It's Almost All Over

College is, I mean. Not life or anything drastic. College. That thing I started going to about four years ago and have been struggling and succeeding and everything in between. I graduate with a BA in creative writing May 2nd. Crazy, right? Yeah, I know. But it's happening, and I'm getting there. Oh, and did you know I wrote a book? Well, it's a book, and I wrote it, but it's not a novel. Yet.

I have to make a portfolio to graduate, with some stuff from my school year in it. Writings and samples, you know. So I decided, using Blurb, to make it into a book. So I did! I made it a book! I wrote every word and designed the cover and did that contents and everything except print it. It's coming in the mail in a week!

It's Coming Up

As you (most likely don't) know, I am to graduate in May. As I keep telling people, that's if I pass my classes. Not that I'm in danger of that. I just like to keep a hint of caution. I will have a creative writing degree. It's, like, my dream degree. I didn't even realize how perfect it was until I had been in it for a while. But it all adds up.

• At night, I was the best bedtime story teller. 
• I ate up books; children's and young adult. Still primarily read those.
• I actually wrote a few 'books,' including a book that I bound in cardboard about a unicorn who went on a journey to find other unicorns. She meets a giant spider in the forest. (I had no idea about that movie, The Last Unicorn)
• I also wrote a little four page poetry book. I wrote on the front who illustrated it (me) and who wrote it (me). It was a thrill to see my name on a cover.
• My senior year of high school I got to take a lot of elective courses. From a catalog, I selected creative writing, and it was the #1 class for me. I spent hours on my portfolio, literally binding ten little books with a work each in them to all fit into one of those decorative books that open.
• In English classes, my essays always had a sense of self. I loved writing days.
• I worked in the library for a class period my junior year. Dear god, the smell of new YA books as they roll in and the satisfying crack as they are opened for the first time... 
• I would get more passionate about the creative essays than the research papers.
• I stay up on all the young adult book trends and authors and titles and such. Always have.

So you see, it was something in front of me all along, but I never really put it together. I wasn't even aware such a degree existed. I heard someone say it in passing and I just reached out and grabbed it. My major used to be vocal performance, because it was something I loved doing, but I didn't enjoy the technical side of it. I minored in it instead and took on the writing degree!

Over the years I have written dozens - if not hundreds - of stories and poems. I have written scripts and written critiques for my peers and worked on my own little novels. I edited other people's work and helped them out with plot and characters. That rush from seeing my name on the cover of something? Still totally there. Now I convert my Word documents into epubs so I can read them on my ereader. Flipping through and seeing my book, even if only I see it, is exhilarating. 

So after graduation, I don't know where I'll go. But I'll always have writing. And I will always know that I majored in something I really love.