Author: Alexandra Sladky

Choose a word. Something I could live by for a year, something that would embody some of the goals that I hope to reach, but that would not necessarily suggest a hard and fast deadline, or a specific accomplishment that is not attainable in the time frame. This year, I am working on creating and learning to forgive. Mostly I am writing, and learning to forgive myself for having taken a few years off from writing.

There was always something about the story that intrigued me. Mostly what intrigued me was a feeling. I didn't know quite how to articulate what was interesting. But, I felt that the story was incredibly pertinent and important because it mirrored something that I was learning, and in some ways already knew, about relationships. Maybe the feeling was that Apollo’s speech to Daphne reminded me an awful lot of the cat calls directed at me as I walked down the sidewalks downtown. A feeling that the story was about more than the origin of the laurel tree, and about a young woman making an escape, but mostly not, from an unwanted lover.

What makes one an artist? Is it determination to keep going, especially in the face of rejection? Is it talent? Is it showing up for work and writing (painting, singing, playing, practicing, acting, etc.)? Is it consistency? Practice makes perfect, or at least better than before; practice also makes for consistency, for good habits.

Eileen Myles calls themself a “Dog Biographer.” The thing is, they actually did write a biography, a memoir, for their dog. I can relate to this, though, the idea of being a dog biographer.

Essay assignments produced a groan, but writing reflections usually produced the quiet of pencils scratching on notebook paper, sometimes even an enthusiastic and playful, “Let’s reflect, shall we?” At a time like highschool, it’s so important for students to explore their own language, to discover that writing doesn’t have to be dreaded or evil.

Stories, certainly, are made for different times. This story, in Ancient Rome, is one about family honor. You don’t want to sully your good name, or the name of your family. You don’t want to ruin your family.

What I wondered was if there really was a difference between inspiration and influence. I was letting Ovid inspire my own stories, but I wasn’t necessarily rewriting them as an epic, or even as poetry. I used similar themes and circumstances for my characters, but I wanted to produce a story that someone reading today could relate to.

So it gives us the origin of something, but it also gives us the origin of this particular story. A woman is chased by a man. And she doesn’t get away. Or she does. In Ovid’s story, she is changed by the situation, physically. Today we might be more ready to discuss the emotional changes of her character. There are different ways to look at it. This story was the beginning.