Senior's talent in written word

From poetry to short stories, Lauren Williams' passion is writing.

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It's a talent that has garnered her more than $200 in prize money from the handful of contests she has entered.

"I do it for the enjoyment of it," said the 17-year-old of writing and entering contests. "I can't lie, though, I like the prizes, too."

The daughter of Hank and Jackie Williams, of Evans, Lauren is a rising senior at Greenbrier High School where she is in the school's marching and wind ensemble concert bands.

Using her life experiences, Lauren writes about things that happen to her. For instance, Lauren was seated in a higher band class during her freshman year of high school. She wrote a poem, Perfection Revisited, about her experience of being "looked down upon by other classmates."

Perfection Revisited was a winning entry in this year's Young Georgia Authors' Writing Competition sponsored by the Georgia Department of Education. That means Lauren's poem will advance to district and state competitions. Winners of those contests will be announced in September, according to the Georgia DOE Web site.

"One of the things I think really makes her so good at writing is that she really enjoys it," said Sheila Wilkes, Lauren's former creative writing and literature teacher at Greenbrier High. "She's not afraid to show emotions when she writes. She sticks with writing what she knows about and that's what makes it good."

Lauren, who says she's having writer's block right now, is focusing her next writing efforts on a short story for her senior project. She hopes to work with a printer to get the piece published.

"I've actually been in a really bad writer's block for the past couple of months," Lauren said. "My short story is going to be about a girl who has writer's block and her adventures and journeys to get past it."

Lauren's own measures for getting her creative flow back are simple: she waits it out.

"I haven't exactly got a method to get past it," she said. "Lately, I've been sitting it out and waiting for some ideas to come."

In the past two years, Lauren has had winning entries in the Morris Museum of Art's Combining Voices Literary Competition, as well as Sacred Heart's Emily S. Cleckly literary competition themed "The Gardner."

For the past four to five years, Lauren has been enthused with writing and is determined to major in either creative writing or journalism in college.

"It was a television show that started it all," she said. "I saw one episode that really inspired me and I started writing fan fiction."