This is my final paper for my writing class this semester. I wrote it in about two hours total...what do you think?
Humble Beginnings
�Here you go. I thought might enjoy reading this,� my grandma said to me while handing me a thick packet of paper. The packet was carefully folded in half, the crease obviously well worn, as if it had been folded and refolded many, many times.
�What�s this?� I asked her.
�Just read it. You�ll like it.�
I opened the packet of paper, gingerly unfolding it, not knowing what to expect. A child�s scrawling writing, written with a heavy hand and an inky pen, filled the page. I didn�t recognize the hand writing. I could only assume that it once belonged to me. A younger me. Judging by the massive size of the punctuation marks, I was in second grade at the time. The only reason I know this is because I remember how much I loved using punctuation marks in my stories. Each comma had to be carefully made. It was the same with the periods, question marks, exclamation points, and apparently most importantly at the time, the quotation marks. Each one so large, drawn in so heavily, the pen bled through the page.
I sat there reading the short story I had written way back when. I laughed at my inventive spelling. I scoffed at my apparent obsession with hyphenating words in the wrong places � rather than splitting the word in between syllables, I�d throw in a hyphen when I ran out of room on the line. Yes, I ignored things such as margins and punctuation rules and even grammar rules. There certainly was a huge difference between that little story and any of the writing I do today.
So. Aside from a silly little story I had written way back in elementary school, what was I reading? What had my grandma saved all these years to give to me now? Why would she even bother to save it? That silly little story has to be the most important piece of writing I have done to date. How is that possible? Sure, my writing these days are, more often than not, more sophisticated and more advanced as far as technique and style go. But it doesn�t make it any better than that little story I wrote so many years ago. The story may be little. And it may be simple. But it is also my first attempt at the writing process. That silly little story is the first evidence of my fledgling career as a writer.
I am touched to think that my grandma could see that in my writing all those years ago. I am grateful that she saw past the giant quotation marks bleeding across the page and the atrocious spelling. When she read my writing, she didn�t see it as being a silly little story that an eight year old wrote and gave to her as a gift. Had she seen that, and nothing more, she probably wouldn�t have kept it all these years, waiting for the right moment to pull it out of a drawer and give it to me to keep. She knew that someday I would want to look back and see the humble beginnings of my writing.
I�ve always wanted to be a writer. I have absolutely no idea where this idea came from. I can only imagine that it came from my love for books. But, for as long as I can remember, I�ve dreamed of writing (and publishing) a great book someday. While I may not know what, exactly, this book of mine would be about, I do know that I want to write. That�s always the first step of becoming a writer, right? I can�t say that my aspirations of becoming a writer have actually produced anything worth while. Sure, I�ve put pen to paper, fingers to keys. But the outcome of doing so has always been less than inspiring to make future attempts at writing.
I suppose you could say I�m one of those na�ve writers who believes that with the right equipment, whether it is an elaborately decorated journal or a colorful pen, my creative side will be more inspired to actually make an appearance and produce something of substance. This has yet to be the case in all my years of writing. More often than not, inspiration seems to hit when I least expect it, leaving all those wonderful pages and pens untouched. It usually decides to hit while doing mundane, every day tasks, like doing laundry, driving to the gas station, or even sitting in the waiting room at the dentists office. The people around me and their conversations also inspire me to want to write. For some reason, I feel like I should be chronicling everything around me. The thing is, I don�t usually get a chance to get any of this down on paper. By the time I get around to thinking about it and getting my stuff together to actually write it down, I�ve lost the thought entirely.
Once I get past that initial road block and actually get my thoughts on paper, there are so many other factors that have prevented me from accomplishing much else. Of course, there is always that inner voice and the endless debate we have over the quality of my work. Few people have seen my writing. The sole reason being because I don�t feel like I should waste their time with something that a part of me does not believe is worthy enough to escape the confines of my thoughts, let alone be read by other people. I�m not entirely sure where all this lack of confidence and self doubt came from, but I understand that I am not alone in feeling any of this when it comes to writing.
More often than not, when I look back at my writing, if I sit down and re-read what I have written, I cringe. Yes, I cringe. I sit in disbelief that I have created such wretchedness. If, in the rare chance, someone has read my writing, I wince in imagining the pain they must have endured. There is no way someone could possibly enjoy reading something as uneducated and underdeveloped as my writing. Words do not come easily to me anymore, as if they ever did at some point in my life. More often than not, my writing sounds forced, unnatural. I believe all of this is quite obvious in my writing. So, I must ask myself, who wants to read something like that?
In her essay, Mother Tongue, Amy Tan discusses the difficulties she faced as a crafter of words. Although I cannot relate to the fact that English is not her primary language, I do have a certain sense of understanding of her frustrations with mastering the English language. English is my primary language. It is my only language in fact. I have been surrounded by the English language my entire life and I still do not have a firm grasp on it. I�m not even close to mastering the language. I, too, in the heat of a free write, believe that I write, �using what I [think] to be wittily crafted sentences, sentences that would finally prove I had mastery over the English language� (Tan 137). Afterwards, I come to the realization that I do not understand and do not utilize the language nearly as well as I should, if I have even the slightest inkling of becoming a writer.
Tan continues her essay with an example of her frustrations of writing. In a rough draft of The Joy Luck Club, she included the sentence �That was my mental quandary in its nascent state� (137). The sentence was removed in later versions of the manuscript. Tan describes it as being �a terrible line, which I can barely pronounce� (137). The sad thing is, I can barely pronounce that either. And I can only guess as to what she was actually trying to say there. I have to ask myself, shouldn�t I know what that means? Shouldn�t I understand what she is trying to say there, if I am to consider myself a fellow writer? Shouldn�t I be able to write sentences like that? Forget the sentences, why aren�t I writing full paragraphs, full pages even, of eloquent words that roll off your tongue smooth as silk yet stick to your brain like peanut butter at the same time?
So. You might ask how an aspiring writer like me has any hopes for ever writing (and publishing) a book if I�m constantly doubting myself and my capabilities as a writer.
Good question.
I have yet to answer that one myself. If you find out the answer to it before I do, will you let me know, please? Thanks.
A few years ago, I started keeping an online journal. I began by just writing random thoughts, and seeing where I could go with them. The actual topic was never all that important. The important thing was that I was writing, and putting that writing in a place where everyone, if they wanted to, could read it. Keeping this journal has been one of the most difficult things I�ve had to do. Having my writing out there like that makes me so vulnerable to the world. The world now has a window into my thoughts on a daily basis. That�s rather scary, isn�t it? Scary or not, I�d like to think that keeping this daily journal has helped me grow as a writer. I was incredibly wary having my writing out there, for anyone to read. I couldn�t believe I was leaving myself open for constant criticism. Fortunately, my critics haven�t been nearly as tough as they could have been on me over the years. I am still my toughest critic.
The journal itself serves two purposes I suppose. As I�ve already mentioned, it takes me out of my comfort zone as far as allowing people to read my writing. While that has proved to be very important to me, my journal does serve an even larger, far more important purpose than that. I suppose you could say it�s a form of exercise for me. I practice crafting my words, sentences, paragraphs, pages just so, trying to achieve perfection in my writing. I utilize any and all literary and writing techniques I may have learned along the way, through my journey as a writer, an avid reader, and a student of great literature. But I�m still not where I should be yet as a writer.
To date, I have written over five hundred fifty entries in my journal. Going on six hundred, actually. As of right now I see it as nothing more than a writing tool that is helping me grow as a writer. I suppose you could say it�s the practice run before the real test, the real trial of writing a book. I haven�t written anything to be proud of, that I know of anyways. For all I know, some where in my journal, lost in all those pages and all those words, a book could be waiting for me.
I just need to find it.
And write it.
I can only hope that some day I will overcome my fear of writing, my fear of my own thoughts making their way into print on some page. I can only hope that some day I will become a master of the English language like all the great writers before me. Some day I will be able to craft witty sentences, sentences dripping with irony, sentences worthy of attention and acclaim. Words of a certain eloquence will eventually take the place of all those colloquial words I always seem to hang on to for dear life. Unfortunately, I still have a long way to go before I am ready to tackle anything nearly as significant as writing a book. But, I see my writing today as being another step away from my humble beginnings of writing silly little stories for my grandma.
Works Cited
Tan, Amy. �Mother Tongue� from The Norton Sampler, sixth edition. Ed. Thomas Cooley. W. W. Norton & Company, New York: 2003.