I'm going to start off by being completely honest. I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to write about this week. My writer's block escalated to a whole new level of insanity and I found myself contemplating why I write in the first place. And that's what gave me the idea to write this article, and to write about why I choose to write and why I do it everyday. It's sort of ironic in a way, having writer's block and then deciding that the way to cure it is to actually write about it. But I guess that's why writing is so important to me, because to me, it's that powerful.
First things first, I'm not going to lie, I own a journal, or diary as some people call it, and I attempt to write in it every single day. Because if I'm not writing a story or an article, and a day goes by where I don't put my thoughts onto a piece of paper, I feel a little empty inside. So everyday, or at least as often as I can because let's be honest I don't think there's a single person who can say that haven't skipped a day or two, I convert my feelings and emotions into words and translate it using a simple pen and a page out of my journal. I've been writing in journals since as far back as I can remember, and I have a whole stack in my room at home going back to when I was eight years old and gossiping to myself about the cutest boys in class. I'm not very talented at expressing my own feelings whether it be verbally or physically so writing either just a sentence about my day or three pages about how I've been feeling lately makes all the difference.
As I got older, specially starting in the first and second grade, I started writing stories. Reading is something I've always been attached to and I was that kid who exceeded the 25 books a year accomplishment in elementary school by about 75. And eventually I realized that I had the ability to write my own stories and my own ideas so that I could share them with the world. Unfortunately, it's taken up until me actually writing for Odyssey each week for me to share my writing with someone other than my closet teachers in high school. And even then, I'm writing articles, which don't get me wrong I'm extremely proud of, but I still have yet to share a story or novel I've written with anyone in my life besides my English teacher from my freshman year of high school.
Technically, I have shared my stories with thousands of people back in the day when I would update chapters weekly to an online writing community but then suddenly I got self conscious and took everything down. And now I'm a college sophomore in my spring semester, almost done and moving on to the second half of my college career. It's not that I'm afraid to tell people I write in my free time, it's that I guess I'm afraid to actually show it to them. I have this indescribable urge to just finally show my real writing to someone and just get it over with. Maybe it's because I'm a perfectionist. That's something I've always struggled with, especially with my writing because I hate handing in something I'm not particularly proud of. But I'm hoping, no scratch that, I know that the day will come where I'm finally not scared anymore to have someone read my stories. Writing for Odyssey is my first step in accomplishing that and I'm not going to stop now because this is truly the biggest hurtle I've jumped over. Writing is my escape, and I'll write whether I'm ecstatically happy or downright depressed for as long as I possibly can.
Now, I would't say my writer's block is completely cured, sometimes I'm lucky and it only lasts a day or two, but I am just a little bit more inspired. As Hemingway said, "There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed".
