Why I didn’t write more in college

So far we have had superhero phases for grade school, junior high, high school, and then even though there were graphic novels in mind for college, I had no heroic roles. I did not even give myself a part in UI Trek. To be fair, I wasn’t an RA. I guess I could have been an alien. Ultimately I did not develop the story beyond what I posted, and honestly, I wasn’t developing much of anything.

It’s not that I wasn’t coming up with any new material at all. I had sketched out some ideas for two animated films. One was a version of the Snow Queen, and one was about homing pigeons used in World War II. They were not strong ideas though, and I have about one song from each, and that is it.

I also came up with ideas for about five LDS romance novels, and my vampire script went through some changes, though none of those changes were really left by the time it became Hungry. There was the introduction of one new character, and some of her traits ended up going to Selena, and some went to Christine, but you would not really recognize her in either person.

I think there were a few reasons why this was the case. One is that I was in college, and that takes up a lot. Writing essays and research papers and dialogues and all of those things was about what I could manage. I didn’t do much pleasure reading either, because there was just too much required reading to do.

What I did more of was drawing, which did not take as much. Granted, I’m not as good at it, either, but that was okay. I remember once I was sketching the lights of the buildings through the trees at dusk, and someone thought it looked like they were banana trees. (I was kind of going for impressionistic, but still.) Clearly, it was not my forte, but it worked. I could do sports posters, or spend a little time drawing, and then get back to studying, and if I had gotten into real writing streaks, that would not have worked the same way.

Drawing UI Trek would have come to close to real writing, and the limitations of my ability would have been more of an issue. I always had concerns about making one character consistently look the same, where you could always tell it was that person. In this reading section, I am seeing that the professionals don’t always succeed at that either, but they still come closer than I would. The Purple Man keeps changing his width, but I guess you still know it is him because he is the only purple one.

Besides all that, and this affected everything, there was a technology issue. I don’t write well by hand. I hold my pen awkwardly, and I know it is a bad habit, but it is deeply ingrained, and I am not sure that I can change it. My hand cramps and ink smears and I don’t get very far.

For my first three years in college I used a typewriter, and that was what I used all through high school and junior high too. With typing and writing, I had minimal output. I completed homework.  I also completed stories for friends. I think I wrote five for Danielle, always with her ending up with Nick Rhodes, and two for Ericka (one with Tim Farriss and one with MacGyver), and a spy one for Elizabeth where the love interest was just a regular CIA agent, not a celebrity. Because there were other people involved, I finished. With things that were just for me, I would get started and trail off.

For my senior year in college I finally broke down and brought a computer. That made homework easier, but it did not have an obvious effect on the rest of the writing because I still had homework. Senior year was tough. My father left my mother, one of our RAs died, I tried out for Jeopardy for the first time (failing, obviously), and I still made Dean’s List twice. There wasn’t really time for creative writing.

Still, when I graduated I took that computer home with me, and I hit job crises and my possible second adolescence, but also, I had tools, and my life started to normalize, and so it was not long before I wrote my first novel. Okay, that’s my only novel so far. Nonetheless, it would not have been possible without the computer. It was around that time period that I also found my next super identity.