Personal Narrative: Me As A Writer

I have always struggled with my writing assignments. If I had the option not to write I would take that option with no hesitation. I truly dreaded it, when we have to type essays. Now, I have been into two English classes where I have felt a little more comfortable in being able to write something without being so embarrassed or ashamed in what I’m about to turn it. I still feel horrible about my spelling and grammar.

I have a love-hate relationship with writing. I can write well according to some of my peers; though this could just be from the fact that I seem like the quiet, studious, type who has spent most of her time with the straight "A" nerds who went on to top tier schools such as Stanford. Sometimes I am not too sure of my own writing abilities. On most essays, I get a little bit above average grades and every once in a while I get a few more points than usual. I have noticed that my writing is better when I have to write about a topic I am passionate or know a lot about. The more I have to work with the better. Otherwise, my writing seems poor, forced, and somewhat bland. It usually follows a poor or basic thesis statement and lazy paragraphs. I believe motivation helps me to write better,

During this spring semester, I have grown in many ways as a writer, and a student. I have started to realize, and accept the flaws that I have created in my writing. In the past, I never looked into my writings and saw my problems, and if I did, I did not accept that they were problems. In my writing pieces in the past, I was very hard-headed about what I thought was correct versus what was actually correct. I have also become More familiar with different formatting options on Microsoft Word to create a more professional piece or writing. However, figuring out all the parts of writing and making them work together is the most difficult part of writing.

Many people enjoy and have fun writing, but then again, many people dislike having to write, including me. Writing has always been something I was never really interested on for many reasons.

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 semester involved many writings that challenged my process in ways big and small. The variety of prompts each had their own details that required me to change perspectives as well as research topics to test my abilities as a writer. The topic that I felt helped me grow as a writer the most was the Personal Narrative. This essays caused me to think in its own way and only after completion was I able to effectively use the methods it taught me in my other assignments.

Thinking about our first writing assignment, one of the suggestions focuses on the comparison of writing to running, it became apparent to me that this is something I would enjoy writing about. I am a long time running advocate, competing in marathons, and a neophyte writing student, and I find many similarities in both endeavors.

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.

Hi, I’m Brooke Yliniemi. I am an involved high school student at Menahga High School. Through creative writing class, I was able to broaden and strengthen all my writing skills. I have always enjoyed writing, but never truly knew where to begin. With creative writing, I was able to find out my personal style of writing and what interests me. My writing has improved abundantly when it comes to writing poetry, and short stories. Through each section, I was able to grasp new skills and create personal goals to become my own writer.

I started to write when I was 10 years old. It was under the recommendation of my therapist who believed that it would help me release negative emotions, and it did. Since then I have loved to write stories, journals, poems, anything that could set my imagination free. However as a writer I’ve always felt unsuccessful I have always felt that the pieces I write are never completed. Even more that as a writer I was not good enough and I shouldn’t show my writings to anyone that I shouldn't even bother to continue as a writer. These reason both motivate me and make me not want to continue but I choose to let it motivate me because I

My growth as a writer was evident in my second peer review. In contrast to the first review, I offered comments concerning sentence structure, grammar, parallelism, APA style, and clarity as well (C. Twyman, personal communication, May 2015). It was obvious that my understanding of scholarly writing had improved. I was starting to see how the conventions of writing worked together to form a complete paper, however I was still unsure about my ability to analyze competent scholarly writing. Although my comments had increased in variety, I still found myself unsure about how to give appropriate directives. In communication with Cheryl, I wrote, “maybe reword this” (C. Twyman, personal communication, May 2015). This short but sweet comment

There I was sitting in the guest room of my aunts house. It was hot, the AC was busted, and I have not even started my history project. “I knew I should have started this sooner.” I said to myself. Ten minutes pass, and I'm still writing the first paragraph, when all of a sudden I hear a voice. “Take a little break man; you’re stressing yourself out.” I tried to ignore it, but the next thing I knew my left arm began to reach for my phone. I stopped myself. “I have to finish this project.” I said to myself, but I was not strong enough to stop myself a second time. As my phone sent a notification about a new video, my left arm sprang up and grabbed my phone. I wasn’t in control of myself. I couldn’t stop myself. It felt like the drive to

As a writer, there are many challenges I face, requiring strength in different areas in order to overcome them. My greatest challenges would be momentum, writer’s block, and confidence. When a writer understands their challenges they can become their greatest strengths. When I am writing it is important to have the adequate momentum to get from notes to final draft. I often find myself losing steam and have difficulty getting my momentum back. Allowing myself to get distracted, taking too many breaks, or starting my writing when I know I will not have time to complete it all, contributes to my failed momentum. Writer’s block can easily be considered the Achilles heel for all authors. When I can’t form a thought worth writing down, I

I have always loved writing ever since we started having writing prompts in elementary school. I was always so excited to give out a story. I would make these elaborate stories that evolved some fantasy aspects. The only thing that would mess me up in my writing process is that I would have a difficult time setting up the start of the story. The video talked about this, and advised me to get a journal or diary. This would help me write anyway I like without judgment. I am fairly new to the revision part of writing. I would always turn in my draft as is, but now that I think about I would love someone who can give me some advice on my drafts. I've never had a full writing process myself. This has lead to writer's block in the past drafts.