My Writing Experience

When I was younger, I never really got into the concept of writing. Writing was always something that you did for a class assignment or to say “Thank you” for a gift you received. (Although my parents never instilled writing “Thank you” notes, it seemed a much better way than having to show gratitude in person for some reason.)
Despite this, or maybe because of it, I was an avid reader. I drew a lot from detail. In fact, the greater the detail, the better. This drove everyone around me absolutely crazy! I could go on for long amounts of time talking about the sunset I witnessed the night before, or about some childhood memory I had forgotten until just that moment. The first thing I remember writing was a descriptive narrative for third grade. At some point, I got bored and decided to just rhyme words. The starting product was a long, detailed account (a very dry, boring account I might add) about the trees outside the class window. By the end of this narrative, however, it had turned into poem about the crisp white of the snow against the dark bark of the tree. I remember asking myself, “Where did THAT come from?!”
That was about the only thing I actually wrote that wasn’t completely dry until seventh grade. I was picked, for some asinine reason I used to believe, to be on The Power of the Pen writing team. I couldn’t figure it out. Until the teacher read my short story “The Devil’s Playground” that we had to write for a class assignment. It was dark, mind-scary stuff. I was impressed. And that’s when it hit me-I wrote this! Wow!
You would think that I did nothing but write after this revelation, but you’d be wrong. Not completely, but you would be wrong nonetheless. I wrote for the competitions and even for a journalism track at Youngstown State University’s English Festival when I was a freshman in high school. I even won some awards and certificates. (I know what you’re thinking. Whoo-hoo! Not!) But to write from the soul, to write to connect to an emotion or a deeper purpose didn’t come until my junior year at Ursuline High School.
Okay, so it was actually the summer before my junior year when I was taking a History course to get out of the way so I could take another class. (I was a very “weird” child that is growing up to be an even freakier adult!) But it was hearing Mr. M talk about his fascination with Teddy Roosevelt that sent me writing. (Why? I don’t know. I guess to avoid hearing some more about how great Teddy was.) My first piece? A love poem. A LOVE poem, for crying out loud! Me, a girl who couldn’t stand the concept of love, detested showing emotion and couldn’t stand writing, was sitting at a desk in the middle of summer, penning down my thoughts on love. I couldn’t believe it. But it was good. And that is what fueled my desire to write. If I could write about an emotion I didn’t believe in, and be taken aback, maybe I could write about other things as well.
Junior year started with only some young new teachers to look forward to. I had dropped my Honors Literature course (yes, I was in Honors Lit) because I was very ill and didn’t want to damage my already fragile GPA due to extended stays at Tod Childrens’ Hospital. I was in a very dark place that year. The only way I could make sense of anything, or attempt to make sense, was to write down my emotions. I soon found out that it was easier for me to write than to speak. So write I did.
I still have my writings from that year. Many pieces are very dark. They speak of a need to be free from injustices in whatever means necessary. Death, suicide, violence, rape…those were the main themes for these writings. I didn’t write just dark things, however. No, I wrote some whimsical, “cutesy” things about falling in love or about whoever I was crushing on at that moment. I roll my eyes when I read these now. I could choke that’s how sickly sweet they are! Gag me!! But some of the not-so-sickly sweet writings aren’t half bad. I am, like most people, my own worst critic. So of course, I like the darker things I wrote from that time period. (Don’t try to understand me. Just nod your head and walk away.)
I don’t write as much these days due to a full time job, starting school again, and just trying to have some kind of a personal life. But what I wrote around the beginning of the year was an eye-opener! Have I mentioned yet that what I think to be my best stuff is what I write when I’m not paying attention? Like my poem about humanity and empowering women? Well, now I have.
You see, I’m used to being the “weird girl” or the “freak” and I just let it slide. I know I am and therefore, I don’t need confirmation. But I also knew underneath the outward freak was something else, something I wasn’t sure I was ready to deal with. So when I read some things I wrote while watching television earlier this year, it was like a reassuring punch in the gut. I use this phrase because it rang true, but it also wasn’t completely expected. It’s also something to be shared on another day as I know I am bound to be well over the 500 word mark. (Sorry! Guess I just ran with it!)