By my Junior year in college, I had switched my concentration four times. I went from elementary education to art education to journalism to creative writing. I ended up with a concentration in young adult literature and a minor in poetry. Teaching was the compliant option A, but I was secretly praying for option B. I wanted to write.
I wanted to write those young adult novels I had fallen in love with in college. I yearned to find my Great Gatsby, where I wrote a tragedy that mirrored the rise and fall of the American Dream. I sought to create my Holden Caulfield in my coming-of-age story. Mostly, I wanted to entice readers like Kurt Vonnegut. My initial reading of The Giver in the 8th grade changed my life by awakening a love of reading and imagination, but Slaughterhouse-Five, or, The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death, awakened my love of storytelling.
Slaughterhouse-Five is a time-traveling science fiction novel mixed with dark comedy, a dash of anti-war historical drama, and a little of everything you can imagine. After reading it, it lived in my thoughts for days. To me, it was everything I wanted a story to be. It was everything that I longed to write. It was at the top of my favorite book list.
Over the last 19 years (that hurt admitting that it has been that long), I have read the book multiple times. Before Apple Music, I bought the audiobook on CD so I could listen while I drove from time to time. I will revisit Slaughterhouse-Five for the rest of my life. To get motivation while writing my novel more than anything.
The Pop Culture Kings present The Archives of Wisdom 