{"id":867,"date":"2022-10-12T15:09:39","date_gmt":"2022-10-12T15:09:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.cedarville.edu\/thewritemajor\/?p=867"},"modified":"2023-02-20T16:26:08","modified_gmt":"2023-02-20T16:26:08","slug":"creativity-in-pwid-claire-the-storyteller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cedarville.edu\/thewritemajor\/2022\/10\/12\/creativity-in-pwid-claire-the-storyteller\/","title":{"rendered":"Creativity in PWID: Claire the Storyteller"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the definitions of the word <\/span>create <\/span><\/i>is \u201cto produce or bring about by a course of action or behavior\u2026to produce through imaginative skill.\u201d Before majoring in Professional Writing and Information Design (PWID), I thought that creativity<\/span> was reserved for careers in the arts, like theater or photography. I associated creativity with fun, and I didn\u2019t expect to find either in PWID. What I didn’t realize is that every field requires creativity to some degree, especially storytelling!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve loved stories for as long as I can remember. When I was little, I listened to audio dramas while playing with Legos or magnetic mosaics. As I got older, I became an avid reader of anything from historical fiction to Amish romance. When I was in high school, I pointed out the ridiculous predictability of Hallmark movies, much to the dismay of my mom and sisters. By the time I started college at Cedarville, I wanted to pursue storytelling as a career.<\/span><\/p>\n

But how could I get involved with storytelling? I am horrible at keeping a straight face, so the theater was not a great option. I love literature, but I don’t like analyzing it for theoretical themes, so I gave up on an English major. I thought about studying linguistics, but it only took three class periods to figure out that it was not the path for me. Finally, I decided to become an editor so that I could help other people tell their stories instead.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fortunately for me, I met Dr. Carrington. He told me about the PWID Major and the Editing and Publishing Minor at a CU Friday Academic Fair. I was ecstatic! I decided to major in Professional Writing and Information Design and jumped into classes right away.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, it didn\u2019t take long for me to realize that I didn\u2019t like editing at all. I didn\u2019t have the heart to make corrections to someone\u2019s work beyond basic grammar. It didn’t help that I am notorious for making typos on my papers and projects. It quickly became apparent that editing wasn\u2019t my calling.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So now what? I needed to find an internship for the coming summer. I wanted to work in storytelling, but I didn\u2019t know how to do it. I started praying for God to show me what to do next. And then he reminded me of something.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When I was a freshman, I had to find a \u201cdream job\u201d for a class project. I looked for days to find a potential job, but couldn\u2019t find the right one. I asked Dr. Carrington for help, and he suggested that I look at nonprofits for potential positions. I found an opening for a writing intern with a small missions organization called Children\u2019s Relief International. The position involved many of the skills we study in PWID: copywriting, editing, storytelling, graphic design, and.\u2026 <\/span>wait a minute, storytelling?\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

I did a quick online search and found the internship position again. Sure enough, it was the same as the year before. I applied for the job and got it!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That summer with Children’s Relief International, I wrote biographies for child sponsorship candidates. I edited thank you letters from missionaries serving on the field in Africa. I traveled to Mexico to conduct interviews and write content to support a nutrition program. I designed information sheets for ministries all over the world. And most importantly, I told stories that impacted the lives of others!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

PWID has shown me that I can be creative in any career field or position because I can use my skills to motivate people to think, feel, or act. After I graduate in May, I want to pursue a career in missions, writing and designing content to support the work that is happening for the Kingdom of God all around the world.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the definitions of the word create is \u201cto produce or bring about by a course of action or behavior\u2026to produce through imaginative skill.\u201d Before majoring in Professional Writing and Information Design (PWID), I thought that creativity was reserved for careers in the arts, like theater or photography. I associated creativity with fun, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":865,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cedarville.edu\/thewritemajor\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/atul-vinayak-znXGn3heBsw-unsplash-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cedarville.edu\/thewritemajor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cedarville.edu\/thewritemajor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cedarville.edu\/thewritemajor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cedarville.edu\/thewritemajor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cedarville.edu\/thewritemajor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=867"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cedarville.edu\/thewritemajor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":872,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cedarville.edu\/thewritemajor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867\/revisions\/872"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cedarville.edu\/thewritemajor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cedarville.edu\/thewritemajor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cedarville.edu\/thewritemajor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cedarville.edu\/thewritemajor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}