Why I Write

Clarence Stone

Writing 220

Section 002

 

I’m going to be very straightforward with this, I write to tell stories. I tell stories because I’m always thinking about them. Ever since I was in elementary school, I’ve had some kind of story in my head. I honestly think that was partially because I was by myself on a consistent basis. I am an only grandchild, meaning that not only do I not have any brothers or sisters, but I also don’t have any first cousins. Even though my family would spend time with me on a regular basis, there was still plenty of time to let my mind wonder. Most times when it would wander, it just created stories. However, many of these stories never left the place they were created. That was until I turned 6 and saw something that inspired me to talk.

 

In 1999, construction of the current Detroit Tigers baseball stadium, Comerica Park, had been under way for about 2 years. Finally in the fall of that year, the roads around it were finally cleared for people to drive around it. For some reason that I do not remember, maybe to see the stadium, maybe to go somewhere else in downtown, my granddad drove around the stadium. I honestly don’t know what my first thoughts were when I saw the stadium, but I know that the tiger statues and tiger heads you could see around the stadium were one of the coolest things I had seen in the city. All of a sudden, my mind started going again. I turned those tigers into the protectors of the city and they came to life during a fight against giants who had invaded the city for unknown reasons. Each tiger had a different power and was specifically designed to fight one of the new enemies. Honestly, thanks to the influence of action cartoons that had quickly taken up all my attention as a kid, this was not an uncommon story for me to create. It was a battle between good and evil with a bunch of superpowers thrown in there. I came up with stories like this all the time, but the difference this time was that there was an audience.

 

I told the story to my grandpa the entire car ride home. In what I am sure was an effort to not to stifle my creativity, not because the story was actually any good, when we arrived, he had me retell it to him so that he could write it down. By the time he was done, we had written a 5 page story that I am sure is still somewhere downstairs in his basement to this very day. Suddenly I realized I had created something, which was actually created from my own ideas. It was also the first time the thoughts in my head had become words on paper.

 

As I was only in Kindergarten when this happened, it was going to be a few years before something this impactful happened again. Even though I was doing a lot of writing through journal entries and designated writing time in my classes, it was still schoolwork, which for the most part was unmemorable. However, I continued to watch TV and read stories. From flying to controlling fire to being expert fighters, my mind was constantly thinking of different superpowers that my friends and I could have. The stories always involved how we accidentally got the powers and ended up saving the world. Yet, because I was slow at writing by hand, and the fact that my stories in my head were still scattered all over the place, I rarely wrote any of those stories on paper.  Then I learned to type.

 

My dad thought it was important that I learned how to type from a very young age. He was the computer expert in the family, no longer the case as of 2010, and realized that I would more than likely be typing out essays and book reports instead of writing them out by hand. So he bought me the “learn to type” software from the Jumpstart series. After a few weeks of practicing through the different games that they had available on the program, I eventually picked up on correct placement of my fingers and had memorized the keyboard. Finally, my hands were fast enough to keep up with my brain, and for one Christmas, I wrote a Christmas tale about Santa’s evil twin taking over for the holidays. They could both do magic and had been vying for control over the holiday for since they were born. It was the second story I wrote, and the sense of pride I felt inside my chest as I typed the final word is something I don’t think I have the words to describe. Since then I was never able to stop trying to do it again.

 

Over the course of my final elementary school and middle school years, I’m positive I started and failed to complete at least ten or twelve different stories. I’m not sure why these stories never finished. Maybe it was because I never had enough time. Maybe it was because the beginning, middle, and end of the stories weren’t organized. Maybe I just got bored. All I know is that I never finished any of them. Unfortunately, high school didn’t help things. Although creative writing was an option, it was only available through sophomore year and I couldn’t take the class before that. At the same time, playing baseball and watching other sports had become as important in my life as writing was. Eventually, sports took over completely, and I didn’t even notice that the only writing I did was for class. The stories kept forming in my head, but I simply didn’t have the time to write them.

 

Luckily I didn’t lose my love of writing and telling stories over that time period.  I didn’t quit writing; I simply took a hiatus. When I got to college, I finally had the option of writing stories again, and the moment I could take the creative writing class I wanted, I jumped at it. That class was a Residential College course called Narration. The only assignments for the class were to read a couple of short stories, and then to write our own. Finally I was in a place where I had to make time to write. Instead of being worried about misusing time that could have been used for something else, I was able to use that time specifically to tell the current story that was running through my head, and man was this one a doozy. Inspired by the series Supernatural, something I had spent the entire summer binge watching on Netflix, I wrote an 8-chapter story on the battle between the archangel Michael and Lucifer. It was the longest story I had ever written, and to my knowledge only the third that I had ever actually finished. I was incredibly proud about it, yet I haven’t let anyone aside from the professor of that class to read it. I don’t know if I am embarrassed about it, or am just concerned about the potential criticism that could come from multiple people reading it. I don’t know if I was just tired out after writing such as long piece, or if the stories in my head had just stopped. Either way, since finishing that story, I haven’t really had the desire to write any more fictional stories.  However, that is not to say that I do not still like writing stories, just that the type of story has changed.

 

The winter break after I finished my novella, I watched Michigan lose to South Carolina in the Outback Bowl. I witnessed my favorite Michigan player to watch the past 4 years end his college career on a last second loss. I didn’t want Denard Robinson to be remembered that way. So I got my laptop out, created a (new) Tumblr account, and started writing. I told the story of my first time witnessing him play, watching him grow though his 4 years at Michigan, and how he should be respected and honored by fans for years to come. It was the first sports story I had written.

 

That was the last “aha” moment. At that point I realized I still liked telling stories, but it was more fun to tell ones that were actually true. I realized that through my words, I could take subject, mold it into an image and present it in the best possible way. By doing that, I could present something in a different light, in my own personal way. While I was still writing about a real topic, I was still creating a story. And that is why I write.