Caitlin Rose Sockin
My Story
By Caitlin Sockin
Chapter 1: Discovering Writing
Writing has played a major role in my life from an early age. My story begins in the first grade. While most of the other kids in class used their after-school free time plopped in front of their televisions or glued to their handheld Nintendos, I used much of mine to explore my newfound skills in mastering words, sentences, and structure. And I wrote—anything that came to mind. Chances are you’d find me sitting in my “art room” at a tiny table, working on a new story. This room was my special space where I let my imagination run wild.
Chapter 2: The Novella
For me, composing a piece of writing worthy of praise comes with trial and error. In third grade, I wrote and illustrated a short picture book about a girl trapped in her own house from a spell that her witch mother had cast, gone awry. By the middle of sixth grade, I had finished a rough draft and self-published my novella, The Land of the Evil. Looking back, the story could have used a lot more work, but this experience was pivotal because I had followed through and tackled this huge task.
Chapter 3: Poetry to Articles
I continued to spread my pen-and-paper wings as the years flew by, enrolling in a Duke Tip program on creative writing, continuing to spend time at my little “art room” table, teasing out numerous short stories based on my entries in my dream journal called Dreamlog (written by my father for Warner Books), and letting my imagination cascade into meaningful words onto the pages in the form of poetry. I wrote a poem on Cleopatra, after extensive research, that was selected for a literary magazine. Additionally, two of my nature poems were published by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Wild Bird Club, which led to an offer for me to write a regular monthly column called Caitlin’s Corner. Accepting this job was another turning point in my life, as now I would be able to reach a larger audience with my writing, not only to nurture my creativity but to also make an impact on the lives of the readers.
Chapter 4: Still Got It!
In my high school junior year, I had the opportunity to submit a short story to the Raleigh Fine Arts Literary Contest, and was selected as a finalist in the competition. I had not written as many short stories as poems in recent years, but this provided me with validation that my writing skills were still very much alive (and not relegated to just poetry, articles, or essays for college). I also embraced class writing assignments, one in particular of which got my motor running—a proof-style essay to support the case of Disney having fascist qualities (e.g. trying to appeal to a frustrated middle class by embodying utopian ideals, a goal of fascist societies).
Although all of these experiences contributed tremendously to my life, what makes writing so important to me is how it has helped develop my other creative talents by applying foundational areas of my storytelling to my other blossoming interests: theatre/drama and songwriting.
Chapter 5: Theatre/Drama
Starting in 8th grade, theatre has become a large area of influence in my life. Like creative writing, acting is form of storytelling, but instead of pouring one’s heart and soul into words on a page, it is instead words on a stage. In fifth grade, I adapted The Land of the Evil into a stage play, gathering a group of my friends to act it out with props, slideshow backdrops, and volunteers from the audience. This experience helped when in tenth grade I was selected to finish writing that year’s school play, Phantasmagorey-a, based on Edward Gorey’s works. The show was quite a success, and while I was over-the-moon to play a lead role as an opera singer named Ortenzia Caviglia, what was more satisfying than the acting for me was the writing.
Chapter 6: Songwriting
Creative writing has most influenced me to make songs, taking poems I write and putting them to instrumental music or vice versa. I listen closely to today’s popular songs and often feel like they have creative holes in them, discovering what I believed to be missing—unique, melodic sounds combined with substantive, emotional lyrics. My goal has been to fill those gaps in my own music, something I would be unable to do were it not for my background in writing poetry. Three of my songs have been professionally produced and are now on the music publishing market, hopefully making their way to expressing a plot of a film.
