It’s 7 PM on Tuesday night. I open my assignment pad. After all of my homework is done, I come to the hardest assignment which I saved for last—the essay. In my head, all I can think about is how I should’ve started it a week ago when it was assigned, or at least over the weekend when I had more time. But I know I have to get it done, so I brace myself for a long night of writing. I check my teacher’s website, and click on the link for the topic. I read out loud, “What are the main themes in the novel? How do they relate to our society?” I open up a Word document, take out my notes, and start typing half-heartedly. About half way through my body paragraphs, I hear my phone vibrate which completely breaks my concentration. Although I know I need to get this done for tomorrow, I can’t focus on the essay anymore. I immediately pick up my phone and start texting back my friends. Now it’s really starting to get late, and it comes to a point where I need to turn off my phone so it isn’t a distraction. I close all windows on my computer besides Word, Facebook included. I turn off the music so the thoughts can flow through my head more fluidly. An hour or so later, I finally finish. My eyes begin to cross, but I still need to proofread. There is absolutely no way I can do this without falling asleep. Somehow, I manage to muster the energy to read it over one more time. Everybody knows this feeling of having to finish an essay late at night, and nobody likes it. Sometimes it just seems impossible to express oneself and get ideas rattling off the brain.

It’s not the writing part itself that’s tedious and painfully dull in school assignments. It’s more the idea of being forced to write about something that one doesn’t necessarily want to write about. However, there is a whole other world of writing out there. It is something that is far from the type of writing that people do because they are forced. Creative writing for fun creates a different feeling altogether. It’s 7 PM on a Friday night. I don’t have any plans, so I decide I’m going to do some writing. I sit down at my computer, and open up a Word document. In my head, all I can think about is how I’m so excited to finally make this idea that I’ve had for weeks come alive. I wish that I’d had the time to start sooner, but school work has been keeping me busy. My fingers start striking the keys rapidly. I’m thinking of so many different aspects of the story simultaneously, that my hands are finding it hard to keep up with my brain. Apparently, my phone vibrated multiple times. I don’t hear it. I don’t need to exit the windows on my computer, because I’m focusing so intently on my story. I’ve created my own little bubble in which only fictional characters and I exist. I don’t realize it, but hours have gone by. I’m not sure where all of the time went, because it seems like it was just a few minutes ago I sat down in front of my computer and started to type. After awhile, it begins to get so late, but I don’t care. I don’t want to go to sleep. The story is getting really interesting, the plot is thickening, and I don’t want to lose my train of thought tomorrow. My eyes begin to cross, but I don’t care. I’m thinking I want more than anything right now to finish it tonight. I think to myself that I should finish it soon, but because I want to, not because a grade is depending on it. This is what I want to write about, not what I am being forced to write about by a teacher. Unfortunately, this second feeling of writing is one that isn’t as popular as the first. When one is writing for fun, time just flies and it’s so easy to have trouble stopping. The thoughts don’t stop coming, and the words don’t stop flowing. When one gets really into the piece they are writing, they sort of get a certain high, which only comes with the creativity that writing uses.

Everybody has had to write essays and paragraphs and stories with set topics for school before, and there is an obligation to call someone strange if they thoroughly enjoy it. Most of the time, in writing for school there is no emotion involved, and the only point in doing it is because someone is telling you what to write about. Every sentence structure has to be perfect. Every word needs to be spelled correctly. No fragments. There are to be no run on sentences in an assignment for school even if it does make your idea that you’re trying to get across stronger and even if the writer thinks that the effect of the run on sentence adds a lot to the story or essay or assignment. However, in creative writing, you don’t need to try and live up to anyone’s standards but your own. Grammar--who cares? Sentence structure-- what’s the big deal? When writing for fun for your own benefit, there are no rules. Anything goes. One becomes engulfed in the story world that can be anything you want it to be.