Writing never came naturally to me and is something I always struggled with during my first couple years of middle and high school. It wasn’t until I started reading more books that I realized how much I loved to write. Reading "The Great Gatsby" and "The Catcher in the Rye" during my sophomore year of high school showed me how powerful words are.
Despite my love for writing, I never actually wrote anything personal or meaningful until the end of 2013. I had just got out of a toxic relationship and didn’t know how to express how I was feeling in a healthy way. One day I got out of bed for the first time in a week and turned on my laptop. I opened up Tumblr and just went on a writing tangent. Sometimes I wrote about nothing and other times I wrote about everything that was on my mind. I wrote about my frustration and I wrote about how helpless I felt.
What I’ve learned from my favorite writers, such as Sylvia Plath and Emily Dickinson, is that they weren’t great verbal communicators. Writing was their voice and how they expressed themselves to the rest of the world. If you’re a writer yourself, you know how much easier it is to write down how you’re feeling rather than consulting a friend about it.
Although I experience writer’s block on a daily basis, when I do get inspired to write, I write like there’s not enough time in the world. I personally find that traveling and getting away from my everyday environment is what inspires me the most. When I’m driving down an unfamiliar road in the middle of a random city is when I imagine a new character or a new scenario to write about in my next short story. That being said, in March of this year I took a weekend trip to the mountains with my parents, and as soon as I got home, I wrote a poem about what I saw. I wrote about how the trees and greenery made me feel euphoric and peaceful.
The hardest part about being a writer is that inspiration isn’t always easy to come by. I find that I write my best pieces when I'm either feeling extremely happy or depressingly sad. I find it hard to write when I'm just feeling "OK" When inspiration does happen, it can happen anywhere and you have to be prepared to jot it down so you don’t forget it later. In my Creative Writing class this past semester, my teacher had us all keep a thought journal that we could jot ideas down in to write about later. I obviously don’t walk around with a composition notebook in my back pocket, but I use the notes feature on my iPhone now as a thought journal/notepad. It isn’t the most organized idea, but it works.
I’ve learned a lot about myself since making the decision to be a writer and major in English. I make it a habit every day to write a few sentences. It doesn’t matter about what, I just always make sure to write something meaningful down each day. There’s a lot of ins and outs of being a writer, but it’s so rewarding when you create a piece you’re genuinely proud of. I wouldn’t trade being a writer for any other profession in the world.
