I love writing. I have been in love with the
concept since I was a sophomore in high school. The tenth grade was when
one of my English teachers took notice of my ability to write well; the teacher
especially took notice of my affinity for writing. She encouraged me to
write almost all the time, but foolish me, I did not have enough sense to allow
myself to believe her…much less to accept her verbal accolades of my writing
skills. I let her praise of my writing ability go wayward simply because
she was the mother of my best buddy. “She had to be lying to me,
right?”…that was how I would justify not taking my writing skills more serious.
Through-out high-school as I moved up a grade and into
my upperclassman years, I continued to write, but I kind of put the teacher’s
words aside; however, the English marm’s words still lived inside of me despite
the fact that I remained hesitant, foolish, and scared to heed her positive
feedback and perceptions. The tiny little creative creatures that reside
in my head would often, and silently, spew their echoes of what the English
teacher had told me on several occasions about my excellent writing skills, and
I would allow myself to gradually believe the wonderful teacher’s words of
praise and encouragement.
The latter type of writer used to be me a long time
ago until I decided that it was time to take more serious the very thing which
brought out my most passionate side; writing.&nbsFp; Though I struggled with the
mechanics of writing, and sometimes with basic grammatical skills, my love for
writing never diminished or faded regardless of my lack of proper mechanics and
grammar. I carried onward, and if anyone had issues with my writing,
well: “it was their fault - not mine!” – or so I thought. These days I
work hard on improving my mad writing skills because I do care what others
think. English 101 rule #1 is to be mindful of one’s reading
audience. That rule is one that I carry with me all the time now.
Not only is it wired into my brain, carved into my heart, but I keep a tangible
copy of it on my person at all times. I not only know the rule, but I
live the rule.
Words are
beautiful…and when done properly, writing opens up a world to everyone where
nothing is improbable and the lack of doing something or not being able to make
something happen is merely due to the lack of one’s imagination. Imagine
if you will, if someone or something had convinced good writers such as Asimov, Auden, Austen, Bradbury, The Brontës, Brown, Herbert, King, Plath,
Rice, Rowling, Tolkien, Verne, or Wells that their works of art where
nothing but a bunch of gibberish! Imagine where our world would NOT
be had anyone dared tell any of them such a horrid thing, and worse, imagine if
anyone of those writers had listened and not written his or her respective "magnum opus"! Living in a world sans any of their great works - or without the
works of many other writers - is not a world where I would like to
reside. “Love Thy Writer’s Craft!”