Notes

The first months of fourth grade were full of an excited energy. I remember there was a great stir of enthusiasm among us. The English teacher, Mr. Smith, was going to have us play a long-running game. Anything with the word 'game' in it was enough to excite us. We all roughly knew what to expect; the kids who had been in Mr. Smith's class talked only about it. "It's a helluva lot more fun than regular schoolwork," I remember one boy saying, "sure, you gotta write, but I'd rather that than a boring old essay." They talked about a make-believe fantasy world, a dice, and story-writing. Hardly anything that would turn heads now, of course. The prospect of writing is enough to make anyone my age complain, no matter how enticing this fantasy world may be. However, as excitable 9-year-olds tired of the typical English class drudgery, we were delighted.

A couple of months in, we were presented with lovely little character sheets. I remember a slot for a name, species, traits, and a space where you could draw your character. I was practically vibrating with excitement. I found that I very much loved the prospect of being able to create my very own fantasy character. I sat in a huddle with my friends, and we chattered more than we wrote. I remember clear as day the name I chose for my character: Chara. That was the name of a character from a massively popular, newly-released game with which I had been obsessed. I scribbled something barely resembling a human in the box, and I gave her traits that I cannot now recall. The character creation activity was a massive hit with every single child in class. All we talked about in other classes was what we were going to do with these characters.

Mr. Smith then gave us a fantasy world to familiarize ourselves with. It was what you'd call typical. There were 4 kinds of "elemental" classes that you could choose from: fire, air, earth, and water. Our characters were on a quest. For what, I can't remember. Mr. Smith would put our characters into battles with enemies. We'd roll a dice to see how much damage we did/took, etc, and if your dice fell off the table your character would be knocked unconscious. It was a board game without a board. After playing through a scenario, we would all be given the rest of the lesson to write about it from the perspective of our character. I was in love with these assignments. They were the first time I'd ever had fun doing a school assignment, and the last time since. I still recall poring over the online thesaurus, looking for the fanciest alternative to color names and the word "said". I wrote in what I'd now call "sub-flower": an attempt at flowery prose that falls flat due to inexperience. Back then, the only "literature" that stuck around in my head enough to influence my prose was fanfiction of questionable quality.

Even though I was terrible at writing, I poured everything I could into it. Into the snipped, abrupt sentences; the too-long paragraphs; and the amateur-ish metaphors. I did it because for once in my life, I enjoyed it. This fantasy world was enthralling, and having my friends around definitely contributed to the fun. I still remember the moment I rolled the dice a little too eagerly and it went flying off the table. My excitement went to mortification in a second and I felt it so strongly I'm certain it was etched onto my face. Mr. Smith had laughed and told me that my character was now unconscious. I spent the rest of the lesson trying not to sulk. I was disappointed that I wouldn't get to write, or at least, I thought I wouldn't. In the end, Mr. Smith told me that I could write from the perspective of my friend's character, and that was the end of that. I had great fun describing my character from an external perspective. I took advantage of opportunities that I didn't have when writing in first-person.

Undoubtedly the single best moment of school career was when I was crowned "best writer". My photo was stapled to the board outside the classroom, along with a few pages of the things I'd written. I had never been more proud of myself in my short little life. I was very embarrassed by the fact that my photo was displayed (I am very un-photogenic), but it was trumped by joy. How could it not have been, when my parents smiled so widely upon seeing my photo on that board.

However, I don't remember this period of my life fondly anymore. My mother means well, but I hate it when she uses that "best writer" incident to try to goad me into writing. It reminds me that no matter what I do, I'll never really be that good again. I no longer have the wonder or passion that I once had. I suppose my interest in fantasy and story-writing simply faded away over the years. Some years ago, I went through my Google Docs (where all the writing I'd done was kept), and, in a fit of embarrassment, deleted everything. I regret it, now, since I can never read my past writings again, cliched though they were. I do not think that I'll ever be able to regain my passion for fictional writing again. Even now, my interest in reading is waning away. I can no longer sit down with a book without getting impatient. I suppose it just wasn't meant for me.