Your pencil that is never sharp enough is gripped in your cramped, aching hand. You sit at your desk staring menacingly at the scribbles on a page you have just manifested in the last hour. Your eyes frantically scan the words as your brain scrambles to locate something to fix, something to add, or something to cross out. With a deep breath, you carefully write the last sentence of your piece. As you place that final period, you feel conflicted over whether or not to feel satisfied with your creation. The overworked pencil is released from your grip, and an uneasy peace settles over you. It is finished--for now.
Scenarios such as the one above occur frequently in the life of a writer. Although it is something that we have a passion for, writing is also something that can be exceedingly torturous. When writing, we must force our brains to reach outside the comfort of everyday vocabulary to craft a sentence that looks as beautiful on the page as it sounds in our mind. Yet, that is not the most difficult part of the process. Each sentence is a unique strand of a complex web that does not function properly without its counterparts. Add the variables of grammar, syntax and overall format, writing becomes very tasking. Of course, this is true for all people who have written a paper before; but writers do it for fun. We tend to take each characteristic of writing extraordinarily serious, because we know that the outcome has the possibility of becoming something worthwhile, whether to ourselves alone or to the world.
However, the mind of a writer is not only put to work when a pencil is in hand or keys are touching fingertips. It is always functioning in such a way that we tend to view the world around us differently than other individuals.
A typical individual may walk along the sidewalk and spot a tree nearby. In contrast, a writer picks out detail that otherwise could go unnoticed, such as the texture of the path beneath their feet and the uneven bark on the tree that provides a home to creatures unseen. The same method of detailing can be applied to people we face in passing. Two girls are laughing as they walk down that rough sidewalk, but what are they laughing about? Where could they be going? One of the girls is wearing a breast cancer awareness pink ribbon bracelet. Does she or did she know someone with breast cancer? Is she personally affected, or simply representing an important cause? Various amounts of details can be plucked from a single glance at a stranger; with the aid of imagination, a writer may very well invent an entirely unique character, essentially on accident. This is a major reason why a large proportion of writers carry a journal with them at all times: we never know when we might become inspired.
Yes, writing is tasking. And yes, writer's block and perfectionism may frustrate us in unimaginable ways. But writing is also a form of release. Writers notice all of these details throughout the day, whether it is within the context of a classroom, a relationship, or a random moment. A great deal of these details stack up inside our minds; with the addition of stress and other external elements that may make our heads spin, we often find ourselves feeling overwhelmed. Being able to destroy a blank page with our thoughts or craft a sentence that impeccably describes what we want it to is a magnificent feeling. Although we have a love/hate relationship for this passion, to us, there is nothing better than the pride we feel after we have successfully created a masterpiece. Of course, we find difficulty in fully completing a piece, since it always feels as if our work is never quite finished. Nonetheless, for the most part, we are aware of where the finish line is, and exactly when we cross it. The final period and the satisfaction of finishing the piece feels tremendously like winning a race: perhaps you could have done better, but all you feel is euphoria.
The complexity of a writer's mind is too dense to describe in this short article. I could go on for pages regarding the innumerable types of thoughts that travel through our minds at record speeds as we write, or I could touch on the various tricks that writers use to work themselves through a piece, but instead I will leave you with this: no matter how vexing writing can occasionally be, it will forever remain a fraction of ourselves and always be a part of who we are.
