Christie Wright Wild

It doesn’t matter where you live or what you do. I see a smile as happiness and a tear as sadness. Hugs comfort. Words heal. We’re all the same if you really think about it. Books connect us, so read! I’ve been writing ever since I was six years old. I’ve always wanted to be a writer. And a teacher and a figure ice skater and an astronaut and a dancer and a singer and a writer. Oh, I already said that. I never did learn how to ice skate or fly to the moon. And when I dance, I look kind of silly. So, it’s a good thing I know how to write. My love for writing began in second grade. I used to write notebook pages full of short silly poems. My earliest memory of a writing assignment was when I was in the second grade. We had to do a book report. Mine was on Florence Nightingale, a military nurse. For a time, I wanted to be a nurse. Later, I wanted to join the army. I never did either. It was hard to write the book report because I didn’t know how to put anything into my own words. In the fourth grade, my class was assigned to write stories every week. We were given 3 objects that had to be included in the story in one way or another (ex. grasshopper, milk, feather). I LOVED those assignments! I think I still have some of them in a notebook somewhere. In the sixth grade, I wrote a class play that we “performed” in the library. The audience was probably just the rest of the class, the teacher, and the librarian. It was about a dragon, a princess, and a castle. It was pretty funny. I loved language arts class, but hated my reading class because I only wanted to read whatIwanted to read, not the textbook stories. Boring!  Also in the sixth grade, I won a poetry contest. It was about a lamp, I think.  We had to create an aluminum foil sculpture to go along with the poem. I don’t remember the poem, or the prize. But I do remember the lamp, and winning! In middle school and high school, I wrote a lot of poetry and participated in the creative arts magazine. I took a creative writing class my Senior year and wrote several short stories. I also put together a book of my own poetry. I was always a slow reader, but loved reading every summer. I hated taking reading tests because I was so slow and had to read things 2, 3, or 4 times. My comprehension was fine, but certainly not superb. I scored nearly twice as high in the math section of my SAT’s than the verbal section. In college, I majored in Creative Writing. Then I ended up taking ten years off to find a job, begin a family, and go back to school to become a teacher. Now, my writing is back in full force. Nothing can stop me now!