editing « Robin Writes

A very strange combination of things has brought me to my current state of mind: Pixar’s Monsters University and the fact that I’m taking the GRE in less than a week.

I couldn’t tell you want GRE stands for, but I will tell you that this test is going to decide my future. For those of you who don’t know, taking the GRE decides if you’ll be going to grad school, or at least your grad school of choice. Now I know I can always take it again if I totally fail, but preparing for this test has given me the time to think about my future (when I should be studying, of course).

How does Pixar’s latest film tie into this all? The film follows Mike who wanted to be a Scarer his entire life. He looked forward to going to college just so he could study his dream job and be successful in his field. But after a series of events, he ends up having to leave the university and ultimately leave his dream behind. But over time, he becomes a Scarer without that college education and loves what he does.

Personally, I think the film promotes the idea that you don’t need a college education to succeed in life. Mike was so determined to succeed, and he did, but not in the way he originally planned. The film got me thinking about my own future and going to grad school.

For the past year, grad school has been my dream after college. I’ll finish my undergrad at SEMO and then move on to get my Master in Fine Arts at NYU. My thesis would be about fan fiction and I would have the ideal life of any writer living in the quarters of Greenwich Village.

But like Mike, I know that I can still succeed in the writing and publishing world without a grad school education. But when I was asked the other day why I wanted to get my MFA, my response was simple: I want to become a better writer. I wanted to go to grad school to give myself even more time to perfect my art. I feel that four creative writing courses during my undergrad weren’t enough to get on the level where I want to be. I want two years of schooling dedicate to my writing so I can become a master. I don’t care about the title of having an MFA or being able to brag about going to grad school. I simply care about the process of becoming a better writer.

Like Mike, I have this perfect dream in mind of who I want to be in ten years from now. But even if my dreams don’t go as planned and I end up not going to grad school, I know I can still get to where I want to be; just the path there will be a little different. So thank you Pixar for putting my own life into perspective.

Now, I believe I have some studying to get to.

As a writer, ironically, one of my biggest fears is writing a novel. There’s so much work and thought that goes into a novel that I find it all to be very overwhelming. Between characters, plots, themes, and everything in between, you have a lot to think about.

When I first started to take writing seriously, when I was in the sixth grade, I wrote three novels between the ages of 12 and 15. At the time, they were my pride and joy. I spent hours every day working on them and thought I was the next Shakespeare. I even imagined myself being on Oprah’s novel list and she would welcome me onto her show. At 15, that seemed so easy. You write a novel and you become famous. But as I grew older, I realized everything else that goes into writing a novel. Before I wrote for the pleasure of writing. Each chapter of my novels might as well have been short stories of their own. Sometimes the chapters didn’t even match up with the rest of the book. I was simply writing to write. It wasn’t until I was 16 when I realized everything that goes into a novel.

I started a new novel that I have still yet to finish. It was a teen fiction with a hint of the supernatural, so basically it would be a best seller if I finally finished it. At the time, I had so many other ideas and I didn’t do anything but write. Sometimes I would have two or three novels going at once. But that was before I discovered short stories and poetry. I thought that as a writer, I had to write novels. I didn’t think I could write anything else, but when I found poetry my whole style of writing changed.

I’ve been told that many of my prose pieces are poetic. Poetry is something that has always stuck with me and been a building block for my writing career. Without it, I don’t know where my style would be these days. But writing poetry is what opened me into an entirely new world of writing. There were verses and syllables to be concerned about. I didn’t discover my love for short stories until my junior year in high school. I wrote one short story that blew everything else I had writing previously out of the water. I then knew that short stories were my thing.

Ever since then, I’ve pushed novels aside. I figure that instead of spending months on one large piece, I can spend several months writing several short pieces. But recently, the influences around me have encouraged me to start writing novels again. I miss falling in love with characters of my own and their stories. I have so many ideas, I just don’t know where to start. But with a little help from the writing community around me and the experience I have gained over the past four years, I have faith that I can get back on the novel bandwagon and get it published. I will once again be writing to write, to have fun with words and characters, and to love what I do.