Poem Analysis: The Birth Of Casey Draughon

I, Becky Crain, submit this statement of call in hopes that it will convey my devotion to God, the gifts given to me by the Holy Spirit, and the fruits that follow my unending faith in Christ, my Savior. An additional purpose of this statement of call is to allow my continuation in the candidacy process toward ordination in the order of deacon within the United Methodist Church.

Writing was undoubtedly my first (and arguably final) natural talent to develop. Growing up, I did not find immediate success with athletics. For an awkward, gay kid who would much rather host a ball than catch one, writing granted me a confidence boost proportional to the dignity I lost on the field. Even in the classroom, I struggled to make genuine friends, my companionships often burning bright and fizzling all too quickly. My relationship with writing, however, has always been far more comparable to a fit of sincere laughter--slow to begin, impossible to

S.S. Carl D. Bradley Nov. 18, 1958, gone poof, pow, sunk. The wreck was never found, they saw 2 people in a life raft. They told us everything. 52 men dead in the water. Where in Lake Michigan could the S.S. Carl D. Bradley be?

Like most people, my love for writing grew from my love for reading. As a kid, I read everything I could; newspapers, flyers, ingredients on tin food wrappers to tattered comics from street vendors. I kept reading, and my appetite for the written word grew leaps and bounds with every passing year, but it never occurred to me that I could write, I did not write anything of significance until I reached college, until I stumbled upon online blogs, and thriving online forums.

I walk into my bright, and decorative bedroom after a long, and tiring day of school. Turning on the lights, I steer towards my dresser set to retrieve my previously sharpened pencil and partially filled notebook. I find myself sitting on my fuschia papasan chair. With my notebook in my hand, I slowly open it to reveal a fresh clean sheet of paper. With peace and inspiration filling my mind, body, and soul, I begin to fill its pages with tried attempts of poetry and eventful situations of my day. A smile forms onto my lips as I stare at it. Writing about myself and experiences was all I knew.

Why, Dad, I love you the bluest! I love you the color of a waves in it’s ocean. The color of a moon stone gem. The color of a bird soaring the quiet blue sky.

For me, writing isn’t just a hobby. Writing isn’t something I just do during my spare time or when I feel like I should be writing. It’s not something I do to get noticed, or a thing I do because I know what words sound good in what places. I write because I expected someone to make a noise that I knew I could make on my own. I waited for a voice to write what was in my own head for far too long. I write because not only do I want my words to touch someone's heart or

When I was growing up, I always had a passion for reading and telling stories. My mom has scrapbooks of my first stories written in awkward, over-sized letters complete with illustrations brought to life with crayons. Throughout my school years, I always had a book with me. The bigger the book was, the more I loved it. I was discouraged from pursuing a career in writing, but I had a passion for stories that only grew over time.

Have you ever had a person in your life that just points out all the shortcomings in your work? For me this was my 9th, 11th, 12th grade English teacher, Mrs. Paula Jacques. She would assign us work that was beyond most of our writing abilities that I myself at first thought was just to prove that we had no idea what we were doing. Part of this was true, but the actual reason and lesson did not come from the subject, but from the work.

I have always been a writer. I have written countless poems, short stories, argumentative speeches, and many others. Because

I have always enjoyed writing, perhaps not as much as speaking, but enjoyed nonetheless. I began writing in primary school, and I distinctly remember deciding in grade five that I was going to write a novel. This is an idea that sends shivers down my spine now, as the idea of writing creatively is not one that I like, to say the least. From that point I slowly changed from someone who enjoyed the creativity of writing fiction to the angry and cynical non-fiction writer I am today. The reason why I made this change is quite clear to me, and although it only occurred rather recently, I can identify its origin in my childhood.

The most enjoyable writing I have ever done is often times in a science or art class where I get to talk about what I am passionate about. Therefore, I am definitely more

Writing, since I was a kid has been the essence of who I am and who I was. It fun, to look back. To notice all the little things, all the misspelled words and oddly phrased writings of the years before now. People change over time, they grow and become something that they never were before that very second. And over time all the little things, all the time spent doing this and all the time spent doing many other things just becomes history.

From writing to freeskiing, I’ve fallen in love with activities that allow me to exercise my creativity. I grew into my first love, writing, slowly and with great effort. My first drafts have never been exceptional, or even remotely passable, but I loved the way I could track the evolution of my work from first to final draft and how small changes in word choice could shift the tone of an entire essay. Writing allows me to clear my head and keep thoughts that would normally lead to anxiety in a separate space for safekeeping. I often conduct thought experiments or research things that are on my mind and process them through different pieces like news articles, spec scripts and short stories. Being able to pour most of my more inventive and emotional thoughts onto paper allows me to think more rationally and logically in general, without sacrificing my emotional intuition because I’ve squeezed the excess into different written scenarios.

I don’t think that there could be a person with a more love/hate relationship with writing than I have it. After a long series of trials and tribulations a girl who loved writing was turned into a young adult who fled from writing like her life depended on it. Let’s start at the beginning.