Why I Write

It's never been homework. It's never felt like homework, except, of course, when it actually was homework. Yet even then, it didn't feel like a chore. It still doesn't. Now, I'm aware of the people who are going to think I have completely lost my mind when I say this but I hope they reconsider their judgement by sticking to the end of this but until then, here goes: I love to write. I know, it's crazy. It's almost as crazy as those people who actually enjoying reading! Absolute mysteries, they are! (Psst...I'll let you in on a little secret: I'm one of those crazy people, too.) But truthfully, I do like to write. Anything I can put into words and then down on paper, I do it. It can be for school--papers, essays, Blackboard discussion posts, peer edit workshops, study guides, whatever. It can also be purely for the pleasure of it. Again, crazy, I know.

It's liberating. It's soul-searching. Sometimes it makes me dig deep into myself and even into other people. Sometimes it's hard, depending on the subject matter. Just this last semester, I had to write a pretty intense and in depth analysis of my family and in all truth, I found myself having to put it down and walk away from it much more than I had anticipated. Some material is heavy but let me tell you that there was no better feeling than handing in that 20-page paper that intimately described every detail of my family. I wrote about something that made me extremely vulnerable and it took some soul searching and digging on my part. But it was freeing. I learned more about who I was by breaking my family down to a more basic understanding and then by writing about it. It was personal and authentic, which made it harder to write, but it pushed me to challenge myself as an academic writer and simply as a writer in general. But there are other things that I have written that are not as arduous. Also this semester, I wrote a quite lighthearted and informal essay on the word "adulting" and why, to me, the word is like nails on a chalkboard. It was fun and witty and easy to write; much easier than the family analysis that was due around the same time, I believe. So I've seen both sides of the spectrum and all the space in between when it comes to writing. Writing some are much more enjoyable than others but they are all works that I have come to be very proud of over the time I have spent writing.

I do find myself cringing at some of my old papers that I have read over, even those I had only written a year or two ago. It is easy to track progress with writing because you can see it. You can hear it. You can say it. The written word is tangible and it's visible so it isn't very difficult of a process to see where you have improved or made errors. I tend to edit papers again after they've been submitted and then I kick myself for not thinking of that one thing that could've made my paper better before I had submitted it. Bad habit, I know. I am trying desperately to break it. No such luck thus far, but I shall keep you all updated.

I have always liked to write and I don't know if that's because I like my handwriting so much--it's cursive, always has been, so it's pretty. Or, at least I think it's pretty so I try to write every chance I get. Not type. Write. I even wrote out this entire article, pen and paper, before typing it up. But I digress. It took me a long time to realize that I was good at writing. It took up until this year, actually, when I had a professor whom I respect immensely and is someone whose intelligence I truly admire, complimented my writing skills. I'd rather be complimented on my use of language and my intelligence than my hair or my smile or my eyes. I remember reading the comment that was made on one of my papers that I had to tell someone, my roommate because I was so proud and genuinely honored that I had received a compliment of such caliber from my idea of a modern day genius. I mean when I tell you that this professor had the most brilliant mind I have ever encountered, I am not exaggerating. This isn't RateMyProfessor.com but if you want details, contact me directly and I'll make my recommendation. In all truth, while I had always liked to write, I didn't realize I loved it until recently. I've started to write more meaningful content and material and I just find it to be therapeutic and a relaxing process that I haven't been able to find in anything else, really. Besides music. But that's a whole other article I could write.

I take pride in the things I write. From research papers to witty 280 character tweets, I am proud of the way I can string seemingly meaningless letters together to create these words that,when strung together, empower not only myself but others, too.

You may not love to write. You may not even like to write, you might flat out hate it and that's perfectly ok, I'm not here to convince you otherwise. I'm simply here to inspire you not to fall in love with writing but to recognize that some people do. People like me.