Monday, March 12, 2012
Slice of Life Day 12
When I was young I had to write, I felt compelled to write my stories and my poetry. Then in college I took a creative writing course and the first time we had to share what we had written I realized I was not as gifted as the writer in the class that the teacher praised. It stunned me that the type of writing the professor liked was so far from what I was writing, it was a universe apart. By the end of that semester the professor actually liked what I wrote on a prompt for the final exam. Afterwards he caught me in the hall once and said "I hope you are still writing." At that point I was writing a play for a drama class, and that professor (total misogynist) completely squelched any hopes that I could write. I still wrote for myself but not with the same burning need as I had in the past. By the time I was 25 I no longer wrote at all. This is the first time in thirty years that I have put my words down. It has brought a part of me alive again. I will continue to write when this month has ended, and hopefully never stop again.
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Welcome back to the writing world! My writing life has had some ups and downs, like yours -- I loved to write as a child and high-schooler, then I pretty much stopped writing for fun in college. However, I was always proud of my writing and never more than one of my M.Ed. profs wrote "Your writing style is both poetic and academic!" on one of my papers. Still, I didn't really become a writer again until this year, when I started blogging and joined the SOL community! I'm glad it has given new life to your writer-self as well!
ReplyDeleteSo glad you have returned to something you enjoy. I taught a writing process class last year. I was amazed that the majority of the students (all teachers or trained as teachers) felt the same as you. Most of them had a writing phobia attributed to a teacher they had at some point in their educational career. How sad that our profession turns students away from writing instead of toward it. I expect the same happens in other subjects as well.
ReplyDeleteI just caught up - this is great! I'm so glad you are enjoying writing each day! I'm also happy for you that it's so successful with your kids!!
ReplyDeleteMy story is similar to yours - I wrote a lot in high school and college and then stopped. I wrote poetry off and on and letters to my grandmother of course but not much else. My few years of blogging have really got my faucet going now.
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