Blog…what kind of word is blog anyway?

Paper 3 Draft 1

Victoria Wilson

November 18, 2008

Allen

I set out to write my first book when I was in sixth grade. Since then my writing has changed quite a bit and have been influenced by many things.

Christmas Break: Sixth Grade

I moved slowly around the bed approaching the book sitting on the night stand with a critically raised eyebrow. I had hastily thrown it into my suitcase at the last minute. I would have just thrown it in my closet never to be seen again but it had been given to me by one of my best friends. I had told her repeatedly that I was not interested in fantasy. I had explained to the point of annoyance that I thought fantasy was silly and that I didn’t see the point. Despite this, she had given me the first Harry Potter book as an early Christmas present. I was in Florida visiting my mother and grandmother over Christmas break. My mom had moved and I knew no one in this new neighborhood. Besides this, I was not the most social person and meeting new people was more hassle than it was worth. Eying the book suspiciously I picked it up and examined the cover. There was this cartoony looking drawing of a funny looking kid who was flying around on a broom. Seriously. I would have put it right back down but I had promised Tina I would read it, and tell her what I thought. Sighing I lowered myself onto the floor next to the bed and flipped to the first page.

I was hooked. To this day I don't regret reading that book. Not only did it open me to an entirely new aspect of literature that I had previously overlooked but it made me want to write books myself. I could not understand how a book was written but I thought I would give it a try anyway. I understood that the writers that I read were once children and figured if they could write books so could I. However, I was not so very confident in my own writing ability so I suggested to Tina that we write a book together. Having only read one book under the umbrella term of fantasy I suggested we write a book set in a school for magic. Of course we took great pains to ensure that the characters and concepts were nothing like that of Harry Potter. The story focused on three female characters set in alternate dimension medieval times. We would each write a portion and the other would look over it and put it into the story. I was absolutely obsessed with writing and slowly I was able to grasp some sort of methodology for writing by examining books by published authors and asking questions of my teachers. I carried on in this way until one of my class assignments changed how I would view writing forever.

In one of my classes we were assigned to write a story about Alaskan natives. We were told to make them as historically correct as possible and we were also asked to incorporate specific aspects of class discussion into the story. Finally, here was my chance to prove that I was a Writer. I wrote a story about a little girl that got lost and how she eventually made it back to her family. I thought the story was brilliant and could already envision the praise I would receive for it. I did not really follow the directions given, took many liberties and ignored the tie in to class discussion. I felt that these things would detract from the value of my story and I believed that the “goodness” of my story would make up for any lack of direction following. This was not the case. My teacher wrote on my hard work with a red pen, a large red D engraved over the top of the page, right above my title. At the bottom, as if in apology, she wrote that my story was quite interesting but that I did not follow the assignment properly. Tears streamed down my face as I walked the two blocks from the school to the house of the lady I was living with at the time, a friend of my Aunt Julie's who insisted I call her Aunt Bee. Aunt Bee asked why I was crying and when I was finally able to choke out an answer and thrust my crumpled paper in her direction she smiled at me, a little condescending and a little sad.--The last part of the sentence may sound a little better if you made it a separate sentence. Like you could end it at when you gave her the paper then end the sentence and start it with: She smiled at me.... It was then, though I could not put a name on it at the time, that I learned about the different types of writing. I knew that there were different genres, after all we had just learned what the word genre meant and our home room teacher had put up a colorful poster with the names of the most common genres of creative writing. I knew about Mystery and Romance, Fiction and Non-Fiction. After this particular encounter with writing I was forced to create a new genre, School Writing. I began to understand that writing had limitations and rules placed upon it in an academic setting. Even when a teacher said something like “be creative” what they really meant was “be creative in this box that I have placed around you”. I began to realize that if I wanted to be creative in school I would have to follow the rules. I also began to see the rules in the books I was reading. These books had rules pertaining to their structure, but it was not the structure that interested me it was the story. I think that this part would have a more powerful effect if you made "It was the story" a separate sentence or put a comma before it or something like that. After getting that D, however, I was forced to understand that it was important to know the rules.

Not willing to give up writing but preferring praise over scorn, I began to search for ways to write better. I continued to examine other author's works as well as ask for any willing persons opinion. I would watch their faces closely as they read because many people, for fear of hurting my feelings, would not be as honest as I wanted them to be. Their facial expressions while they were reading and I would watch their countenance when they told me how good my writing was. These things were what really told me what they thought of my writing. Beyond this, I was able to gain an insight into human nature as well as body language. Incorporating these things into my writing was also a pivotal point in my writing career because the characters that I created became more and more fleshed out until finally I was able to create differentiation. Previously, I had modeled my characters after myself. Having little understanding of other people, I was not really capable of creating a whole new person separate from myself. At least I was unable to until I really began to study the people around me.

In the end, I'd have to say that the most pivotal thing to effect my writing was the opening of my mind to various genres and when I began to understand how writing fit into both society and in an academic setting. Slowly, as I got older, I began to understand other people more and more. This understanding enabled me to create more three dimensional characters that became their own people rather than slightly refined copies of myself. Sixth grade was defiantly a time of learning and change in which my writing, or at least my perception of writing, changed drastically. Not only was it during this time that I began to write, I also experienced my first criticism. This also enabled me to see the rules both grammatical and academic that were placed on a piece of writing. I didn't look too deep into any of these things, nor did I put these newly formed concepts into words. While I barely acknowledged these things on the surface, they stayed with me and were important aspects that influenced my writing from then until now.