We all have those certain stories. The ones that make us stop and think, that change our view of the world. The ones that reach out and connect with us.
Words are so indescribably powerful. I’m not sure when I started to recognise the vast effects that words can have but since then I have been slightly obsessed with that effect.
I wish I could create meaningful stories. I want to create the stuff that makes people think, that makes them feel something. I just think it would be so incredible to open someone's eyes or connect with them so soundly through words.
I respect authors so much. I have too many thoughts that I could never dream of putting into words. If you can do that, and express yourself in that way, you are so cool.
I guess that’s where I want to be as a writer. But here is where I really am.
My Brother
Once upon a time livd a girl named Lily and a boy named Tyler. Lily was 6 Tyler was 9. Lily wantid to be a fairy princess but tyler thout that was just stupid.
(A telling piece of writing from my third grade journal)
For a long time, writing was more of a chore than anything else for me, just another homework assignment. Maybe that’s because until recently, my writing had no meaning.
Writing in school seems to be normally centered around just getting words down, no matter what those words mean. From this idea emerges the dreaded writing prompt (at least dreaded for me). Writing prompts are busy work. I never understood what we could ever get out of “ Write about what you did over the weekend.” and “Write about your favorite season.”
In some grades of elementary school we had a different writing prompt for every day of the week. Let’s just say that this did nothing to improve my view of writing. I would huff and write another meaningless paragraph.
As I got older, the writing slowly changed. In late elementary school we did mini book reports, not a whole lot more exciting in my opinion. Rewriting a book in a few sentences requires no thought, so I had no interest.
It wasn’t that I didn’t like to learn, I love to learn by reading, but when it came time to write, I got really bored really fast.
In middle school the writing got harder, science fair and history day challenged me to write longer papers. Once again longer papers did not correspond to more thought, it just made for more busywork.
In seventh grade we had to write short stories. These stories could be about anything you could possibly think of. Mine ended up being about a drawing that came to life. This just goes to show my lack of creativity when it comes to writing. There are so many other stories about the exact same concept.
This is just another one of the problems I have with writing. I’m not good at thinking of original concepts for stories. Maybe that’s because I only ever write research papers or maybe it’s just because I am not creative.
In eighth grade something odd happened. We got an assignment to write a 300 word blog. For one thing, 300 words was outrageous at the time, I had no idea how I was supposed to make it happen. Then we were told that the topic was truth. That was all. It was so odd to get to write about something so unspecific. There are so many different ways you can go with just one word as the requirement. I had never experienced that kind of freedom in assignments before.
The blogs continued and I realized that maybe, for the first time ever, I was proud of what I was writing. I feel like the less structured requirements gave me room to think and put something into the writing that I cared about.
Writing became more exciting when real thought was finally involved. Research papers can help you learn but they don’t seem like real writing to me, chewing up and spitting out other peoples ideas and facts can only get you so far.
Once I figured out how to put my thoughts into words and put what I’m passionate about down, that’s when I started getting writing that I was proud of.
Besides the blogs, I also realized that I like writing poetry. I know that most people really hate it but I like the way that poetry can be more emotional than regular writing. I like the imagery in poetry and the way it flows. This is the only kind of writing I have ever been able to do for fun.
I realized that the best way for me to write is to put feeling into it. Just like it’s easier to talk about things that you are passionate about, It’s also easier to write when you are feeling something. I have grown so much in my writing in the last few years, hopefully I can continue to improve and create something that connects with others.
No comments:
Post a Comment