Blair Emsick

Mrs. Martinez

AP Literature and Composition

February 7, 2010



Writing About Writing

Writing has been a constant wonderful force in my life since a very young age. Writing, I believe is a way to harness the imagination, into its most productive or even its most destructive form. Writing helps unleash the clausterphobic, choking on hot air, soul inside all of us and gives us a breath of fresh air. Being a writer is a lifestyle choice, it demands constant and careful attention. Writing has shown a different world to me, a whole different way of looking at things and the people around me. Writing has enlarged my mind, and made me who I am today. I feel that many people these days think of writing as a daunting mechanical task, I stronly urge that writing is not so, writing has this captivating livliness that is hard to let go of.
When I was a small child I always said when I wanted to grow up I wanted to be an author, not a writer an author. I wrote short stories that received much praise from my parents and teachers and had a very elementary view on writing. It wasn't until the fifth grade that I really wrote my first poem. I remember reading the book Lizzie At Last by Claudia Mills. The main character Lizzie is this out of the ordinary girl who writes poetry all the time, I wanted to be just like her and so I began writing poetry. From that point on I was constantly writing in my diary, constantly just writing. Writing made me feel important, it made me feel like I had something really important to say, and that even if people wouldn't listen the page would.
In middle school I kept two notebooks one for my diary and one for just writing down mindless thoughts that popped into my head, like doodling for the mind. Writing became a part of who I was, but it really wasn't until my sophomore year in high school when I began to take writing really seriously. I enrolled in Mr. Larson's Creative Writing class and that class really helped me through my sophomore, junior, and even this year. Mr. Larson requires us to write 10 pages a week with various assignments throughout the week. Writing that amount every week really began to change who I was. It is so hard to try to describe it, with each word I wrote I felt like I was growing into a stronger more mature person. Writing made me feel special, it still makes me feel special I have something that I am good at, or that makes me feel good anyways.
Writing has this power, it's indescribable really. I find whenever I am confused about something a situation or a person, when I'm angry, or sad I write and it has this way of calming me down. Taking the edge off of my spirits. One of our assignments for Creative Writing was to read Natalie Goldberg's book Writing Down The Bones. It's basically an extended version of this personal essay. In one chapter Goldberg writes about this exact phenomenon how writing is like a drug, it can make you feel better, but with no bad after effects. She talked about how maybe alcoholics drink because inside there's a writer waiting to be unleashed and the resistance to the inner writer is making them drink. It's an interesting theory true or not.
Writing also has this profound power over a person, because on the page one can be whoever they want to be, say whatever the want to say, and do whatever the want to do. I can be a greek soldier fighting in the trojan war, or I can be Einstein if I want to, all I have to do is find the right words to say. Although it is probably best not to get wrapped up in a fantasy world and lose your grip on reality, I have been there, it is not healthy. Writing I hope will continue to be suge a huge part of me and my life. Writing is my muse, my therapy, my life, me.