Showering Ideas

Week 3 of college is done.  Most of my assignments are completed, and now I'm preparing for next week's tests in Psychology and Algebra.  Yes, Week Four = Test Week.  Yippee. I have one assignment with which I'm still struggling, though.  Shocker of shockers...it's a Composition assignment.  Will my Composition woes ever end?  (Lynn, meet Giant & Impossible to Navigate Around Wall)  We're working on our first essay, and our instructor is kind enough to take us slowly through the steps.  Thank goodness, because while I may have done structured writing once upon a time...  Well, let's just say that the man who was President of the United States at that time is no longer with us.  Yes, it was that long ago, and yes, I absolutely need the refresher course.

Anyway, it's an essay.  A narrative essay.  She gave us three choices for a topic:  1) an oft-repeated family story; 2) a special gift; or 3) a life-changing or challenging event.  Of course, the moment I read those choices on the page, I blanked.  I had nothing.

I've lived a boring life, I thought.  I've done absolutely nothing that would be of interest to anybody besides myself.  What the heck am I supposed to write about?  Yes, I can be a little maudlin in my thoughts.  And a lot unyielding.  Nobody is harder on me than me, and I often beat up on my inner-child.  Poor thing is bruised and bloodied, yet always come back for more.  But, I'm wandering away from the point, aren't I?

Back to the story...

I had nothing.  Then I thought of the first time my daughter swore.  It's a cute story, and I've told it a lot, but these narrative essays are supposed to have a point.  What's the point of that story other than the fact that it's cute as a bunny's ear?

The cussing story was out.

There's also a potato story from my daughter's childhood that gets told and retold.  Same problem, though.  No point, unless I want to talk about how skinny she is despite starch overload when she was two.  Since I didn't think that would be enough to fill an 850-word essay, the potato story was out.

Next I hit upon LittleDude's hospitalization.  That was a huge, life-changing and challenging event.  The point could be that it was the catalyst that made me decide to pursue nursing.  Initially, it passed all the tests, and I put it on my little scratch sheet of ideas.  For me, though, the problem with that story is it's just so heavy.  It's almost depressing.  I don't want to be heavy and depressing.  I want to be light-hearted and fun.  Breezy, even.  But when I left class on Thursday, heavy and depressing was all I had.

Phooey.

Then, as my husband and I were making the 30-minute drive to a local (yes, 30 minutes away is local) computer store, I had an epiphany.  Because, of course, epiphanies always come during 30-minute drives.  Or during showers.  I have even better epiphanies in the shower, but I digress.

My epiphany.  NaNoWriMo!  The call to write a 50,000 word novel in a month is absolutely challenging.  My first win, and the story I wrote to get that first win, helped me rediscover my joy for writing, so that's definitely life-changing.  Light & breezy?  Heck, the story was about a talking dinosaur and a duck that wore a blue felt fedora!  I think I may have hit on something there.

So, now I've got a light & breezy topic.  Next, I need a thesis statement.  I've got until Tuesday to come up with a thesis statement that takes an opposable position.  Not as easy, so I'm brainstorming.

Maybe I should take a shower and hope for another epiphany.