Write here, write now: Junior Annika Christiansen puts pen to paper
Junior Annika Christiansen enters her quiet room. She locks her door, dims her lights. In the background, instrumental music plays. Pulling up a chair, Christiansen puts a honeycrisp apple on her desk -- her favorite. She grabs her lucky indigo pencil from her pencil holder and starts racing her mind to begin her journey. Annika never left her room that day physically, but mentally, she was traveling the country.
\tWhen most teens get asked what they want to be when they grow up, the most common responses are an astronaut, a teacher or a professional athlete. Unlike those teens, Christiansen says “a writer.” From a student in 5th grade to a junior in high school, Christiansen has always been “a reader.” One day it clicked in her head that she wanted to write her own stories that people could enjoy. She hopes to leave a lasting legacy at PHS for writing a book or two.
\t“My favorite authors are Rick Riordan, Marie Lu and V.E.Schwab. I’ve been reading Rick Riordan’s books since I was a kid, and he still has some of the best humor, dialogue and characters that I’ve ever read. I’ve read multiple works from Marie Lu, and the action in her writing is always so cool to visualize. V.E. Schwab has been a bit more of a recent find for me, but she’s quickly escalated to be one of my favorites, due to her absolutely beautiful writing style,” she said.
Christiansen dreams of going to college to study writing. She wants to study writing to see how much she could improve in it and how much she could learn from it.
“I haven´t really been thinking about colleges, but I´ve heard Butler has a very good program for writing, so I would like to go there,” she explained
\tThe most important advice Christiansen can give aspiring writers is to have a good imagination, be creative and have fun. Writing can be boring at times, but having a good attitude and mind helps that. When it comes to writing, Christiansen says it’s one of the things she says “yes” to.
“Fiction novels are my favorite to write because I feel like it’s a lot more interesting and a lot more fun,” she said. “Nonfiction is my least favorite because it is a lot less interesting. I mainly want to study fiction, but I would want to learn different things. Typically, when I am writing, I want to be by myself and listen to music. Specifically, not music with words. Instrumental music is the best.”
Writing paints a picture in the reader’s mind without having to use actual pictures. Writing can tell who someone is as a person. For most people, writing is a way to express themselves or just a way to escape reality.
“Creativity is key,” Christiansen said.
Teens usually have that memory in their life that led them to want to do what they want to do when they grow up. It could be an actual thing that has happened to them or even something that happened to someone else.
“I’m not sure there was one specific moment or thing that sent me down the path to writing; I’ve just grown up with an affinity for books and stories, and after a while, decided it would be cool to start making my own.”
Story by Arie Edwards