Discovering Myself Through Writing
Throughout this semester I have learned a lot about myself through writing. This class showed me that I actually can express myself on paper. I never thought I would say this but I actually enjoy writing now. Writing allows me to put my thoughts on paper. And I find it very therapeutic. It’s just like my music in the sense that it’s a creative outlet for me now.
My whole life I never enjoyed writing. But as soon as I realized how little restrictions this class has, I started to be much more free. It was pretty confusing at the start of the semester because I was so used to writing in a more structured way all throughout middle and high school. Not once do I remember a class that had free writing in the curriculum. So writing was a very boring task for me to say the least. But this class was way different. It encouraged me to think more creatively and outside-the-box, especially with those free response questions. I’ve never really gotten those really open kinds of questions before this class. But it encouraged me to just let my fingers and mind run which led to me reflecting on who I am. It made me write deeper than I would’ve otherwise.
One thing that helped me a lot this semester was the fact that we wrote for a real audience. This made me write with more intention since I knew people were going to read it. I learned how to write about things that I am passionate about as well as provide the audience with something valuable. Just the simple change of writing for an audience made all of the difference for me and made it more fun for me and probably the reader. Writing for an audience also made me think more about why I was writing. I realized that in anything I write there should be a main theme. As I started to think about that more, I began to really connect with my audience more. And I think that’s because my writing became much more clear and to the point.
Writing is like music in that it’s a creative outlet for me now. When I’m composing music I like to put anything that I’m feeling into the music. Sometimes the way it comes out of me is super unorganized. But I still put it out and rearrange it later on. That’s pretty much how I try to approach writing now. I just start writing the first thing that comes to my mind until I have way too much. Then, I take out what I don’t need until only the essential parts stand. Once everything flows nicely and has a clear theme, I spell check it. That’s basically the same way that I make music. I find it interesting how any form of art follows a similar creative process.
This semester has been pretty crazy with the classes being online. And it has been fairly stressful at times. In order to reduce this stress I do different things like working out and running whenever I can. As I read different people’s posts, I realized that I’m not alone. Everyone else is experiencing the same things, especially with exams coming up. And it is through writing that I discovered that I needed to take action to relieve my stress.
Throughout the semester I’ve tried to talk about the things that I like, which is mostly music. I got into some very specific subjects in music since I knew that my audience would know about the subject that I write about. That’s something that I used to struggle a lot more with before this class. And writing for an audience that is versed in the subject gave me that freedom I needed to write freely.
Needless to say, I learned a lot about myself through writing in this class. I can now express myself more through writing and it has become another creative outlet for me.
