Narrative assignment: Write about your history as a writer

“An audience is always warming but it must never be necessary to your work.”

- Gertrude Stein

 

            When I was a kid and it came time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends and look for a more socially acceptable way to “pretend,” I turned to writing my own stories. My earliest memories have me with a book, my imagination running wild. When reading a good book before bed at night, “Just one more chapter…” turned into a finished book at 4am. All those books made me have a running narrative in my head almost all the time, and those running narratives quickly turned into stories.  I would lie on my bedroom floor and pen stories for days. I loved it – using my own imagination to create the world as I saw it – telling life through my eyes. I always wrote independently, weaving intricate layers together. I soon learned that I could transfer this skill and love of the written word to school, and my essays received high marks. Though writing for school was slightly different; I loved using my writing to prove a point. I knew that how forever long my essay was, I had an audience, and it was my personal agenda to move that audience to thinking about my words, agreeing with my point. This (albeit narcissistic) idea is still something I carry with me today when I write essays or when I write for class.

            But at some point in high school I was encouraged to take creative writing classes and continued to pursue that passion in college, declaring a Communications major and Writing minor. I explored the depths of writing, dabbling in journalism, non-fiction, personal essays, commercials, ad copy, and screenplays. Each genre proved to be a new challenge, and through these various mediums I learned the value of good editing and revising – something that today I consider to be a gift and a curse. I am lucky to now have these writings as snapshots of my past as I grew, changed, and evolved throughout my years of college.

            But somewhere along the way, (I deny being able to pinpoint a specific occurrence, but we all know it has to do with a bad relationship, a boss who I swear wanted to see me regress instead of progress, and let’s face it, horrible self-esteem) I began to stifle my own voice. I would sit and stare at a blank page, unable to begin a piece, almost as if I was too afraid at what would fill the page. I even began to restrict my personal writing so much that I stopped altogether. Writing was no longer enjoyable because I became too harsh a critic. I began to want to label things, for every piece to have a purpose, for every word to carry too much weight, embarrassed at my own inner-narrative.

            It wasn’t until I made a difficult and conscious decision to start a…. I almost cringe at the word…a blog…to remedy my writers block. It has a small following, (I had to make it my mom’s homepage so she would even read it) but that doesn’t matter to me. I write for no one but myself. Yes, a lot of the time even the blog is censored but I have also begun to write more privately as well. One day, I’ll be glad I wrote the blogs, when I look back and am reminded of who I was when I was 25. This type of writing has begun to open up doors to other parts of my subconscious as well.

            As an English teacher, writing is crucial. Being able to unlock my own inner-narrative will help me encourage my students to do the same. Realizing that I have my own voice, will help me enable my students to acknowledge that they have a voice that deserves to be heard as well. Great writing is honest. It transforms the writer so who they are after the piece is written is slightly different than the person they were before.  Great writing establishes a connection between the writer and the reader. And if I can experience that connection with at least one of my students, I’ll have achieved a level of success that no other profession offers. No, maybe I will not become a famous author, as I thought when I was young, but each year, come September, I will have a new narrative to pen.