My Relationship to Writing

https://www.sciencemag.org/sites/default/files/styles/article_main_large/public/images/writing-a-research-plan.jpg?itok=Gt_7NoRX

Life of Writing

            Life is not stagnant. It changes with events, growing old, becoming wiser, and a multitude of other things. The way life changes is different for each person as well; no one experiences the same things, in the same environment, with the same people, who all learn at the same rate. Writing is like that too. Throughout my life, as I changed and aged through the exciting, wonderful, and terrible years of my life, my writing style changed with me.  

Being an avid reader as a young child, I had an early interest in being an author. The intricate plots to the far-fetched novels I was accustomed to consuming inspired me to write one of my own. I was in love with the way the characters would fight in battles, live in fictional worlds, fall in love, solve mysteries, and I wanted to be in charge of what happens next. I desired to create my own world. As an eleven year old, I started writing a novel. I wrote about these two children, who stumbled upon this, more or less, invisible staircase, which lead them into a completely different world. I will admit, I was not the most original preteen; my plotline was entirely influenced by what was my favorite novel at the time, Gregor the Overlander, by Suzanne Collins. However, I soon realized that writing a book wasn’t as easy as reading a book. On a word document, which I still have saved onto my computer to this day, I had written five solid pages of this world before stopping. My childhood innocence and juvenile dreams ran wild and rampant. My creativity had not yet been corrupted by schooling or growing up; I was pure and imaginative, as was my writing.

Even though I never finished my book, I didn’t stop writing. In middle school, we had a Book-Fair twice a year. I remember I had just finished reading, “The Series of Unfortunate Events”, when I attended this Book-Fair and spotted a journal inspired by the series. I filled diary with colorful, glittery ink, stickers, and assortments of other things. Yet, these sentences were not like the sentences I had written before. I filled the journal with stories from my life, crushes, secrets, and jokes. There would be stories about what I had done that day, what my best friend had told me, and general feelings about things. This journal was bursting with crossed out sentences, misspelled words, grammatical mistakes, yet, it was also packed with ideas, honesty, realization, and feelings. My middle school years are represented well by my journal. These years of my life were convoluted with learning and new friendships. A portion of the time I was being taught how to write formally, or at least as formal as you can in middle school, but another portion was spent writing notes to friends and trying not to get caught by the teacher when passing them back and forth. My writing was developing; half still new and adolescent, but half beginning to grow and advance. I, again, mimicked my writing style; I was growing and learning as a person as my writing abilities grew and advanced.

My writing followed me into high school, which occurred how it does for most people: awkward and uneven, but also a time of progression. Things were different from they ever had been; classes were harder, assignments more challenging, and the dynamic was overall more intense. During the first two years of high school, my confidence levels in my writing abilities, and myself, were not high. Even though I would be getting high grades on the essays and English assignments I completed throughout the years, I still did not feel good about what I had written. I remember, after reading the novel Night by Eli Wiesel, our teacher assigned an essay covering concepts that occurred in the reading. I had not prioritized my time well and ended up writing the entire four-page paper two hours before it was due. The next week when the papers had been graded and passed back, I had one of the top grades in the class. I received an A on a paper that I felt was C quality work, or at least did not reflect my full abilities. The grade was nice, but I wanted to feel confident about writing; I was worried that without the proper teaching, I would not develop this strong and necessary skill.

That insecurity followed me until my senior year when my abilities flourished with the help of my Advanced Placement English class. As new writing styles and opportunities were introduced, I adapted and conquered them. My Advanced Placement teacher would assign a novel for us to read, and then a prompt to answer in essay form. Struggling a little at the beginning, my grade was not what I wanted it to be and I was worried about if I had chosen the correct class to take. The turning point, from being self-conscious and timid to being self-assured and strong, was after reading the novel A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving, and completing the assigned paper. The actual essay took days to write; it was assigned in the summer so I was able to work on it for several hours a day. Something clicked while writing it; I am not sure if it was because the novel itself was so intriguing and enthralling to me personally, or if I just really understood the prompt, but I was excited to get my ideas across in writing form. Even when I asked my parents to read it for critiques, they were surprised that I had written this. When I turned that paper in, I didn’t care what grade I would receive; I was ecstatic because I had just written the best paper I had ever written, and I was excited about future novels and papers. My relationship with writing became a positive one, and as I became strong and confident in it that year, I also became strong and confident in myself.

My writing, like Henry Miller wrote in Henry Miller on Writing, “…like life itself, is a voyage of discovery.” (Miller 19). Throughout my experiences and journey, I was able to develop my writing into a better, more proficient ability. Writing developed with me; as I changed and grew, it did too. Starting from having the passion for becoming a novelist and the creativity to fill pages upon pages of notebooks with colors, stickers, and doodles next to my daily adventures, I progressed into being proud of my academic writing ability. Now, even though I have veered away from fictional writing since most of my assignments are educationally based, but I have come to appreciate my adolescent style of writing. I have gained confidence in writing, but I know that my abilities and potential are nowhere near what they can be in another couple of years. With having that personal relationship to writing, I have the optimism that, as I continue to work hard to improve, my writing abilities will carry me far.

Work Cited

Miller, Henry, and Thomas H. Moore. Henry Miller on Writing. New York: New Directions

Publ., 1970. Print.