Writing About Writing
© 2008, Amy Mulvin
I have nothing in particular in my mind to write about, and yet, I feel the NEED to write. It’s like an urge inside of me; a desire. A desire, that I have no self control over. It’s one of my most controlling inner persuasions, compelling me to spill it onto a piece of paper, or in this instance, the web.
And so, I think about writing. It is my intention to go back to school this fall to pay for a piece of paper that says I can write. Of course, it will say it much more gracefully, in big fancy words: a degree in Liberal Arts with a Communication Concentration. I do not believe that people can be taught to “write”. You either have that inner conviction, or you don’t.
I do think that everyone has a story to tell, it’s just a matter of getting them to tell their story, and getting someone to listen. In the same way that I enjoy sharing mine, I also enjoy hearing someone else’s. In that moment that they open up their soul and search their mind to release those things that need to be written, I want to be one of the one’s listening… hearing the story. I find that I learn more about my surrounding peers by reading their writings, however few and far between they may be, than by a lifetime of listening. And really, at the core of humanity, is that not what we strive for? To really KNOW one another? To really feel that common thread, the likenship to one another?
I can’t understand people who don’t HAVE to release their thoughts in writing. Can they really expel all they need to just by speaking? It doesn’t work for me…
As I start writing out my reflections, more and more spill over the flood gates. It’s an instant release of all the day’s tensions and brain storms. Not to mention that my writing tends to keep me a bit more grounded, believe it or not! Those of you who know me well, know that everything I do, I do in a split-second’s notice letting the wind carry me by the seat of my pants. Translated, it means that my ideas and goals change from one direction to the next within the blink of an eye, and writing some of these out actually lets me release some of that so I’m a little more prone to fly in one direction for a bit longer than I would without writing it.
I started writing in high school. My high school years were tumultuous, as any teenager’s are, and the lines of communication were not open with my parents. I felt like no one would hear me, and yet I knew I had so much to say. So… I started writing it out, using poetry, metaphors, and “fictional” characters to liberate the things that my parents preferred not to hear. I put so much of myself into every English paper I had to write. It came easy to me, and the more of myself I put into my writing, the better my grade was. My English teacher figured this out early in my high school years, and urged me to delve a little deeper, commenting that my personality always had a way of coming out in my writing.
I found some of my high school papers while going through the attic a while back. Some of them made me chuckle; some made me cry; and some were about a subject that I still find myself trying to conquer, all these years later… It was interesting to see how I’ve grown as a person, and yet still have many of the same wants and feelings that I had nearly ten years ago…
Well anyway, with all that said, it is time for me to conclude this piece of writing on writing, and go to bed to conjure up the next things I’m gonna need to write about…
