It was Emma's first day at college. For the first time, Emma was on her own, but she wasn't lonely. She had saved up a lot of money over the years, working minimum paid jobs while still attending high school. All that just to be able to get herself through college.
Ruby, her best friend from high school, had convinced her grandmother to get an apartment near the school for the both of them, so Emma wouldn't have to worry about that.
Today, Emma only had one class. She looked at her schedule. 'Creative Writing – Professor Regina Mills.' Emma smiled. She loved writing. It was the only way she knew to express her feelings.
Regina Mills was a small brunette, who always dresses classily. Former students called her 'The Evil Queen', but she didn't care. All she wanted was for her students to be the best they could and if they couldn't handle it, they shouldn't take her class.
With that in mind Regina stood in front of her first class of the year. She groaned as she realized they were freshmen. I hope this year there are some students that can actually write, Regina thought to herself.
"Good morning, everyone. I am professor Mills, your creative writing professor for this year. If you aren't going to write feel free to leave my class right now." Two boys in the front of the room stood and left the room, making Regina chuckle to herself.
"Anyone else feel like leaving?" No reactions came. "Good, now we can start with what actually matters; writing."
Regina looked around the room before speaking once more. "Writing is love. Writing is feeling. Writing is passion. If you feel obligated to write, don't write. If don't want to write, then don't, because writing means that others will be able to feel what you feel. You can make up the character, but you can't make up the emotion. The emotion you write about is usually the emotion you're feeling at that exact moment. And if you use the right words to express these emotions, others will be able to feel the same, just by reading the words you have put on paper. If you think too much about what you're righting, the reader won't feel the character's emotions as strongly. Don't be afraid to smile, when the character smiles or cry if something bad happened to the character you write about. It's these emotions that make a story strong. That make you feel with the character, that make's you believe in whatever they're going through. Writing needs to come from the heart, from the emotions you truly feel within. Be honest with yourself and to the character you're writing about. If you write with your head, there isn't going to be any emotion. If you can't do that, don't write."
Regina was very serious while talking about this subject. Writing was the only good thing in her life and she was not going to let some idiotic students, who care about nothing, take that away from her.
Emma, who was sitting in the front of the room, was captivated by the passion with which the professor was speaking. She was admiring the woman standing before her. She felt as if the woman in front of her understood exactly why writing meant so much to her.
"To write you have to be the person you are when no one's around, when no one will be able to see you or judge you. That is when you truly are yourself and that's when you'll be able to write well. Follow your heart, your instincts. Don't write something that's easy, but go looking for the hard parts, the deep emotions you hide deep within yourself. The emotions that you don't even show yourself, because you're scared of what others will think about you or even what you'll think of yourself. Be who you are, who you want to be, not who someone else wants you to be. If you can't to that, don't write, because it won't be true.
Even in the most unrealistic stories writers use parts of themselves to relate to their character, to make their characters feel. That's how you write good stories.
If you suffer, use that pain to make your characters get truly alive." That sentence alone, stuck with Emma for the rest of the hour. "People can relate to that, because even the people that act happy all the time suffer, they just hide it better then others. People that say they don't are just liars. If you don't suffer, you don't live.
Now, your first assignment will be to write about pain. It doesn't need to be based upon your life, but use your emotions to make the characters truly feel."
At the end of her speech a few more students left the room, not planning on ever coming back. Each and every other student was looking at her amazed. They all feared that the class would be too hard for them, but wanted to hear Regina talk more about her passion. All except one, Emma had taken a sheet of paper and had started on the assignment. She wanted to start while Regina's words were still clear in her mind.
"I only see one student that will succeed this class if you continue like this." Regina commented. Emma looked up and saw that the professor had been talking about her. She smiled at the woman, before going back to work. All the other students quickly grabbed a sheet of paper, but didn't know where to start. God, Regina thought, this is going to be a long year.