my kind of drama

I was supposed to send off my first application of the season this morning. It's due on Wednesday. There's just one problem--I still don't have a statement of purpose.

I wrote one. It was pretty good, or at least good enough that my friend who reads essays for a living gave it the thumbs up to send to professors writing my letters. I knew it needed revision, but one professor wrote back. My statement was (is) too long, too wordy, and doesn't say enough about what I can offer--specifically. He actually said part of it was very strong--so I'll hang on to that paragraph and a few sentences.

You need a hook for these things, right? So I began with April, with sitting around a table or in my front room talking about poetry. The secret is that as much I liked April, that wasn't the switch that made me jump ship and call myself a writer.

I still don't call myself a writer. Who does that?

There was Gideon telling me in London that I had to decide what I wanted to do: creative writing or literature. And there was Susan introducing me as the poetry student trying to make up her mind between creative writing and literature. And there was me saying I could do both, but not really wanting to do both.

That's where I want this essay to go: that I said I could do both, and I have done both, and I've realized that there are ways to put creative writing and literature in conversation with each other. (That's the paragraph that I get to keep.) But how do I lead the readers to this conclusion?

Did I just answer my own question?