How I learned to Write, and Love it

I was learning my letters around the same time I began piano lesson. What I remember most about learning to write, wasn’t the actual process but the struggle I went through trying to figure out which letter my teacher had written above the note on music, and then trying to find that key on the piano. There is a large gap from then to my first diary. I’m sure it’s still around somewhere, with a blank first page, some scribbled notes with a few tear stains, and then a lot more blank pages. From there, I had a blog I’d update sporadically. I always felt that I should try and write everyday, but I never really seemed to have the drive. Instead it would come out in random bouts. Usually when I was upset or depressed, occasionally when I was extremely excited. I started to post my writing on deviantart for comments. Since then, there have been a few more blogs, and I post my work to theheelpress. There are tons of unfinished and finished poems, and unfinished stories (no finished ones; I can never seem to complete a story) saved to the house computer. Even more are saved to my current computer, that I got when I started college.

I remember getting horrible scores on my practice MEAP tests in middle school. I’d write long, descriptive pieces that tended to stray from the intended topics. I have never done well with being forced to write on something specific. But I still remember the day my teacher handed back a creative writing assignment, and told me she loved my writing. I was the kid who had books stashed everywhere. I’d stay up late reading with a flashlight. My mom would frequently find me hidden somewhere, avoiding chores to read. As a punishment, she would take my books away. To say the least, I have always loved to read. But it wasn’t until my teacher complimented me that I realized that I loved to write, too. To be the one in charge of what was being said. It was a rush to be able to direct something in the way I thought it should go, instead of letting someone else do it for me.

In highschool, I wrote a few articles for my school newspaper. While it was fun, journalism clearly wasn’t my passion. Years later, I found out that my editors had kept from me the ‘hate mail’ I got in response to some of the more, uh, caustic things I’d written. It remains a large regret that I never knew about it back then. Maybe writing responses would’ve sparked a bigger interest in journalism.

Poetry, however, has always been a passion for me. Looking back on my earliest poems makes me cringe. They were melodramatic, riddled with cliches, and really just painfully bad. When I switched out of the business school to major in English at MSU, I was amazed at the classes I could take that would help me get my degree. Intro to Poetry seemed like a good fit, considering my poems had improved from the initial woe-is-me stage, and were somewhat decent. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. My teacher was horrifying. She would rank the poems for the day, then casually go through them, ripping them apart. There wasn’t a cliche she missed, or a mixed metaphors she didn’t point out. By the time the class was finished, I loved her. Unlike the people I’d had read my work before, she didn’t coddle me. Halfway through the semester, she wrote up individual evaluations. I have mine still, and I smile every time I read her words that say I’m a natural poet. My teacher? Diane Wakoski - author of more than 40 books, recipient of numerous grants and winner of the William Carlos Williams Award. She is even recorded on “In Their Own Voices: A Century of Recorded Poet” alongside Plath, Whitman and Bukowski. Had I known more about her before I started the class, I probably would’ve dropped. I was lucky, then, that I didn’t google her until the end of the semester. She is by far the most literate person I have ever met. I still find myself wondering what she would think of a poem, trying to look at it through her eyes.

My friend Maria recently had me review a personal essay she’d written for her application into nursing school. I obtained her permission to shred it to pieces, and by the time I’d slashed everything, and reworked it, I’d somehow managed to almost double the word count. I wish that was more common, but unfortunately when I write essays I usually tend to spit out what I want to say as precisely as possible, and then find myself scrambling to fulfill the word count. I also tend to find myself hurrying because I never write anything until the last minute. I like to claim that I’m really thinking about what I’m going to say, not actually procrastinating. But, to be honest, I’m probably just busy watching TV or hanging out with friends. Despite all the papers that I’ve had to write, I still haven’t gotten much better at writing when I don’t actually feel compelled to do so. Fortunately for me, since I love to write, I frequently feel the urge. The margins of my notes are filled with ideas, or poem segments. I love when get distracted by what I’ve written on the side, and end up writing instead of studying. I know, regardless of where the future takes me, writing will always be a large part of my life, and help define who I am.