Development of Writing

Blog 4 - Preston Carter

Blog 4: Writing Development

            My writing began fairly early on in my life. It definitely didn’t develop in the way that I wish it would have. But, I am happy to have come to enjoy writing to the extent that I have. The enjoyment of something, no matter how skilled I may be, is the most important factor in my decision to do it. I have come to love writing, and I have come a long way with my writing and hope to continue with it.

When I was in second grade, my teacher read the class the book Love that Dog. I loved the book. Previously, I had not known what poetry was, but we were writing poetry in our class in similar manner to the book. It was very engaging. This same teacher began having us write journals entries; this is when I first fell in love with writing. I began writing fictional narratives for the journals because my life wasn’t interesting enough for a teacher to read. I continued writing like this throughout elementary school with the mandated prompts and things. I read often. I read and re-read many books during this time.

Around fifth grade my reading and writing ended. I guess you could say I lost interest. I started feeling like everything I read was juvenile and worthless. I was disillusioned with the fantasy and fiction I used to read. I couldn’t read without losing interest within a few minutes. Maybe it was partly due to my loss of concentration with school. I began despising it; it became monotonous and tiresome. I wasn’t having fun like I had before; I was skating through my classes while making good grades, but I wasn’t listening to the teacher any longer. I became disengaged very early in my primary education. Early on, I had been a bit of a trouble maker and had been scolded enough to feel that I would rather quit participating all together. I began doing all of the assignments ahead of time and sleeping during class to frustrate the teachers.

Further on, throughout middle school and high school I didn’t read at all. I had disengaged myself almost completely. I discretely listened to my Ipod during my classes or looked out of the window. I didn’t read a single assignment; I didn’t read a single book. I used Sparknotes to learn the information I needed to know for the tests. I researched papers enough to make a good grade. I did what was asked and nothing more; I received A’s and was awarded Honor Roll. It meant nothing. But it got my mom off my back about grades, and it was easy enough to pull off that I just continued through school.

I did, however, start writing again during high school. I started writing during my Junior year. I didn’t write narratives again, but I journalled notes, thoughts, ideas, and poems. I started playing guitar and writing songs or transforming poetry into songs. My writing output was minuscule compared to the past journals I had filled with serialized chains of stories, but at least I loved to write again. Honestly, slowly became a pretty bad habit being mixed with my disengagement with school. I would scribble notes on the back of assignments, tests; I would write in journals. I would find quotes in songs that expressed my ideas or quotes I thought might push students and teachers into uncomfortable areas of thought, still being a bit of a trouble maker. The margins of my math notes would be covered with scribbles, words, and quotes. Often times that is all there would be. Stacks of paper and notebooks accumulated in my room, notes I had stuck into my backpack to save for later.

I began to want to write again. I began to want to read again. Near the end of high school, I finally realized that there is more than juvenile fiction and fantasy out there. I was fascinated with Jim Morrison, the lead singer of The Doors for some time. I learned of his poetry. The first two books I bought at the end of my writing drought were two of his poetry books, Wilderness: The Lost Writings, Vol. 1 and The Lords and the New Creatures. I picked through them, reading the poems, picking out the small ideas that I believed to be profound break through. For me, they often were ideas I had been unknowingly longing for and relieved to read someone who had a vague resemblance of my thought process. The short lives of people who I likened myself to often troubled me during this time: Jim Morrison, Jimmy Hendrix, Shannon Hoon, Brad Nowell, Kurt Cobain, many of my musicians.

My ideas became more developed and profound. I fit them in small bits of song lyrics, poems, and paragraphs I would later learn were aphorisms. I would lie in bed at night thinking and writing my thoughts. I became restless with them and needed my journals beside my bed. My writing skill had been growing. Unknowingly, during the whole time I was not writing, my skill somehow still developed. I had written assignments for classes, so I suppose this is where it came from. But, I was often ahead of my peers with the writing I produced, not that this was any sort of great achievement. The writing I did throughout high school was almost like a sorting process for thoughts I would later develop. Most of the writing is very unsure whether or not I asserted my arguments forcefully. I was growing, but it would be a long time before I was happy with the finished products I produced...