Creative Writing Program: RPI

So, last week I went to a creative writing day camp at RPI, a "writer's retreat," as it was called by our instructor, Tammy Ellis Robinson, editor and creator of Skribbler's magazine. It was one of my favorite weeks of the summer. I got to meet a lot of great people just as in love with writing as I am, all around my age. I was really surprised to see how good some of the other writers were, and to be honest, I was a little intimidated by some of them. Everyone had amazing story ideas that I don't think I could have thought of, then again, my story idea surprised me a bit, too. Looking back, I now realize that I never would've thought of or written the short story that I did last week without this "writers retreat." We learned to take little things, even one word like "ear" and turn it into something with great possibility. I now know that a good writer can make a great story out of anything. It's like we're little gods of our own paper worlds. Just like the real God can take a pile of sand and turn it into a man, we can now take one small word and turn it into a riveting story. Okay, so maybe not a riveting story, but at least a compilation of logical thoughts to be someday turned into a riveting story. Maybe. Sometimes we might just ramble on endlessly like I am now, so you throw that piece of paper away and start again. I'm sure that not everything Shakespeare wrote was golden. I bet you he threw away some of his crappy stuff, too. We all have to start somewhere. So my task for you, whoever you may be, is to start. Start doing what you love, even if you suck at it, keep going. You can't suck forever.