Journey To Becoming A Better Writer

Once, some years ago, when I was in Elementary school, I enjoyed writing for it came very simple and easy to me. Back in the day the only things that I wrote about what mostly word for word of what the teacher had said unto the class.

That all went downhill when I began moving on to higher grade levels. English classes most times got me very frustrated to the point that I would give up and just sit there and not write anything more on a sheet of paper. I would write things like: “ I don’t have anything to say on this topic.” Or: “ This topic doesn’t interest me and I don’t relate to it.” Why should we write about a topic if it has nothing to do with your personal life, or even you don’t care about it? I had a teacher, back in middle school to state, “There isn’t going to always be a topic you can relate to, but there may have been someone you know who relates to it that you can talk about, or better yet put yourself in that position.” This has changed my mindset and my attitude towards writing today.

Being the only child left in the house with two working parents when in need of help with writing papers and homework in general can be very difficult at times. The thought when I needed help with writing would be: “ Who can I turn to for help?”. It’s not that I couldn’t ask my parents for help, but when they weren’t sure about what I could write about or do. I felt that a sign of frustration for it seemed that I depended on their minds more than my own at times.

I came to the realization that I can’t always depend on others. Sometimes it’s best to really think and find other ways to get your thought process flowing. My Seventh grade English class would have to be the class that really impacted me and readied me for my High School english courses and college courses that I didn’t think that I would have been in this early.

As time went by and I started the ninth grade. My english class wasn’t at all what I had expected it to be. My perspective and mindset before getting there was, “ I might as well get ready for writing a lot of research papers and whatnot.” In that class we barely wrote any papers at all. The teacher mainly focused on bookwork and writing scripts which in a way was a form of a paper and also a form of telling a story just in a different format. People would exclaim, “You don’t know what you’re talking about, they have no form of similarity.” I honestly could have cared less about what they thought. In my book “Writing is Writing”, it doesn’t matter if it is a script or whatever, in my opinion they all tell a story whether short or long.

A year after that I entered in English three and we did many writings. The writings were on articles, novels we had read in class or lessons that the teacher would have taught the class. I enjoyed writing in that class for the instructure really gave everyone in the class to be creative when we wrote. The instructor made it seem fun and exciting, even when it seemed to be a lot. I had another class that I was in that were full of seniors and remind you I was only a sophomore at the time. In that history class the teacher made us write two papers that totaled to be 1000 words plus. “That’s a lot to write on a specific topic.” I thought to myself when he explained this at the beginning of his class.I must say I really overthought the whole major paper a bit much. When it actually came time to do it, and we were able to choose our very own topic, it became fairly easy to me as I began researching and typing the paper.

In no history class have I ever had to do research papers. Mr. Ferguson was one of the ones who gave us these research papers to prepare students like me in High School for what is to come when we go off to college or get a job that requires papers and/or articles to be written. Those assignments actually made me think and put in more work than I usually would for any major assignment really. Hard work actually pays off. Making at least an 90% on those papers really made me feel as though, I was becoming a “Better Writer”.

A couple months later, I moved on to last and highest level of english that was required of me to take. That class made me feel like I really wasn’t all that great at writing papers after all. It seemed to me as if the only thing I would pass is when i had discussion questions and journal writings that made me clearly state my thoughts on a topic. I was always so focused on my opinion should matter about everything that I wrote. That all changed when it was time for the SAT and ACT.

Midway through the year there was a workshop offered to students who would be soon taking two very important tests. The main thing that stood out and I kept with me were the difference between the two when it came time for the writing portion of each exam. I learned that one cares and wants to know your opinion while the other does not care about your opinion at all. The question still stands, “Why doesn’t it care about what I think?, If i’m the one writing about it shouldn’t I be allowed to express my feelings?”.

As it turns out writing doesn’t always require your true feelings, sometimes you have to find other ways of somehow putting your thoughts into it but letter the reader or whoever know it is actually you.

Writing has so many demands they put on a person and many rules that must be followed to be considered a good writer. I wonder, “ Who in this World is the greatest writer of all time?”. Will we ever find out? My response to this is no because everyone including myself is a gifted and most unique writer in our own little way.

Becoming a great writer doesn’t just happen overnight and it most definitely isn’t a title that you just get. It’s much more than that, you have to earn that title. To become a great writer, you have to believe and know that you are already one.