Hilary’s Blog

Memoir--draft 1

I sat in my desk among my classmates in Mr. Brown's fourth grade class with a one-subject spiral bound notebook, a manila file folder, and a wooden number 2 pencil in front of me. It was the first day of what would become one of the class's favorite activities, "writing workshops." Along with recess, gym class, and art, most everyone in my fourth grade class seemed to enjoy these "writing workshops" as much as I did.

            The notebook was supposed to be used to generate writing ideas or journal; writing in it every night was part of our homework. The folders would eventually be bursting at the seams with loose-leaf notebook paper filled with fragments of ten-year-old handwriting of stories and essays.  The sky was the limit for some of our writing while other assignments were more specific. I loved every aspect of writing that year, whether it was a book report, a personal story, or writing from the teachers prompt. As soon as the assignment was given, the words, phrases, and ideas that I would potentially put down on paper would run through my head. I couldn't wait to get started. It was going to be brilliant.

            These "writing workshops" were used for mostly creative writing in class. There were just a few rules: skip every other line, so we had room to add content later if we wanted or needed to. Also, instead of erasing what we didn't want in the paper we could only cross out with a single line; this enabled us to go back and potentially re-write the unwanted content into our writing. With those two rules, a notebook starting to fill up with ideas, a pencil and some paper, we were off writing from our ten-year-old experience and imagination. Writing was easy

            I find that I do not have as much opportunity to write as creative as I would like anymore. And if I can be creative, it usually does not allow room for endless possibilities or wild crazy imagination, but creativity within a particular topic or guidelines. The list of rules has greatly increased and the original two are the only ones necessary for the writing process whereas the new ones vary and are now a nuisance and occasionally an encumbrance in my writing.  The creativity no longer comes from the great depths of my imagination or the experiments of my childhood but through my personal voice in writing. It must because of the limitations often put on the writing I do. Nevertheless, I still begin to think about what I am going to write as the assignment is given-whether it be a research paper, an expository essay, etc.

            Writing down lists of ideas, or reflections of potential paper topics continues to help me in my writing however, they are not done as carefully and as thoroughly as my fourth grade teacher would have liked as they are usually scribbled down notes and jotted lists of ideas. There is no cohesiveness to my lists of ideas, but there is not much variety either. These lists and reflections stay within the boundaries of the assignment topic. I do not write as easily because often times I am held down by the novel, historical event, or scientific report I am supposed to be writing about.

            Writing workshops did not consist of just writing but also editing and sharing our writing with our classmates. There were three spots in the classroom designated for two students to go and share their papers with each other. These were times when we gave each other ideas and helped each other with our writing. These were times used to show off how much we accomplished and to tell our stories to each other. After ideas were exchanged and the bragging was done I would go back to my desk and keep working.

            I would work until I felt like I came up with the most impressive story I could. After writing a final copy I shared it with my teacher and then waited patiently until he went through it correcting grammatical errors and making his own suggestions. Even then it was still a work in progress. I would rewrite it yet again and again until it was perfect if that was even possible. But, I wanted the best story I could possibly make. At ten, I wanted to be the best writer ever and through my inexperienced and young writing, I felt that I could be.

            No one wants to hurt a child's feelings and say they suck especially when it was straight from the child's imagination. When writing about whatever we wanted, all that usually mattered was that we wrote and we wrote with correct spelling and grammar with occasional sentence structure variations but as inexperienced writers the latter was still being grasped.

            Eventually I have learned that no writing is perfect, even the writing I am most proud of. And as I have grown as a writer, I have realized that not everyone will like my writing. Thus I am not as eager to show off my writing. There were only a select few that I would show my writing to and even that were done reluctantly. I eventually stopped being proud of my writing and usually did not see myself as much of a writer at least not from other's points of view.

            Yet, it is absolutely necessary and in many cases required to share my writing with others. As hard as it may be, I have to force myself to share my writing with others voluntary, not just because I have to. When I show my writing to other people, rather than being proud and eager to show it off, I anxiously await for them to scrutinize and tear apart my work. Immediately following is either a sense of relief when my work is praised or a sense of confirmation when my writing is not liked. However, either one of these scenarios can help me to improve my writing by either showing me what I did wrong or what I did right.

            The most exciting part of "writing workshops" was when I was able to bring my story to the publishing center at my school. Parent volunteers ran the publishing center in an empty classroom at my school. I brought two pieces that I wrote during my writing workshops. One was a reflection of what my life would be like one day called In Ten Years (ironically it has been ten years since I wrote this and I was not even close to what my life is like now) and the other is a story about how I met my pen pal (cleverly called My Pen Pal).

            Before I brought my story to the writing center, it had to be perfect. It was proof read and written out in the neatest handwriting possible. Once I was able to go ‘publish' my story I would take it over there and go through it and divide the sentences up for the pages of my book. A volunteer would type it up and then I would pick out a cover for my book, a "This book is dedicated to ______" page, and a "Meet the author" page. The pages and cover would all be sewn, stapled, or bounded together and then given to me. I was almost done. All that was left was the illustrations.

            I dedicated one book to my sister and the other to my friend. The reason being: they were nice to me. I could not wait to get started drawing elaborate and cartoon-like pictures to illustrate my story. Finally I was done and could show them off to my family and friends. I was a "published" author! According to everyone I showed my stories to, they were great works; I was an amazing writer.

            As a fourth grader it was easy to stay focused from start to finish in a piece of writing and end with as much confidence and pride in it as I began with. It was in the fourth grade that I learned to love writing but since then, I have never had the same confidence and pride in my writing. It is strange to say that because as I look at my writing now and compared it to my ten-year-old writing I do not know where the pride came from or why I was so proud of my writing. I usually do not share my writing with anyone except a teacher or an occasional classmate. Sometimes, I wonder where the pride and confidence went and why, if I enjoy writing, I do not share it more often.

            Perhaps, I do not care to share my writing with others because it is no longer something I take the time to enjoy, especially on the academic front. It is possible that I do not take time to enjoy writing because I am constantly producing paper after paper following specific guidelines and topics. I am continually writing something but I never take the time that I should unless it is required of me.

            I write a paper on a book I only half read hoping the teacher will not notice; another piece of writing is written responding to something in class hoping I paid enough attention and can remember everything we talked about. Very rarely, does it take weeks to write a paper but rather a day, an afternoon, an hour or two. And then there is always a sigh of relief to find out that I actually pulled if off.

            Perhaps, I do not share my writing with others because I am stuck in a set of guidelines to the point that I need them in order to produce I am somewhat confident with yet not something I necessarily enjoy doing.  It has gotten to the point that I have more trouble pulling something out of thin air to write about than coming up with something within the limitations of guidelines. Perhaps, that confidence and joy in writing is a thing of a past and may never be found again.