Personal Statement: Why Should I Write?

The story of my history as a writer is a very long one. My writing has come full circle. I have changed very much throughout the years, both as I grew older and as I discovered more aspects of my own personality. The growth that I see when I look back is incredible, and it all seems to revolve around my emotions. I have always been a very emotional girl who feels things keenly. All of my truly memorable writing, looking back, has come from experiences that struck a chord with my developing self. This assignment has opened my eyes, despite my initial difficulty in writing it. When I was asked to write down my earliest memory of writing, at first I drew a blank. All of a sudden, it became very clear to me, probably because it had some

“Reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are,” (Cooley). Throughout our lives, reading has impacted us in many ways. Often times books give people different perspectives on their lives. People with high stress levels often find comfort in reading books to take their mind off of their concerns. Sometimes, people just need to take a step back from their lives and relax for a while; therefore, reading is a great tool. In fact, all kinds of books have also helped me become a better writer. There are many different books that have impacted me over the years.

It wasn’t until this class, where I was told that I was not being asked to explain in great detail what has shaped me into this amazing writer that I am today, but instead to explain what type of writing I feel comfortable with. At that point I realized that this assignment may not be quite as difficult as I thought.

When I was eight or nine years old, I decided I wanted to be a writer. By this age, I had already gone through the phases of wanting to be an artist, a cook, an astronaut and was extremely satisfied with my new choice of profession. After all, I loved to read so why not write? Reading was my true love: during second grade, I conquered all of Harry Potter over the course of two months. My mom’s rule was that I had to read the book before watching the movie, so I read and read. I would compete in, and win, all the school reading competitions as well as the summer library competitions. Writing, I decided, was the next natural step.

Bring all of your personality to a story. Dramatize the characters and bring them to life. Excitement, suspense, and humor will draw in your audience. Do not chose a book with too much dialog. Children have a hard time understanding quotations.

No one is quite sure at what exact time reading became more for pleasure than for knowledge, but today, novels are expected to be entertaining and used to relax the mind. What an author cannot do to make their writing entertaining is to sit in their offices all day and churn out page by page of material. Authors must first feel the emotions they describe in order to enable the reader to relate to the text. In order to write an effective piece of writing, an author must first experience and understand their own lives and apply it to their writing in order to be engaging and of use to their reader.

Writing is a process that is difficult to start, yet impossible to end. To sit down with a notebook and formulate the first thought that is notable can take a minute, but often takes me hours. My mind is very focused yet the focus of my thoughts wonders. Thus, to say that I was born to be a writer might just be the farthest from the truth. Now there is one large contradiction in that statement. Once I begin the writing process I have a tendency to get caught up in it. While my writing process as well as my writing style tends to vary based on topic and circumstance, my methods remain the same. I know that a course with such heavy writing will bring upon its own set of challenges, I hope to keep realistic expectations while utilizing my strengths as a writer in order to reach my course goals.

One skill that I have as a writer that I think is my strong suit is being able to think creatively. In my opinion fiction writing is one of the best type of writing there is. For me it’s easy. I can use my own ideas and think of some crazy plots and twist within the story. I’ve written stories before right off the top of my head, like it was just a second nature.

   A successful writer is he who is able to transmit ideas, emotions, and wisdom on to his readers. He is cable of stirring emotions and capturing the reader's attention with vivid descriptions and clever dialogues. The writer can even play with the meanings of words and fuse reality with fiction to achieve his goal of taking the reader on a wonderful journey. His tools are but words, yet the art of writing is found in the use of the language to create though-provoking pieces that defy the changing times. Between the lines, voices and images emerge. Not everyone can write effectively and invoke these voices. It is those few who can create certain psychological effects on the reader who can seize him (or

After only writing brief passages I wanted to write more than a series of unconnected passages so I attempted to write stories. At first, it felt awkward and forced but I kept writing. Although it felt strange in the beginning, it became easy. Slowly I became confident in what I was writing.

At a young age I discovered my eagerness to learn, and engage myself in the world of literature. My curiosity grew exponentially. By the time I was in middle school, I had dedicated my time to crafting my own fictional novels. I dreamed of one day finding success and becoming an author. At the top of my novel would read- New York Times Best Selling Author.

I express my creativity through stories. As a child, I read voraciously. My mind would travel through the universes made by the authors of Star Wars. Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, and Clive Cussler. In time, I developed a strong desire to create my own. I would come home from school to write stories from my imagination and end up with a ten-page tale. One of my favorite stories was about a boy who could control a special metallic substance and create objects with it. Within the story, he would fabricate weapons using his mind, altering its physical properties, like density and elasticity, to his every desire, using the alloy to appease his every dream. I spent months on that story, continually improving the plot and drawing pictures of the events.

When we began the year in my English class we were assigned to write an essay that tells a personal story. One of the main criteria was to “paint a picture” with our words since we were being taught the descriptive writing style. I began my essay by stating, “The sky was quiet and the clouds held back their tears because an ordinary day at school would no longer be ordinary”. I wrote my essay about a traumatic and eventful time in my life when I was living in Palestine. To be able to transport a reader to a precise setting is what

Learning how to first write, I believe, for kids is always fascinating, because it is something new to them. Starting out is simple, such as writing letters of the alphabet and slowly progressing into writing words, sentences, paragraphs, and whole papers. Even though I was a creative kid, through the years of elementary school it began to become tougher. I ran into obstacles when I was told to write a comic strip, a short story, and a paper about ourselves. Not being able to write what was coming to my mind in a manner that made sense frustrated me. Throughout elementary school I struggled with writing because I never figured out how to fix this problem. During these years I succeeded in reading and I would soon hope to in writing.

I can remember when I was back in 4th grade, I used to attempt to write books or stories. When I was younger, I loved to read with my mom and then would try to write something similar to the book I had previously read. My Mom would help me read books like The Magic Tree House and would simplify and slow everything down for me so I could better understand what was going on and why. Nina Sankovitch, a reader who blogs about what she reads captures my feelings when she talks about how “I discovered new wells of resilience and joy, empathy and beauty” (Sankovitch). When I was younger, I didn’t know how to always capture these emotions, but my goal was always to make a story and try to recreate those feelings. It was a real accomplishment for