Personal Narrative: I Am Not A Writer

My writing experience started in high school. I was part of the high school yearbook. I was business editor as a freshman up to being the editor my senior year. I also participated on the newspaper staff. I had some experience in college, but I did not finish college. I then did not have any more experience until I started work as a leader at Nisco. I finally started college classes again.

How can I become a better writer? Throughout my writing experiences, I have learned I have many weaknesses along with strengths. My experiences with writing has not always been the best, but over time, with lots of practice and instructions from my instructors, I can proudly say that I have gained a better understanding on the layout of essays and papers. As well as understanding how to write correctly my goal as a writer is to learn how to overcome my weaknesses and use my strengths to my highest ability. I have many strengths, weaknesses and goals that I plan to achieve and overcome in my college career.

In my first “Who I am as a Writer” paper I stated how one of the areas that I needed to improve was writing. I went into more depth talking about how my writing is not descriptive enough and how I cannot grab the reader's attention. Even though I still need to continue making improvements, I have gotten better in both of these aspects. Compared to my papers in high school my introduction paragraphs have improved.

This is the 25 minute writing challenge, where I’m not allowed to use the backspace button on my keyboard or edit what I’m typing. There are probably going to be many typos in this small paper, but that’s apart of the challenge as I can't edit anything. I honestly have no clue what to write about, but atleast I’m 3 minutes in right now.

One of my strong points in writing is coming up with ideas and knowing how to get started on a paper. I guess you can say I am a free writer. Whatever in my head ends up on paper and I could write about a lot of things that matters to me or upsets me and feel passion when writing it down, but there also a weakness that I can’t overcome because my inner critic come along with it. Which makes me completely change and overshadow my own writing. I have a problem with revising and not being able to see the flaws in my writing, but that’s not it. I overpower one topic with another one in other words I would mash up two topics that is the exact opposite of each other which contradict my whole paper. The other problem is shorting up a sentence as well

In high school I challenged my writing skills by taking advanced placement language and literature. Both courses assigned essays that required scholarly text to support my points and ideas stated throughout the paper. My biggest takeaway from these classes was that having textual evidence from reliable sources will help strengthen my writing, also known as ethos to persuade the audience. During my junior year I grasped the concept of ethos, pathos, and logos, how each could be used to shape writing concepts or perspectives. Personally it takes me a little bit of time to adjust from different writing contexts that need to be addressed, but I always thoroughly analyze instructions to reach success. I improve as a student when I practice analyzing

Seated in my petunia pink room at my tan desk an excruciating voice rang through my eardrum. “Again!” the voice bellowed. I hurried to rewrite my work. I started at the beginning with printed letters. A,a,B,b,C,c… I wrote every letter of the alphabet capitalized and lower cased. “Now cursive!” snapped the voice sharply. Again, I wrote all the letters but in cursive this time.

I am glad I got to read what Prose wrote about learning to write by reading. This explains why I am not a good writer, because I have never been a good reader either. I grew up in a culture where reading was very rare, plus finding a book to read was hard. I do agree with her that reading enhances writing. Most of the time when I write I tend to follow the tone or the structure of what I read before. I also agree with her that sometimes a good writer puts you to shame. I have read peer papers in class before and sometimes I was blown away by the good work I was reading.

Mostly everyone’s first experience with language is similar. The first words that a newborn will hear are usually very simple. Almost every time someone new enters the world and first sucks oxygen into their lungs, they hear something along the line of “congratulations! It’s a boy (or girl)”. A child’s first look at written language however, can be a completely different experience. What I share with you today is my writing experience throughout my childhood and how my family, friends and my education have played roles in the growth of my writing ability, as well as how I engage in the act of writing.

Throughout my high school career, I have been exposed to many different elements of writing and, although some teachers have emphasized certain areas more than others, I feel I have come a long way as a writer. Despite this I also know I have much further to go. This fact became very clear to me as I was taking my previous course of English, Accelerated English Three. Within this course I was introduced to the MLA method of citation, I experienced disappointment due to receiving a lower grade than I had desired, and I discovered difficulties such as my impatient tendencies to look over errors and mistakes during the editing processes.

My experience with writing has been very up and down because I have a hard time focusing on the topic. I would say that’s something I need to honestly work on because my attitude is if I'm not into it then I'm not doing it simple. Some of my past teachers in high school said that I could write but I honestly don’t know about now. I'll admit that I've gotten lazy in the sense that if I'm not into the work then I'll just pass it with a D or just retake it. I need to get out of that and just suck it up and get it over and done with.

Ever since I can remember I have always struggled with writing. I believe that Spanish

I define myself as a writer. To that end, I spent fifteen years developing my talents with classes, workshops and contests that give feedback. The last class focused on description. The peer reviews I have participated have contributed to my writing and editing skills. Although unpublished, I have a bachelor’s degree in Publication Management and currently service on the Board of The Atlanta Writers Club, a hundred-year-old organization that help authors with the craft and business of writing.

This semester has been a long, yet rewarding couple of months. This was the first semester in which I worked full-time and attended school full time. Due to this I had a fair share of role conflicts, but I kept on going. This class was scheduled at eight in the mourning making it a difficult class to attend. I typically get off work around midnight. This has often resulted in me forgoing sleep. This has been stressful but it was not without a benefit. I became committed to the work I was turning in, more so than other classes. If I’m going to drive forty minutes to attend an English class on no sleep, then the work I submits going to be worth my efforts.

Am I a writer? Yes and no. I love to express my thoughts, my views, my passions on paper. I hate the constant feeling of being judged based on my writing. Writing supposed to involve a flow of imagination, not being restricted by a criteria or a grading policy. Writing is free from neglect and judgement, and exposed to open-minded pupils alike. We've been taught from elementary school to write for a passing grade, not for the idea of creativity. So, am I a writer? Yes and no. Yes, when it comes to the freedom of creativity, and no to when I’m being judged or