My Best Writing Experience
By Mary Lieske

Working as an undergraduate towards my degree in English, many times all the papers I would write would blend together. So my best writing experience, when it came, was one that took me by surprise.

I was working in a medieval literature class, and we were assigned to write an in-class essay. The professor allowed us to bring in one notebook page of quotes to use to make our point. The night before I planned my essay and copied down my notes, making certain I was prepared to answer the prompt as best I could.

The next morning I woke up and went to my first class. Then, between that and my medieval literature class, I completely changed what I was writing about, copied down new quotes (on a new sheet of paper), and scrambled to find support for an idea I had started working out in class but hadn't quite fully realized until that moment.

It was one of the most important essays I've written because it was on a topic I was convinced was true, and that I was determined I could prove true to someone else. That was what made writing my essay interesting, and that was why I enjoyed writing it.