I have been writing since I could write. Ever since I was able to write sentences I've tried to keep journals and write stories and whatnot. I remember being so excited every time I got a new journal thinking to myself, this is it, I'm going to write in it everyday. And I would actually write that out in my journals! "Dear Journal, my name is Kylie Hess and I will write in you everyday! See you tomorrow!", "Dear Diary, my name is Kylie and I love to write! My new year's resolution is to write in you everyday! I know I've been bad at it in the past, but this time I will keep up with it!" Anyone looking at them would laugh, seeing the months and months that passed before the next time I wrote, only to say something along the lines of, "Dear Journal, I'm so sorry I haven't written in you lately! I can't write much right now, but will soon!" I always had only the best intentions when starting journals. Later on in life, I took writing much more seriously. I started some short stories, completing only a couple. I shared some of them with close friends who said I should send them in to magazines or newspapers. I chose not to, convincing myself it was for the better. I was too afraid of rejection. I've always seen writing as an outlet, so I'm hoping this class will rekindle my love for it and continue past this class.
I think a really pivotal point in the school aspect of my writing was when I was given an assignment to write on anything I wanted. I took a college class for a day at Bethel when I was in middle school. The professor looked at all of us, much younger than his usual students, and said, "I want you to write. I don't care what you write about, but I want you to really feel what you're writing and express that on the page." He gave us about 30 minutes to write on our own. We were able to choose our classes that day; thus, everyone in the room wanted to be there. The silence for that half an hour was unlike anything I'd ever experienced in a classroom. There were so many ideas rushing about the room that you could almost feel the wind as they passed you. It was such a great experience in my life not only as a student, but as a writer. If I remember correctly, it's what really sparked my interest in serious writing and pushed me to continue on with creative writing outside the classroom.
I smile thinking about how much technology has impacted the way we write in only the past 10 or so years. I remember sitting in class in third grade as the teacher told us we had to learn cursive because when we got to high school we would only be able to write that way. After about fifth grade, I didn't write in cursive at all! We no longer had to write papers by hand because of our ease in access to a computer. Now I'm hearing that they are taking cursive out of curriculum all together! A typical day in my life now consists of mainly texting. When I was beginning high school, I think the only thing I did was talk on instant messenger on the computer. I didn't even send a text until probably my sophomore year. Now it's the only way most people communicate. I send a lot of emails but if the people I'm talking to are local, it's generally just easier to shoot them a text. I'm also quite partial to tweeting or commenting on people's walls. Such a huge leap from just ten years ago when social networking was just a mere idea.
As a hormonal teenager, the best time for me to write was when I had just had something "traumatic" happen to me. This time, it was another fight with the equally as hormonal teenage boyfriend. We had fought about a rather touchy subject; abortion. If I remember correctly, he said there was no way we could keep a child if it was to arise and I wasn't so sure. Tears streaming down my face, I pulled out my laptop, opened up a new page in Microsoft Word and just started writing whatever came to mind. The outcome ended up being one of the most heartfelt and successful pieces I've ever written. It was a short story depicting the life of a teenage mother alone with her son. The imagery and real passion in the story was what really set it apart from any of the others I had written. It just came to me like I was actually there; actually experiencing her pain mixed with happiness that came when thinking of her son. To this day, I believe it's the most successful stories I've ever written, and I take a lot of pride in it.
Reflection: This writing went well for a fastwrite. It was different than other school writings, because generally it's a grueling process of research and grammer/spelling corrections. In this assignment, however, since I only had five minutes per prompt, I found myself leaving most of the mistakes and continuing on. I typed as fast as I could think until my time was up, only stopping to correct a couple mis-worded sentences. I ran into problems when I couldn't think of a word. I was thinking about what I wanted to write so quickly that words would escape me and I had to take a minute to think about what exactly I was trying to say. I don't think it's something I can change, if I had had more time to work on it then I wouldn't have made the mistakes, but in the time crunch my mind sometimes thinks faster than I can type. Generally, I see that my first attempt at a sentence is grammatically incorrect. Thus I have to go back and correct my mistakes. I think that's one of my worst habits as a writer; the thoughts aren't as fluent as I'd like them to be. Hopefully in this class, I will learn how to think more clearly from the get-go in order to not have to go back and correct my mistakes as much. Also, I see that when I'm "telling the story," my words come out better than when I'm just merely explaining something. I see it as a positive writing attribute.
