In this blog post, I’ll summarize the academic efforts I made, the school activities I participated in, and my experiences with compassion and giving while I was in high school, all in preparation for creative writing.

Academic Experiences and Reflections

Growing up with a Christian faith, I frequently read religious literary magazines. These magazines featured a variety of genres, including poetry, short stories, and essays about daily life. Sometimes I found comfort in heartwarming stories, and other times I marveled at the elegant expressions. As I encountered these works, I developed a strong desire to write pieces that would move others’ hearts.
However, when I actually tried to write, I felt at a loss as to where to begin. So, I started by imitating the work of others. I copied poems published in literary magazines and practiced by rewriting some of the sentences. By rearranging the order of sentences or substituting words and modifiers, I gradually developed my expressive skills.
I also participated in a short-term creative writing workshop organized by my school. The workshop taught basic creative writing techniques; for example, when writing a poem on the theme of “autumn,” we practiced listing words that came to mind using mind maps. I repeatedly practiced breaking down words that came to mind—such as fallen leaves, books, and colds—into smaller parts, associating them further, and randomly connecting them to create new sentences.
As I consistently practiced this, I became able to naturally connect words that initially seemed completely unrelated to form new sentences. Once during a workshop, I wrote a poem using “sweet potato” as the subject, listing words like “yellow,” “cake,” and “coal briquettes.” That piece received praise for its colorful descriptions, but was also criticized for being overly embellished.
Taking that feedback to heart, I made an effort to strip away the flowery rhetoric I had borrowed from others’ writing and instead use sincere expressions that sprang from my own experiences. As a result, I was able to write simple, heartfelt pieces without exaggerated adjectives, and my writing skills gradually improved.

Major Campus Activities and Reflections

On campus, I took the lead in publishing a literary magazine through a Christian student group. Our group spent much of our time praying and sharing stories with one another, and as stories we wanted to preserve began to accumulate during our meetings, the idea of publishing a magazine was proposed. All the other members responded positively, and we began preparing it together.
First, we researched existing literary magazines to establish a general framework. I introduced a Christian lifestyle magazine I regularly read, and other members brought in magazines they used as references for comparison. We decided to include testimonies, devotional journals, and articles about school life, with genres such as essays, short poems, and short stories.
As editor-in-chief, I was responsible for collecting manuscripts and overseeing the magazine’s overall layout. Our rule was for each member to submit one piece per week, and I wrote the foreword myself. The other members wrote testimony diaries based on conversations we’d had in the small group or compiled their thoughts from meditation sessions into reflection diaries for submission.
For the magazine’s layout, we decided to include interview-style transcripts to document the discussions held within our small group. We believed that recording our regular discussions about the role of Christianity and the direction of our small group would help us confirm the continuity and meaning of our activities. These transcripts added depth to the magazine.
Although we couldn’t use professional design or editing software during the editing process, we used recycled paper to save on production costs and worked hard to create the most visually appealing layout possible. The total length was just over twenty pages, and thanks to the small contributions and voluntary efforts of the small group members, we were able to prepare the magazine to the point where it was ready to be sent to the printer.
We distributed the completed first issue to other Christian small groups and teachers both on and off campus. Receiving direct feedback from readers was a great joy as creators; praise served as motivation to make an even better magazine, and we made a point of immediately incorporating advice into the next issue. Through this process, the magazine gradually improved and our readership grew, which gave me great satisfaction as editor.

Examples of Consideration, Sharing, and Cooperation, and My Reflections

As we regularly published the magazine through our small group, we naturally began to think about sharing with the local community. At first, collecting articles and producing the magazine itself was no easy task, but thanks to the cooperation of our members and the encouragement of those around us, we were able to create a magazine of increasingly higher quality over the course of two semesters. Our sense of responsibility grew, leading to improvements in both the magazine’s appearance and content.
As a result, we decided to send the magazines we produced to churches, daycare centers, senior welfare centers, and youth education facilities outside of school. Representatives from these organizations expressed surprise that high school students had produced the magazine themselves and expressed their intention to continue receiving it. As our subscriber base grew, we began to focus on creating better content, which led to an improvement in the magazine’s quality.
It was particularly rewarding to see elementary and middle school students from low-income families, who attend local study centers, subscribe to our magazine. These students were interested in Christian activities but didn’t know how to get involved; we heard that through our magazine, they became interested in small group activities and even began writing creative works themselves.
Later, some of them even came to visit us with works they had written themselves, and we continued our connection by publishing those pieces in the next issue. This experience made me realize that sharing creative work goes beyond mere distribution—it can provide motivation and courage to others.
Through this process, I deeply learned the importance of collaboration and a sense of responsibility. The fact that tasks impossible to accomplish alone become possible when we work together—and that our efforts can influence someone’s growth—served as a major source of motivation. I intend to continue communicating and sharing with others through writing in the future.