Borkowski 1

Sarah Borkowski
Dr. Griffin
English 1102-097
10 January 2014
(Personal Essay/Assignment 1)
I consider myself a bookshelf connoisseur; the collection looks just beautiful perched up-
on the shelf, as if in some sort of museum, all arranged by color and author. Notice how I play-
fully exclude the root of the word bookshelf the book itself. Over time, my collection has
grown to more titles than I can fathom due to my love of cover art. Ever since childhood, I re-
member reading as a challenging sport; the beginning of a good book always seemed to far away
from the ending. Although very literate at a young age, I had a nasty problem with follow
through, and still do until this day. Once I begin a book, I am usually hooked. Getting over that
initial hump can be painstaking. At about age fourteen, I discovered a possible antidote for the
poison. A shiny, simple cover, splattered with neon greens and purples sports the name After
Dark. Written by a man I had never heard of, Haruki Murakami, I decide to take the book home
from the local library and plant myself in our then brand new hammock. Summers in New York
can be temperamental this particular day was surprisingly clear and only slightly unbearable
as the sun fell. Soaking in the last little bit of sun, I peel open the pages for a first glance at the
pages. From there, my afternoon is stolen. Page after page, the book felt less like a novel and
more like an adventure I was tripping over the late night Tokyo streets with the girl on her
adventure. After this one sweet embrace with a book that took me on such a ride, I was unable to
put down any Murakami book. Truly my favorite author, he not only opened my eyes to what a
Borkowski 2

rewarding world emersion into a book can be, but how I myself can put my jumbled up thoughts
onto paper.
Writing, much like reading, never came naturally to me. Always more inclined to finish-
ing my math and science homework prior to reading or writing for english class, I found that cre-
ative means were my forte. In early high school, I joined my schools high school literary maga-
zine, Expressions, where I would wind up as the editor. From there, I spent a few semesters tak-
ing independent study in Creative Writing. At first the poetry was terrible mostly angst filled
garbage with short, brash lines. Rereading over the same material is almost laughable now to say
the least. For a while after beginning the magazine, I became dedicated to keeping a journal.
Lasting only a handful of weeks before the blasted thing grew legs and walked away, I began
jotting down small notes in my class notebooks. These notes were just lines that I found interest-
ing, or that looked pretty arranged on the page. My writing process evolves very much like those
lines of the page spur of the moment. In fact, while writing this introduction piece to the
course, I quickly jotted down two pages of garbage. Each third or fourth line would begin to
make no sense in context with the rest of the piece. Writing is just like a large puzzle rear-
ranging the words on the paper until something begins to make sense. Many of my greatest suc-
cesses have begun and ended much in this fashion from my first short story that was pub-
lished in that same literary magazine, to most of my assignments last semester in English 1101.
Though brief, this is a small glimpse into what my mind trolls through while trying to
think of something witty or clever to say. There is much more to the story of Sarah than lies on
paper, and I am dearly looking forward to expanding my knowledge and maybe even love of
writing and literacy.