Personal Essay Writing- Class 1

So, I'm taking a summer writing workshop. Personal Essay Writing. Tonight I had my first class and we were required to actually write something. Writing at the spur of the moment is hard for me, so I had a little anxiety about it. In addition, we had to read it to the class for critiquing. It turned out OK, though.

We were asked to interview one of our class mates and we were then, in turn, interviewed by someone else. We then took 15 minutes to write an essay based on our interview. Here's my essay...

Peter sits across from me, quietly checking messages on his phone. Who is he? By all appearances you might presume that he's a former frat boy - goatee, flip flops and cargo pants tell the story. Perhaps he just finished an early happy hour with some buds before heading off to his decidedly not "bro-ish" writing class.

In fact, I don't really know if Peter or "Petey" as his high school mates dubbed him, was even in a fraternity. Perhaps he had no time for such things while pursuing his chemical engineering degree (all the while dreaming of writing).

Had I not asked, I might never have guessed his home-state was New Jersey, but Houston does have a way of softening up any "foreign" accents. Love and money is what brought Peter down south, but it's not what's kept him here.

I noticed Peter's tattoo immediately, as he had intended. It's a squiggly black line encircling his left wrist. A permanent bracelet, like my grandmother's medic-alert bracelet that declares she's a diabetic and allergic to penicillin. I know that anyone who puts a tattoo in such a prominent place is making a declaration, so I ask him about it. "Do you want the real or the fake story?" he replies. I ask for the fake one first, knowing that he really wants to tell me the true story. He says it's his mother's heartbeat after her heart attack. Sweet. Now what's the real story?

It's an EKG of his former boyfriend's heartbeat. Apparently the ex has covered up Peter's EKG on his own wrist. Why hasn't Peter? Does he know that you can't ever really cover that love up - that you just have to move on?

There we go. I'm a really slow writer and tend to freeze up when someone says "OK - go!" I was really impressed with how many people in the class were able to write a complete essay in so little time. I didn't feel like mine was complete, as there was a lot more information about Peter that I wanted to present. That said, I felt good reading it and appreciated the critiques.

I'm very much looking forward to my next class and am already enjoying taking a class just for fun.