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"I have worked in the 'real world.' I have experience. I view every aspect of a situation. I can see the beauty in everything," I thought to myself. The truth is, I am stubborn. I thought, at age 23, I already had life figured out.

When I decided to go back to school, I realized there was a lot I was missing; like knowing where I want to go and how I'm ever going to make my money. Then, when I took creative writing, I realized there are things that will always be missing, but that I will continue to take on a different perspective of the world on a daily basis. It's a perspective I have grown to love and appreciate.

I knew class would be interesting based on the first day, when we were encouraged to lie. Instead of trying to only narrate my own life experiences word for word, I was allowed to use my imagination to create characters and situations. I made the choices and the changes, and I was pushed to be creative. That's the exciting part; as a writer, you are basically the "god" to your written world.

Poetry, a subject that used to make me want to get a root canal instead of writing it, ended up becoming one of my favorite art forms. I discovered that I didn't have to rhyme every other word or make a cute little jingle; I just had to write something I really felt. I wrote "Hooky," a poem about pretending to be sick just to stay at my grandma's house all day. My creative writing instructor decided our class should have a public reading of our work in the library. I read it, I cried, and I was all sorts of embarrassed, but I learned that things inside me, and my emotions were clicking, and it was genuine.

I still don't have life any more figured out, but creative writing has opened doors that I didn't even know were in my blueprint.

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