178 pages, 178 reasons I lie awake at night… they tried to talk me out of this.  I didn’t listen.

April stretches out like a cat’s shadow, a cat bending its back ready to pounce forward in the glories and rebirth of May, but is frozen by its own anxiety, churning inwardly, frosting up in the heat.  Am I the only person who sees April that way? Looking forward and back like Janus, the two headed Roman god… Regardless I did something tremendously stupid two years ago. I declared that I wanted to not only do a creative senior project, but write a whole book for my senior project.  Somehow I imagined it would be easier. Let me assure you, it isn’t.

For me, fiction has always been an escape, reality on steroids.  The escape to fantasy was never escapism but an escape to view reality more clearly, a lens for seeing through the shadows.  The expression of academic topics and “the big questions” in a fictional world to me feels higher than an academic research paper, not to disparage research papers at all, but the combination of both art and analysis in an act of subcreation (as Tolkien would call it) speaks to both the soul and the mind.  This dual voice of fiction expresses depth and exploration of heavy topics in a way that can be approached more easily by anyone. Tell someone a great story and they will listen to what you have to say. The art of telling, exploring an academic topic through a story, also comes as an act of creation rather than study.  Study is an inherently destructive thing, where a whole is taken apart piece by piece to understand its mechanics and inner workings, guts spilling across cold, dry pages, whereas writing is an inherently living thing, the bringing together of images and sounds to form a single whole.

Study and creation, together in one work.  That was the goal and still is. Don’t take my philosophical, mystical ramblings too seriously, dear reader.  I am an artist seeking approval from our vast Western Tradition, and I have made my appeal above. But let us not dwell too long in the places of Plato and Aristotle, for our world is not the academy, but the world of worn out tires and overfilled backpacks, flickering light bulbs and turkey dinners.  We live in a desperately imperfect world, a world flawed and scourged by sin, impossibly removed from the notion of ideals, yet we chase perfection, artists more than most. Let me tell you something about perfection. It gets the job done, it improves the quality of your work, but it eats you up inside, because your labor will never be enough to feed it.

I’ve discovered a lot of things about myself through writing this project.  I’ve discovered how little sleep I can function on and how many words I can type a minute, but I also discovered how desperately we need Grace.  I have a habit, when it comes to school, to live under the law. Every deadline is an immovable mountain I must hurdle and land with a perfect 10. If not, it was not worthy of my self-obsessed mind.  Nothing will tear your ego down to size faster than bleeding on a page. After all, that’s what writing is. Writing is “giving room for good things to run wild” as Chesterton once said about Christianity.  Finding the joy in creation, the joy in participating in the part of us that carries our God-given creative spirit, is the journey of a lifetime. It cannot be walked in fear and judgmentation, but in humble joy and praise of our Creator who wove us together in His image with a scrap of His creative spirit to make beauty in our world.

Writing a novel for my senior project was the best terrible decision I’ve ever made.  It has pushed me further in both my writing ability and in my faith than I ever thought I would be willing to go.  If I’ve given up once, I’ve given up a hundred times, but here I am, the whole of the text finished, complete, 178 pages, only for it to be dragged back into the shop.  More blood, more blood! It needs more blood. So I will bleed again and it will be finished, new and shiny, maybe ready for the spotlight. All this babbling aside, I have done the most frightening thing an artist can do: make something and then submit it for judgement, for a grade, and I’m so happy I had the chance.

If I may, let me preach: As students, creative outlets are key to our growth.  Art can break down the barrier between the theoretical and the relatable. Piercing through the theoretical is necessary to communicate the ideas of love, faith, hope, and joy.  Take whatever opportunity you can to create, whether that be in an art class, the creative writing club, or even your senior project. We have all these creative outlets available to us for a reason.  If you create, please don’t forget by whom, through whom, and for whom you create. God has endowed mankind with his Creative spirit, in His image, that we may create in humble joy for His glory. I encourage you all to find an outlet for that spiritual need.  It does not need to be the Lord of the Rings; it needs to be what God is calling you to make.  Do not fear that calling for your own lack of ability or experience, for God would not call you to toil there for no reason.  Rejoice in the awe of our Lord, praise Him in your subcreation and give it a voice with which to revel. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I say, rejoice.