My writing has never proceeded from any dictate of my own but a force beyond me . . . . For ever since the light of reason dawned in me, my inclination to letters was marked by such passion and vehemence that neither the reprimands of others (and I have received many) nor reflections of my own (there have been more than a few) have sufficed to make me abandon this native impulse that God himself bestowed on me.
                                     Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz,
                                     17^th Century Mexican poet, playwright, & essayist

First, I want to acknowledge that this is probably the worst time of year to ask you to be creative, given all the distractions students have at the end of the semester. Nevertheless, after reading so much creative work, I wanted to give you a chance to be creative. So your next assignment is to complete some kind of creative work involving text. That leaves it pretty open: poetry, drama, fiction, personal or autobiographical essay, letter, video or film, webpage, collage or painting incorporating text. My hope is that you’ll invest some time and thought into the project, giving your imagination and creativity a little space to blossom.

You might draw inspiration from some of the creative works we’ve read this semester, dealing with such a range of topics: family, relationships, courage, conflict, traditions, spirituality, culture, birth and rebirth, identity or the quest for self, sexuality, loss, illness, the triumph of the spirit, and so many more. Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street and Woman Hollering Creek, has said that everyone has a unique story within that needs to be told. What’s your "story," and what medium would serve best to tell it? Will you work by yourself or with others to get your story told? (Group projects are fine, with self-evaluations required of each member.)

By the time you’re reading this paragraph, some of you will have an idea of what to do with your project. Great! Go do it. Send a draft of it to your group for comments (if possible) and the final draft to me. Others of you will be panicking by now, feeling you "don’t have a creative bone in your body," not even a small one. For you folks, I have some suggestions that may help:

1. Steep yourself in the work of some writer you’ve enjoyed immensely. For example, take a dip into Baca’s poetry. Remember these lines?

                  I dream
myself maiz root
swollen in pregnant earth,
rain seeping into my black bones
sifting red soil grains of my heart
into earth’s hungry mouth.

I am part of the earth. (70)

Or go back to Valdez’s plays. Try reading some of his actos and then try writing one. Or recall all the great fiction we read—and write your own!

2. Freewrite in your journal and see what comes. You might have to try this more than once . . . and in a variety of locations. Keep a journal with you in case inspiration strikes. Try writing at a regular time of day for a limited period of time. Writer Natalie Goldberg, author of the classic Writing Down the Bones, a collection of exercises for writers, urges writers to follow these basic rules in order to capture their freshest "first thoughts":

1. Keep your hand moving. Don’t pause to reread the line you have just written. That’s stalling and trying to get control of what you’re saying.
2. Don’t cross out. (That is editing as you write. Even if you write something you didn’t mean to write, leave it.)
3. Don’t worry about spelling, punctuation, grammar. (Don’t even care about staying within the margins and lines on the page.
4. Lose control.
5. Don’t think. Don’t get logical.
6. Go for the jugular. (If something comes up in your writing that is scary or naked, dive right into it. It probably has lots of energy.) (7)

Goldberg says, "First thoughts have tremendous energy" but that one "must be a great warrior when you contact first thoughts and write from them. Especially at the beginning you may feel great emotions and energy that will sweep you away, but you don’t stop writing. You continue to use your pen and record the details of your life and penetrate into the heart of them" (9-10).

I really don’t have any other guidelines for this project other than requesting that you take it seriously enough not to think, "Oh, poetry is easy. I’ll dash off a haiku in five minutes and turn that in." I know that when I was in college (majoring in English/Creative Writing) I both loved and dreaded creative assignments. It’s daunting to face the blank page, but it’s wonderful to have the poems and stories I’ve written. This assignment is really for you—use it to write something you want to write. You might even think of someone in your life to whom you'd like to write and consider your project as a gift to that person. Enjoy your creativity!

I want to end with a couple of epigraphs about writing that I found in Patrice Vecchione’s book:

Writing is the only way I know how to pray.
                                             Helena Maria Viramontes

To me writing is life, it is my way of being most fully alive.
                                             Ursula Le Guin

Works Cited

Baca, Jimmy Santiago. Martin & Meditations on the South Valley. New York: New Directions, 1987.

De la Cruz, Sor Juana. The Answer/La Respuesta. New York: The Feminist Press, 1994. (epigraph excerpted from page 47)

Goldberg, Natalie. Writing Down the Bones. Boston: Shambhala, 1986.

Vecchione, Patrice. Writing and the Spiritual Life: Finding Your Voice by Looking Within. New York: Contemporary Books, 2001. (epigraphs from pages xix & ix)