How College Stole My Creativity and Imagination

I love to read. Anyone who knows me knows what a gross understatement that is. Maybe this will help you grasp how much I am a bibliophile. When I was little, my idea of heaven was the library from Beauty and the Beast, but bigger. To a ten year old me, heaven was nothing but a giant library that I could spend eternity reading in. One of the reasons I love to read is the ability to connect with the characters. And on stories that I really connect with, I have always been able to create a spinoff story involving.. well, me of course. Most nights it was how I put myself to sleep; imagining myself in ancient England, Ireland, Greece, Hungry or maybe a futuristic planet, or the wild wild west or anywhere else my imagination wanted to take me. (if anyone said Middle Earth, they’d be right, I have an entire story involving a certain female addition that would have made the books, not better b/c Tolkien was a Master, but.. different.)

Beyond that, I have a group of friends that like to occasionally (usually over the summer) like to collaborate on stories. We come up with a general plot and then we all take a character and play with different off shoots of how the story could play out. It helps build creativity and keeps the writer in all of us sharp.

Having made you aware of the entire back story I feel important to the explanation of the title I shall begin.

I graduated at the beginning of May 2010. The summer before several of my story friends started talking about doing a new story over the summer of 2009, we talked about it, but it didn’t come to fruition. Which I didn’t cry about, I felt absolutely drained and not at all capable of coming up with any sort of basic plot, let alone an plot devices or twists to enhance a story.

And of course there was Campaigns class, which was the last “real” class I had to pass to graduate. I did pass it, though I could have done better and put together a better campaign. Several reason and changes I could have done to do better in that class. However a large part of it I’ve come to realize is that I don’t think I had the creative power to come up with anything without the help of my team. (Particularly Mr. Coode and Mr. Patterson)

Over the course of College Career (five years), the University sucked out all of my creative juices (ok…. That and maybe you know the working full time). All of my creativity was put into trying to write exactly what my professors wanted to hear, to get the grade to graduate, to figure out exactly what was going to be on each test so I didn’t overload my brain and meltdown from the class load. (minus Ph.T’s class. She’s fun and I love her and hers was only the good kind of stress. IF anything I let her down in that class and that I am truly sorry about cause she is probably the only teacher at the University that I actually cared whether I let her down or not.)

So I was thinking about it the other day, because the issue of doing a group story was brought up again, and I realized that I couldn’t write a story or character background if I was payed to. Then I realized… I hadn’t had a truly original story line in at least two years. It really made me depressed. I missed that side of myself. I missed lying in my bed at night thinking up new adventures and people, just to fall asleep and dream the rest of the story.

The good news is, I had a break through today, and had the idea of a beginning structure of a story. And that is a great feeling.

So college may not have permanently stolen my creativity, but it definitely forced a sabbatical.