A Lesson from Long Ago

I am writing a novel in my "spare" time, and yet in reality it consumes me when I least expect it. At 2:30 in the morning, I'll wake up with a start, and somehow the veiled message in the dream, prods my imagination to work out a small detail in my adult fairy tale. At other times when I am out walking, or bored with Jeopardy, a detail will take hold. The plot is simple, so simple in fact, that my work could easily be turned into a children's book, but my message needs to be clear... there is no "moral" to the story. As an opinionated person, this is my hardest challenge. You see, I have been inventing stories and and poetic verses since childhood. However, when I went to community college for nursing (not my first choice of vocation) I had to take a writing course as part of the curricula, and that course was termed 'composition'. We had many objective writing assignments, such as, describe a cardboard box, relay a current news story etc. I was failing this course miserably, because as the professor pointed out, I could not keep my opinion or personal thoughts out of the writing. When it was clear that my grade going into the final was a D, I went to the professor, who told me that there was nothing I could do, my writing was just not that good. I burst into tears, and replied, "Writing has always been one of my passions, and now you have destroyed that for me!" Suddenly, he got a worried look on his face and seemed to soften at the sight of my tears. "I hate to think that I would be destroying someone's passion, so let me give you an alternate for the final." Write me a short story, and you had better make it compelling..., oh and don't tell anyone about this." On the day of the final, I had 40 minutes, in which time I wrote a story about a woman's fears for her daughter's first day of kindergarten (I was only 17). It was not known until the last line of the story that the child was the product of an interracial marriage, which was a pretty controversial topic at that time. I got an A for the story, and a B for a final grade, to which the professor told me... "don't stop creative writing, just stay away from journalism." After all these years, I am still using my imagination and creativity... only now I would like to explore the possibility of writing a novel where the imagination is not encumbered by personal opinions, or judgements of the mind. This could take a while... but what a challenge!