"True love is the greatest thing in the world. Except for a nice MLT."

You know that movie Romancing The Stone, where Joan Wilder, played by Kathleen Turner, is writing one of her romance novels and she gets so wrapped up in it she's a crying mess because what she wrote is so romantically sappy and wonderful, and yet she's alone and has never even had that kind of romance?

I think I'm turning into a Joan Wilder.

Thank God I'm not turning into a romance novel-er, but, minus a few depressing beginnings to plays, most of the things I've written lately have been romantic and sweet and the kind of thing you expect to see in a Jane Austin novel or an episode of Downton Abbey.

I have very little to draw on from personal experiences, so I'm not exactly sure where all this is coming from. I've had the odd surely-this-is-the-boy-I'm-going-to-marry moments, but they were pathetic in comparison to anything real and genuinely loving. Maybe I'm just drawing on what I hope will eventually be reality.

I should combine all these romantic scenes I have and title them "The Ridiculously Romantic And Sappy Side Of A Silly Girl Playwright".

"Now don't forget to smile, darling." "Well which one? I've mastered three of them." - Hugo

It's one in the morning and I really should be asleep. But it doesn't really feel right to sleep right now.

I'm graduating tomorrow, but I don't think that's what's keeping me from sleeping. I think life is keeping me from sleeping.

I knew exactly what I wanted to do three years ago. I remember sitting on a park bench one night at Maryville College and knowing I should be a journalist and fight horrible things in the world with my words and inspire others to make changes.

I still want to do that, but I think maybe I've shifted a little, too.

Over four years at university, I've learned that more than anything else, I love to tell stories. I love to tell other people's stories. I love to listen to peoples' stories and write them down for others to read. But I've learned that there's more to telling stories than just being a good journalist.

To tell a story means to be an inventor as well.

I've always had a wild imagination, thanks to a love of reading and learning put into me at an early age by my parents. But I never thought that would get me anywhere as a kid. I'd write my silly stories about love and squirrels and death and magic, just like any other socially awkward and introverted middle schooler. But that was for fun.

And then I get to college and meet a wonderful woman named Stacey Isom who showed me that it's okay to be an inventive storyteller.

I'm probably strange, but taking creative writing classes made me aware of the stories I could tell of characters I meet in my mind, not just people I find for journalism articles.

I'm rambling, but in my defense, it is one in the morning.

I just love a good story. I love reading a good story in a book and watching a good story on film and writing a good story through characters and people I run into.

Maybe I'll still do all those journalistically things I decided I would do on the park bench. God only knows, I guess.

But maybe I'll get to tell other stories too. Maybe I'll get to introduce the world to some of the characters I live with every day in my mind.

Their stories deserve to be told, too.