The Physical Rough Draft

Recently I just finished writing a story in a college-ruled 1-subject notebook. What makes this so special is that I took up the entire notebook with the story, whereas usually my stories would only last a few hand-written pages because I've had trouble making them much longer. Now I admit that although the notebook advertises 70 pages on the front, it was a slightly used notebook in which I counted exactly 43 pages ... but still; this is a personal accomplishment nonetheless!

Something else that makes this paper-written draft special is just that: it's written on paper. The first short story I ever wrote (the one which I wrote for a class as a last-minute assignment but sparked my interest in being a writer) was a page long and typed on my parent's home computer. I haven't penned a whole rough draft of anything since before computers were a practical tool for doing so (remember way back when you'd type it out and the program would crash, causing you to loose all your unsaved data? that's the last time I wrote on paper). When the computer became a reliable way to write out a rough draft (and of course after I learned to type) I never looked back. Maybe I would hand-write the first page or so of an idea down if I was away from a computer or in class, but that was it.

So what caused me to go back to the age-old style?
Nothing special. I was bored in class and had a story stuck in my head. The only difference was that it stuck with me so much that I couldn't pull away the day after that, or the day after, etc. ... I wrote a 43 page (college-ruled) story almost entirely during class time (don't worry, as my recent test scores have proven I managed to pay attention at the same time). The reason being that I've never really been able to find much time to write when I'm at home. Even in high school I was always too distracted by homework or video games to write a single story. Somehow it turned out that I was the most inspired to write when I technically had absolutely no "free time". Even during spring break I could only be bothered to write on one of the last days despite my incredible interest in the story.

Speaking of my interest: I had more interest in this story than any story I've ever written (or thought out) and the only reason I can think of is that this story is somehow more meaningful than anything I've ever written.
This one could influence people's lives.
Without giving anything away: it's not eerie or supernatural or fantasy like most of what I've written or thought of; it's basically a love story that spans a lifetime, and it's honestly probably the best story I've ever written by far. Normally I would be nervous to say that before anyone else has read it, and because as a writer I feel I should be modest about my work and not have high-hopes, but I really believe it.

So now the next steps are to type it up, flesh out the bits I may have rushed, give it a title, and who knows ... maybe I can get it published.

The best part? I know exactly what story I'm going to write next, and I'm just as excited for that one as I am for this one.

This is me finally taking my talent and love of writing seriously.
-Ryan