Once upon a time, in 2002, I graduated from high school. In love with the prospect of becoming a writer and living like a bohemian artist, the thought of participating in higher education made me cringe. Thinking of my future, my mother cajoled me into applying to university. She argued: “Just get a degree. If you hate it, move on.”
So, because my mother had a few years on me and I trusted her wisdom, I decided to apply to three schools. To my surprise, I was accepted by all three. I’m not rich, so I lived at home while attending the University of Ottawa completing an Honours degree in English Literature.
While I complained incessantly for the first two years, all my relatives insisted that academia was [almost] the same thing as creative writing. I rolled my eyes at this perverse speculation. In fact, they are nothing alike at all! One is rigid, while the other is completely without boundaries. Academic writing is slow, methodical, painstakingly precise. Creative writing, on the other hand, is the exact opposite. Sentence structure is thrown out the window and coherence is optional. It’s playful, fun; it’s whatever you want it to be.
Once third year rolled around, I actually started to take this whole “university thing” more seriously, and eventually graduate school started to blink on my radar. Unfortunately, no one warned me that grad school would totally kill my love for books. When I finally completed my Master’s, not only did I have a nasty case of bronchitis, I couldn’t read anything more complicated than a magazine for weeks. It took about six months before I felt the desire to consume anything other than a John Grisham novel. Even then, it was touch and go. Of course, it didn’t help matters that I couldn’t sit for longer than one minute without having a coughing attack.
Quite simply, books made me angry. I would boil over with rage at the idea of reading a classic novel. Don’t even get me started on Shakespeare! My brain had been held hostage, taken over by my academic commitments, and now that I was free… I was too miserable to take advantage of the freedom I’d earned.
Eventually, the bronchitis dissipated. However, my anger did not. When I looked at a book, I’d feel resentful, as if they collectively represented my 1.5 year mental prison. As much as I learned in school, and as much as I enjoyed university, the expectations and the stress were permanently linked to the act of reading. I hated it.
As time went on, I acquired my first full time job as an Administrative Assistant after nearly six months of looking. Then, because life is sometimes strange and sad, my father passed away after an alarmingly short battle with bladder cancer. It wasn’t until this happened that I started to really think about what I wanted out of my time. I started to ask myself some serious questions: What makes me happy? What am I waiting for? I knew I wanted to write, that I wanted to contribute creatively in any and every form possible, but my nearly six years in academia had stifled my ambitions. Or, at least, that’s what it felt like to me.
In the spring of 2010, I started tinkering with the idea of a blog. Although I considered writing about fitness, which has been a passion of mine for over a decade, I knew that a book-inspired blog would keep me fulfilled in a way that school had fed my brain so consistently – except, without the deadlines and the stress. Tentatively, I registered for an account with WordPress and started to write.
The process was fun and creative, better than I hoped for. I was thrilled to discover that the book blogging community is home to such a fabulous bunch of readers! You motivate me to keep going when I’m tired, inspire me to read interesting, unknown authors, encourage me to stretch my mind with new and difficult books. I’ve made so many friends and, in some cases, I’ve had the opportunity to meet you in real life. Even now, when corporate life gets me down, this blog is my window into a brighter, less stifling world, and I have you, dear readers, to thank for that.
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This is a fantastic post, and although I didn’t get my grad degree in Literature (I did a dual in Mental Health & Marriage and Family Therapy), I did get my BA in Lit and recalled how THAT degree numbed my brain to all books I wanted to read. I could only imagine how strenuous a masters would be in that area. I used to joke with my friends that I couldn’t look at a cereal box without wondering about audience, intent, etc.
I am sorry to hear about your dad.
Thank you.
I can totally understand the cereal box conundrum. The analytical habits that english lit drills into your brain are hard to shake.
Thanks for sharing this. I always love knowing why a blogger started blogging. I wrote my own (very long) bloggy story a while back, and I’m considering reposting it soon. In short, it was because of a man and it involved spite! Thus, Estella’s Revenge inspired by the Great Expectations character.
That’s fabulous! Repost it; I’d love to read about your “spiteful” beginning.
Revenge is uber sweet.
Hello! I want to agree with you when you said that academic writing is painstakingly precise while creative writing is the total opposite. I write because I want to, not because I got a degree or something. But I’m planning on pursuing a career in writing. =)
Thanks for stopping by, nuelene! I hear ya. Academic writing is just not the same as creative.
Go for it!
And I’m so happy that you did start your blog and choose to write about books! If you only wrote about fitness I’d likely never have met you and that would have been very sad! I started my book blog because I saw other people doing it and was jealous of all the fun they seemed to be having
Thanks! Very true. That’s the best part of blogging: making new friends!
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