Fiction has always been a favorite genre of mine. Whenever we can work on the craft of fictional storytelling, I always find myself simultaneously excited and intrigued. I am constantly hypothesizing on what we, as a department, could be doing differently from last school year, and the school year before that. This year, what our department head, Heather, has decided to do in order to shake up the formula, is implement two new kinds of assignments: Daily Practices, in which we write for thirty minutes every single day, and annotated responses on stories we haven’t previously read in class before. These stories are what has fascinated me in particular. So far, our current class bibliography includes (but is not limited to): “Further Interpretations of Real-Life Events” by Kevin Moffet, “My Last Attempt to Explain to You What Happened to the Lion Tamer” by Brendan Matthews, and just recently, “The Fog Horn” by Ray Bradbury. These stories are all individual tales that stand out from each other, yet, as a writer I am still compelled to find the similarities. Between “The Lion Tamer” and “Further Interpretations” I was able to identify how both of the main characters are embroiled in situations where they feel lessened, to some extent, by another character that bears no real animosity towards them. This revelation, among others, is exactly why this year’s fiction unit serves as a reminder to all of us Creative Writers; we are only ever done learning when we are done thinking.