the events that have played out in my lifetime, and when I showcase these pieces, I realize there are others who live through similar events. Within that, I find community.

These days, it feels like there’s an abundant amount of havoc happening in our world, and it can become difficult to process. Writing is such a powerful tool for expression, and I hope everyone is able to find their outlets.