Episode Three: The Torrid Love Affair

So what IS this blog about?  Since the start of the Curve Zone I've been trying to articulate what this blog is about.  The challenge of expressing what this blog is about is that the blog's origin is very personal, but my intent is for the blog to be more universal in nature.  I wish for this blog to be one people can read and relate to; eventually I wish this blog to become semi-interactive. 

The Curve Zone, for lack of a better explanation, is about one woman's (mine) rekindled love affair with writing.  It is my chance to take the keyboard for a spin and see where it leads. 

When I was young I wanted to be a writer.  Essentially I had a fascination with stories and therefore I wanted to translate the stories in my head onto the page.  The apex of my writing was closely linked to the demise of said writing.  In high school I had a small circle of very artistic friends: writers, artists, musicians, and dreamers.  My friends would read my poems and short stories in the mornings before class.  We exchanged our pages and feasted on the thrill of our creative spark.  High School was also the time in which I lost the confidence to be a writer. 

My English teachers were not flesh eating monsters worthy of Hollywood sensationalism by any means.  The problem was, I received grades and red ink instead of feedback in which I could foster the evolution of my writing.  The main goal of essays at my High School was the presentation of proper MLA formatting.  Understanding when to use a semi-colon instead of a colon in citations is the death to the real purpose of writing- communication.  Writing was my first true love, my great passion of my youth.  But as the unsatisfying B's without instruction on how to temper my words flooded in my love affair turned sour. 

It was too painful to fancy any sort of career or future in writing.  There was always someone more talented than I.  Yet, writing remained the secret lover with whom I would often have chance encounters.  Passionate longing was always there in the back of my secret heart.  Longing to move an audience with my words; to transform the vivid creations of my imagination into literary works.  However, my low self esteem always tattered the delicate fibers of my love affair.  I would look back on things I had written dissatisfied and disenchanted. 

Writing quickly took reading with it in the downward spiral of hopelessness.  Reading the works of authors more talented than I was discouraging.  The benchmarks seemed insurmountable.  Paired with the drudgery of college reading assignments, for several years I read nothing for entertainment.  The less I read the less my exposure to the nuances of decent writing, to a more expansive repertoire of words.  It seemed as though my mind itself was beginning to atrophy and wither into oblivion. 

So here I am, a recent college graduate, flirting with the idea of rekindling the old romance once more.  What is the Curve Zone?  The Curve Zone is a chance for a jaded woman in her late twenties to present her life experiences, humor, thoughts, and opinions in a medium intended to be generalizable to other people.