For as long as I can remember, writing has been an emotional outlet for me. As someone who struggles to verbally express their emotions, mostly in the moment, writing allows me to sit in my feelings, analyze them, and meticulously craft how I want them to be expressed. I can lay myself bare. I can throw everything I’m feeling onto a fictional character and have them react in the way I can only dream of reacting. It is the most liberating feeling in the world. However, sometimes, that feeling of liberation can feel a bit trampled if your vulnerability is coming out in a piece of writing that will be viewed by an audience.
As a writer, I write my best when I pull from my personal experiences and emotions. That means I always have a strong attachment to my writing. Some pieces are more vulnerable than others, but no matter what, I see myself in all of it. Because of how vulnerable I allow myself to be when I’m writing, even when it’s something like an assignment that will be read by an outside audience, constructive criticism and feedback can be hard to take. In no way do I think that I know absolutely everything when it comes to writing but having an outsider critique something that comes from deep within you can be hard to swallow. So many times have I felt like a weight has been lifted off of me because of what I write, only to have doubt come crashing in when someone gives me feedback about what I can do to “fix” it. I am currently taking a creative writing class where we write adaptations based off of art (e.g. paintings, photographs, music video, etc.) The three pieces I picked to adapt (The Nightmare by Henry Fuseli, Office in a Small City by Edward Hopper, and The Lovers by René Magritte) were all pieces that I felt I could use to replicate a moment or feeling with and make a story out of. I wrote about my personal trauma that has stemmed from relationships, the fear of losing my dreams and aspirations in order to survive financially, and the insecurities and vulnerabilities I’m faced with while dating my current partner. All my pieces have explored deeply intimate parts of myself, and I greatly appreciate having the opportunity to express those feelings. The part I don’t appreciate so much is having to share these pieces and receive feedback from my classmates. As much as I hate the feedback stage of writing, I have come to accept it and I think that is the important part. I don’t hate it because I don’t think the feedback is useful or I believe that I don’t have room to learn; I just dread having feedback made on something that is so personal to me. But that’s the point of creative work: being vulnerable. There is one thing I always tell myself when it comes to sharing my writing: you do not have to love sharing your writing and you don’t have to agree or use the feedback you receive, but you should at least hear it out. About 99.9999% of the time, feedback doesn’t come from a malicious place. People are just trying to help you grow as a writer and you always have room to grow. Feedback and criticism are just part of being a writer, but you decide how it affects you.
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For as long as I can remember, I have loved to write. In a lot of ways, I have loved writing for far longer than I have loved reading. As a kid, I would spend hours jotting down my own stories in notebooks. I would lay awake at night thinking about all the possibilities for my stories and where I wanted things to go. I’ll be the first to admit that none of those stories were anything new, creative, or good, but they gave me a great outlet to express my creativity.
As I got older, I wrote less and less. School took up lots of my time. I focused all my time on keeping my grades up. I was a varsity athlete. I also managed the boys’ swim team. I had so much going on that I didn’t have time to let my creative juices create more than just the basic premise of a story in my mind. It sucked because so much of me wanted to write but I just couldn’t. Eventually, senior year rolled around and the biggest decision of my life so far appeared in front of me: where would I choose to go to school and what would I major in. I applied to seven different schools, all of which had English programs, but my biggest desire was to go to a school with a creative writing program. I am very fortunate that my parents supported my desire to major in creative writing. They wanted me to enjoy my time in college and go after something I am passionate about. I picked Seattle U for a handful of reasons: 1) it was close to home and 2) it had a creative writing program. From that moment that I confirmed my enrollment, I felt like I was on the right track. Let’s fast-forward to this year. I am currently taking my first creative writing class since seventh grade. The objective of the course is to create a text adaptation based off a physical piece of art (a movie, painting, photograph, music video, etc.) In a lot of ways, I thought that this would be a breeze. I would view the physical piece of art as a prompt and I would have to write whatever I wanted as long as it referred to the original piece, however, I was very wrong. For about the last six years, I have written purely academic papers. The mindset of academic papers is so vastly different from the mindset of a creative story. I was going from writing true, hard evidence writing to writing where I could make everything up and no one could tell me it was wrong since it was all my original idea; from structure to absolute autonomy. In a lot of ways, it was scary and it made me doubt my abilities, but I knew I had to do it because I didn’t really have a choice. I started off by choosing an art piece that I was very interested in. I chose The Nightmare by Henry Fuseli. The painting is dark, ominous, and has lots of elements to use to spin a good story. I had never written a horror/thriller story before without some type of prompt, so I thought it would be something new and fun to try as I got reacquainted with creative writing. I was constantly reminding myself to take it easy and recognize that this probably wasn’t going to be my best work after not writing a creative story in so long. This story didn’t have to be groundbreaking or award-winning; I simply needed something to turn in and I could go from there. I also held myself responsible for holding back on how often I went back, deleted, and then rewrote things. I knew that if I was constantly going back and forth, I was going to be too harsh on myself and I knew I would never be happy with it. Holding myself to these things and being gentle with myself was super helpful. I enjoyed writing the assignment and even got really good feedback about it when my classmates read it. I know that I still have far to go, but in so many ways, I think I am finally back to what I want. When I was a kid, it would’ve been nearly impossible to find me without a book in hand. My parents often tell stories about when I used to hole up in my bedroom with a novel when we had guests over. I have vivid memories of sitting at my community pool on hot, summer days with my feet dangling into the water as I read another Beverly Cleary novel and of wandering through my local mall, eyes focused on my book instead of the clothing racks in front of me. When I was six, my optometrist told my parents that I needed reading glasses, and I wore them around my elementary school with pride.
The older I got, the less I cared about reading. The cool kids at my middle school teased those who used to hide books under their desks in class so that they could read as our teachers taught, and because I was thirteen, I was willing to give up something that defined my childhood if it meant that I could climb the social ladder. So, I did what I felt like was the obvious thing: I quit reading for half a decade. In March of 2020, like everyone else, I suddenly had a lot of free time in my hands with very little to do. On a whim, I asked my mom if I could order some books to read. As an English teacher, she was over the moon to hear that I wanted to start reading again and told me that she would cover five books for me. I picked out five random young adult books, unsure whether I would really get into them, and pressed the order button. I read all five books in five days. Since that fateful purchase, I’ve read hundreds of books in two years. I’ve stumbled into worlds with sparkling tales of enemies waltzing through ballrooms, plot twists that have left me suffering for days from whiplash, and most of all, experienced pure, unadulterated hope that when the worst happens, things will eventually get better. At a time when things felt so dire and bleak, like I was in a constant state of purgatory, I always had a book to fall into. I think we love to read because we love to see what the world has to offer outside of our bubble. We love the feeling of falling for endearing love interests, the pride that comes with conquering our worst fears, and the knowledge that, even just for a minute, we get to escape our own stressors to live a fantastical, dreamlike reality. Now that I’m no longer couped up in my house, I’ve had to put a little bit more work into continuing my nurturing of reading. If you’re looking to fall back in love with reading—or in love with it for the first time—this is the advice I always give when asked how to make it happen.
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January 2024
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