***THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS***
Desire and good mapping:
I want literary community
I want deep exchange and to make an impact
I wanted to have ideas implemented
I wanted deep relationsihps.
Everyone wants college admissions. I wanted that too, but wanted more.
ACT I:
When most people think of school starting, they think of something boring. But not me. I couldn't wait to begin 11th grade. Because to me that would be the time to set my roots to the soil. The roots of my whole being, and find other trees. This, I thought, was the beginning of a new chapter. Previously, I was at a public high school for two years. But I never experienced the high school life. I was very isolated. Not many were very warm to me at school. Not many even approached me to talk. Only some people did.
At the time, I had recently seriously committed myself to writing. I began my book, The Redemption of Invynceth. And I did because I wanted to truly show everyone why all archetypes of people are broken, sinful, and need Jesus, no matter who. As a Christian, I'm a part of the Body of Christ, and the Bible says we all must be one, as we use our gifts to serve others. And I deeply believe in that and treasure it. I always had faith, and still have faith, in all my brothers and sisters in Christ, because I believe they have Christ living in them, as the Bible says.
But my conviction in the body of Christ was a stark contrast to the lived reality of my life. It was tough with my book. Nobody knew about it, and even now, I'm still working on it. Pretty much no one regularly read it then, so it was just me. I don't know what happened really. They were amazing people, and many were very kind and open, as Christians are called to be. Yet, somehow, I was still isolated. Was this because of me, or because of them? Was it both, or neither—something else? What was going on? But here in this environment, I thought it would be very good because of the interest clubs.
So, I went to the writing club, expecting to find many committed writers supporting each other, exchanging words and lines packed with vivid detail and emotion. I mean, that's what a "writing club" means in the name, right? And I found the people were very creative, yes. The activites were fun. I had to use my brain. I met great people. One guy in particular stood out to me because he was very funny. The writing club leader even praised one excerpt from my novel very highly, saying I should enter a contest with it.
I tried to find literary friends. The games were very fun. If I remember correctly, the first game had us read one novel-sounding line and then tell an entire story from just that one line. I had many great conversations. But I found there were too many writer games and didn't feel a sense of serious writer or a sense of "we're all in this together." But that didn't work that day. All of it—the sparks of connection I felt, the conversations I had, the stories we made—they were all incredible. But they all ended when the bell rang, to pretty much never to be picked up again.
I found the literary magazine. A literary magazine? Great. At a Christian school? Wonderful. The one that came right after my old, isolated school? Community-wonderful. The one that lives out their faith by having a relational mission? Worthy of the next era. I saw how it said the mission is to show people's God-given talents. I saw the website, and it was beautifully designed. I read the work that people submitted. It was the perfect place. There were many skilled writers, a team, a community, and a mission for serving others and impacting them. I was very impressed and applied.
Previously, this magazine and the teams behind it had done remarkable things, and I loved its mission. But for some reason, when I was there, it had become a mere husk of what it once was. A campfire turned smoldering wick.
For some reason they didn't respond to my application for months. So I was still alone for a while. No literary magazine team updates at all. I still found it hard to keep lasting friends. All this time, the literary magazine was almost totally inactive. Except the end of the year, where it called for one edition. Then it published only one, when the website said they publish three per year. And while the individual submissions were great, the way they were all presented as a whole wasn't very good. It resembled just a collection of work, not a literary magazine. A library is an organized collection of works. A literary magazine, however, is something more. It's bringing these indivdual works together to form a meaningful whole, not just stack them together in the same shelf.
However, I kept trying. I didn't transfer to this school for no reason, after all! So I went back to the writing club. This time, I met someone who I really hit it off with. We exchanged our writing. She had a whole novel (I think it was a novel? Well, I know at the very least that it was a significant writing project) she was working on. And she was not just a writer, but a good writer. I could see it from the phrases she used. For the first time, I met someone at the school who I could genuinely call a fellow writer.
She told me, "Wow, even the name of your book sounds really cool. I instantly want to read it."
We got along well. Was this going to be the moment when I found a writing partner? Someone to write alongside with? Someone to chart stories with? That my writing mission would truly shine forth for the body of Christ mission that I mean it and its purpose to enrich and transform lives and bring people to God. I was so excited. Maybe this was the time when my book would finally be read, and for the first time, another person would really be in my world with me!
After the club meeting, she read it and said it was very good for about a week or two or perhaps a month or so. But slowly, she read less and less. At one point, she stopped entirely. I could never see her in person because of the disorganized school. I saw her tiny, maybe even only once in person, where she told me she was sorry she hadn't read it more because she was busy. Yet, she still didn't come on and read it. Everybody goes everywhere, and it is nearly impossible to find someone in a separate class. The year after, I'm pretty sure she transferred to another school.
Sadly, by the end of the year, I was still isolated. No writing partners. No one is deeply immersed in my work. I felt little if any, sense of essential community contribution. I felt my gifts were being severely underutilized. How do you serve people with writing and words if there's no one to hear them? How do you write a novel meant to point people to Christ if those people don't actually read it? Well, actually, there are people there to hear them. It's just that, for some reason, there just seemed to have been no chance for anyone to hear them. And that is what made my particular situation feel even more frustrating to me. The particular people—they were actually there. They were so close to me. I saw them every day. Many were even close enough to praise my novel. And yet, almost nobody had read even a single sentence from it. It's like a home that's just close enough to be seen, but too far away to be lived in.
When I transferred to this school, I earnestly desired to find deep roots in not only a basic community, but to be one with other Christians—the body of Christ. Yet, a whole year had passed and still, even at my new Christian school, surrounded every day by brothers and sisters in Christ, I was isolated. In terms of how close I was to people, it wasn't that much better than my previous, non-Christian school. What was going on? Not only did I lack what the Bible says is living as one with each other, I lacked basic human relationships!
However, something new happened in the summer afterward. Remember the literary magazine? The new editor-in-chief encouraged me to give ideas. That was enough of a spark to push me to come up with some. At first, I didn't see just how much was possible, so I pitched in many ideas, thinking I was just being an idea person. I didn't think to do it this with that much intentionality yet though. Something in the framework of the magazine must have limited me previously to think I was just limited to whatever duties I was assigned as an editor, but then, as I thought more and more, my ideas became bigger and bigger. It was almost like a training obstacle course to think and act like an entrepreneur was laid before me. Maybe senior year would be really different than last year. Maybe this would . Maybe this would be the time when my hopes and dreams for coming to the school would be fulfilled.
I had to wait super long vor . I coutned the weeks down left until the new school eyar would start. During this point in time
Act II
Act Beat: Fun and games:
Pacing note spend lots of tiem building up in here.
I came up with .
But the idea I thoguht was most epic of all: a brand new logo. The one we already I didn't think was very impressive. We need . And imagine what you could do with a powerful and evocative logo during the club faire! I bet most of the other school clubs didn't. But imagine if you saw a logo that was as good as .
I knew we needed very strong brand identity. There was so much ptoential for better alignment with our Christian schools values.
I knew this approach was going to be incredibly powerful to foster relationships.
Was it based in a vision and mission statement?
The editor-in-chief told me about her plans and vision. She even spent a reasonable amount of time per response on Discord. I thought she was committed and passionate. She was, after all, one of the top English students.
I was waiting for that one meeting. In the calendar, there were very few meetings. Just one day every month. None of the rest of the month would we have meetings. That one meeting per month stood out to me like a star in the night sky. It was like stargazing. The blank days between the meetings were the dark sky , between stars.
What was a key moment that we'd break through? We needed new members desperately. I knew it was the club faire. We could implement the logo there. I thought to myself, imagine having a logo and seeing it in the hallway multiple times. Then, the brand will be memorable and stick in your head. This would prime you for the ultimate reveal—our club faire presentation. Imagine the attractive logo on the post, and you'll see it once you're primed. Perfect strategy!
A logo would solve so many problems. It would make us prestigious and professional. In doing so, it would make us publish more editions because of the higher stakes associated with professionalism and prestige, and more people want editions, so there is more pressure to create editions. That would solve the problem lacking editions.
The editor-in-chief told me we had fewer members and that we needed to get more. But then I thought more about it. People think it's a problem because we need a big team for operations. But what was I trying to do here?
So, was this small number of members really a problem? Actually, not at all! This was, in fact, our biggest opportunity to have a committed team. A mother and father would find it very difficult to raise a hundred children at once. I knew we all needed to start small, and only then could we go big. Fewer people, a more condensed vision. It is the perfect place for a new vision for the magazine to thrive.
One idea I thought we could have is have two people work together on a piece about hteir. lives. I was working on eprson narratives alreayd, experienced hteir power firsthand to capture someone's life. Imagine two people working on a shared event. That would be increidble! And hyptoethical events too. More journeyign together of the mind and more depeing hte bond like that. Imagine personal narratives that could bring people to gether. or maybe even two people coudl reconcile.
In order to get the brand strong, we needed everyone to be on board with it. This would, of course, make everyone strong and united as a team. We'd be able to bond incredibly well. We'd have a strong and deeply cohesive team. Everyone loves deeply impactful ideas and the opportunity to chart forth a new path, so this would be very straightforward and quick.
Jus tlike earlier with m ypersonal narratie idea we could have the . New purpsoe and vision. Personal narratives. Person cneterd magazine. Relationship centered magaizne. Magazine fosters realtionships.
I wanted to create the logo so badly. I could only imagine what it'd look like. But I . We had to do this together. And in developing a logo, I knew we'd develop a new vision. I already had one, but I wanted to hear everyone else. I wanted to hear everyone's visions and ideas. And we'd crystallize all our visions as one.
This is the perfect for a small team. We'd have a small team profoundly committed to one vision.
We would become a profoundly connected team. We could create so many new things. We'd expand the vision even farther than I'd imagined it so far. And we would come together in one unified, powerful effort, shining with all our passion and vision and overflowing with light into our logo, our speech, our props.
I was still waiting for that one meeting. I think by this point, maybe there were like 3 or 5 weeks or something left until school started? Just like last year, this was the case for me. I couldn't wait for school to start. (explain how my original desires as author and wanting deep relationships came to be here) I couldn't wait for us all to overflow.
Overflow with light. Overflow with our brand. Overflow in partnership. Overflow from the deep wells. Be as light, as logo, as speech, as props, as brand, as partners. Everything we did, everything we would lay out—they would all become artifacts in the future for the magazine. Be together. Be as vision. Be as one. All as one. And one as all. Standing together. Knowing who we are. Being who we know we are. Who we are. Us.
In doing this, I learned very much about brand identity, organization identity, and team dynamics. Ugh, those are professional-sounding terms, but I Want to talk about that.
It was going to be my chance to chart the epic course. It was going to be my chance to chart a new course with everyone. To find new comrades. Comrades in arms, in pen, and in the heart. Comrades in the journey ahead. Together, we would pave forth a new era of the magazine. Our magazine. Our community.
Build up to this iwth slow and deliberate pacing
I kn
Then the day arrived. The day I'd been waiting for so long. The day I'd been building up to with so many ideas. The day to meet my team. The day when minerals would become crystals.
IIt would finally be the time.
Critical Direction Shift/"Bobby Runs Away"
Wrong.
Many didn't show up, and the editor-in-chief sadly didn't actually do a visionary meeting. It was basically just her talking the whole time, except once where she asked for ideas. I tried to take that opportunity to share my logo idea with everyone, but she said we already had a logo. She also said we needed to focus on that later. That misses the entire point of my plan, which I couldn't even present anyway because there was simply no time or format to present it at the meeting. It felt like we were running through a laundry list of stuff, like when to meet and how many editions we wanted to publish. Me and the other adventures just met up, never looked at the path ahead of us, talked about a few stones along the way, and then went our own ways. Then the next meeting we'd all meet together again, and just come randomly out of hte trees to step on that one next stone. What happened to the entire rest of the journey between the stone and teh last one? We were suposed to walk all the way along that time too! We can't just all touch "checkpoint stones" and then walk off our own ways! How were we going to chart a course like this? How was this a team journey?
Now, I have to be fair here though. Life is hard.
But man, this was a huge setback. How do we get a visionary meeting to get everyoen on board with a vision? And how can we create a new brand identity and impress everyone with the logo this way? The visionary meeting was a key part of my plan! How could we create a brand and logo and all that without a vision? How could we create a strong, unified, deeply connected team without a vision to unite them? And how would we get them all in teh same place again? Wait for the next meeting? That would be too long, and if we did it by then, we'd have very little time to form deep bonds and create a robust and united brand. Then we'd miss the club fair!
Act II break
Act III
How about we create shirts?
But I persisted. What were we going to do?
Star. I waited for each one like stars.
And yet, somehow, the months after had no meetings.
I would have so many ideas.
I wanted to have a long meeting to discuss. In most meetings, you could hardly see someone. Most of the meetings, I had no opportunity to share because it was the editor in chief speaking, and that the window left for me to share anything was very small. But these are important, detailed issues that we need to address! Just like Congress does because the issues are just that important. Man, how are you supposed to stuff a whole Congress meeting into a five-minute space to walk to the next class? Then she'd tell me to go on Discord and message her. So I did, I tried to message her on Discord. And she would respond. Sometimes she'd respond. But it was all too often it was something that said we were too limited or the idea wasn't practical. I'd then want to follow up and discuss the ideas more and explain why I thought we could make it work, but then she wouldn't respond. It was very hard to keep up. And then I'd try to find her in person in class. But that's what I tried to do in the beginning, and it was too difficult. Back to square zero. What a catch-22! What was I to do?
And then we'd meet again, after going off doing many things in the forest. This isn't an adventure. We'd just meet at the next stone.
I didn't know how to tell anyone!
"Why do we need that? We have to focus on the essentials first." I was very surprised at that reaction. Something was off about it. I didn't know how to describe it at the time. Like, why would somebody react by talking about basic needs to cool ideas? Do people react to a gourmet, world-class Wagyu udon dish with "Eh, I don't need it because I don't suffer from malnutrition!" Come on, we need to use our imaginary taste buds and let your mouth water! It's a cool idea. Don't you think cool ideas make people react with excitement? Come on, don't people love salt, spices, and the savory—that food smells good and tastes good? Yes, essentials do come first. But visionary heart, team unity, and a shared course to chart is what is most essential.
During the meeting where we were creating a poster.
"What is this?"
"We don't have enough people"
"We don't "
The poster was in such a poor position. It was below, and the logo was just the same old one. I don't even know if you'd have recognized the logo we had as a logo, or just another design. The table went up to my hips, adn the entire poster was below the table. So when you were talking to us in the table, your legs would practically be covering the entire posted. You couldn't see any of it, let alone the logo there . Explain how Club faire went. I remember how the editor-in-chief ended it early with a "We're done!" When we barely had anyone sign up.
But I could not let the mission die. This had to happen somehow.
I had a long unread document of ideas. Still unread, just like my novel was. It's ironic how I was an editor for a literary magazine, which is about shining light on other's works, but my own novel barely read or even known about.
Around this time is when I began to realize—I was in the visionary trenches. And I took it upon myself—a long, muddy trench to fulfill this.
There is so much more to say about this, and I am very eager to share what happens next and how the story evolves from here with you, and all your fellow readers here. But up until here is all I have time for now.
Fast forward until now, long story short, this is absolutely a major reason why I created Dimension of Thought and am so passionate about it. I made Dimension of Thought back then . Then, as this story of my senior year efforts to revitalize my school's literary pillar. I began to realize just how much more I could do on here than there. With the wix editor and all its elements, it was so easy to implement new ideas and post things. I didn't have to wait for things like new quotas or wait for the next edition to have an idea. We need flexible, easily adaptable communites and platforms where relationships and people actually, ACTUALLY need determine the structure. Not where structure defines what relationships occur and what needs are addressed.
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