Growing up I used to watch a lot of cartoons. Television programs are meant to entertain their viewers by providing them with stories that would be appealing to them. My version of entertainment was pretending I was one of the characters and living their life. An example of this is when I used to watch Ben 10, I would pretend that I can turn into aliens like him and save the day. These kinds of vivid shows showed me from young there are tons of possibilities to reach the same goal. I also learned how imagination is more than something that is make-believe. You can do so much with that imagination whether it is art, poetry or even skits. Everyone has their own way of expressing their imagination which makes us all unique. 

I have this tendency to place myself in situations just to find a way out. By this I mean I would pretend I was in a scenario where something bad or good was to happen and then plot different outcomes of that. I like to think of them as “what if” scenarios. Due to me knowing that there are plenty of possibilities I try to exploit every single outcome and what brought me to that. I like to think of this as a skill of mine. I say skill because there are many times a scenario comes into effect and I have to find a way out of it. For example, I was in GameStop one day and I just felt very tense. I looked over to the side of the store and realized that there was a man just staring and me and he didn’t seem to be in his right mind. Of course, this happening made me feel uneasy and I tried to hurry up with my shopping and go home. While on the line I thought about being in this situation before and the outcomes. I decided to play one scenario out which was to lure him out. I walked out of the store normally and then began walking down a quiet street instead of the busy one. I looked in a car side mirror and saw the same man following me. This is when I turned the corner and ran up the block and across the street to another dark street and then ran down that block and made another right. I lost him easily and this was an accomplishment to me because I was able to see first-hand that the scenarios I make up can come to life. This had me questioning myself about what to do with this information. I never thought of myself as being creative, but this is exactly what creativity is. Then I thought I should try to use this in my writing. 

In my early years of school, I was terrible at writing. My main struggle was putting my thoughts into words and carrying my ideas out. To this day it’s hard for me to begin writing no matter the topic. I don’t know how to begin on an opening statement to begin the essay and I had to struggle year after year with it. When you’re in school you cannot escape writing, it’s as necessary as breathing. I never took it seriously because I just thought I was bad at it and I can do nothing about it. That all changed when I realized I have a bit of a creative side to me. Creativity stretches so far, no matter what you do you can either be plain and simple or creative. I struggled because I was a simple person and wrote the direct answer to any prompt given to me. Now trying to add creativity to my writing I birthed a new skill. 

My skill is being descriptive in my writing. I cannot just blab out one idea without putting my thought and feelings into it. Not only that but I describe the idea as best as I see it so the writer can also see what is see and feel what I feel. You can say that I began to care more about the reader rather than just answering questions. It’s more than just you, you can’t just write for yourself because then who will enjoy it. You can’t tell me you spend countless hours putting your thoughts on paper and don’t care what happens next with them. An example of this is getting your paperback from a teacher and realizing you failed. I used to hate seeing that I failed because I would put in all this effort and it would never be good enough. After incorporating my skill into my writing, I started seeing a drastic change in my grade. I started seeing that my writing had worth and it made me feel great and made me want to write more. Seeing this made me agree with a few articles I’ve come across. 

One of those articles happens to be “What Writers Really Do When They Write” by George Sanders. He wrote about his idea that your finished product should not be the same as what you started with. I totally agree with his thoughts. You can have a whole idea from the beginning and somehow you will end up switching up the idea. You won’t necessarily change the whole idea but the way the ideas flow. An example of this in my writing life is your number of drafts. When you write for school, they always require you to have at least two drafts. The first draft is to get all your ideas on one paper. After you get all your ideas out your mind is drained and that’s why there is peer editing. This allows you to get a reader’s feedback which is better than your own feedback because it isn’t biased. This editing shows you that your product isn’t perfect yet, so you must go back and fix your writing. When you go back and see what the reader wants to see you would alter your thoughts. The reason for this is the writing piece isn’t for you it’s for the reader. Once you see that and fix your writing, you’ll end up with an amazing final product that the reader wants to read.  

I’ve read another article I agree with by F. Scott Fitzgerald called “One Hundred False Starts”. Just by reading the title I had a feeling I would agree with the author. I felt that the author means that in order to reach your goal in your writing you will come across multiple trial and error. He even states that he writes for the readers. Although this is the case, I still disagree with one of his statements. He said, “we as authors repeat ourselves”, he claims authors only have two to three stories they tell and reword them in different ways to hide the fact that they’re the same. I disagree because I’ve never come across the same story twice. Also, if there is a different message from previous stories then it simply isn’t the same. By this I mean the story is guided by the message the author wants to convey and because of this, there would be different stories for the author to tell. I tell my stories not from my experiences but from what I can imagine. 

I doubt anyone has seen someone with superpowers save the world or life in outer space. Although this is the case, this is what I’m fascinated about and choose to write about. I feel that now if I write about things I’m fascinated about the readers will see my stories as I do. They would see your passion for these things and maybe they’re interested too. I try to not bore the readers with a bunch of nonsense because I hate when I must read something boring. An example of this is an English test I needed to take in school, it was always stories that went nowhere and not appealing to anyone and then you had to answer questions about it afterward. Due to this, I refrain myself from writing a story I wouldn’t read or my peer who’s editing wouldn’t read. What I’ve gathered over my years of writing is that your writing is never perfect because you grow all the time or go through something that changes your writing style.  

I see my writing going in different directions just based on how I’m feeling that day. Not only that but you can always turn it around and write about something you wished would happen. For example, if you face the death of someone close to you then you might write about it. The thing is you might put your character to face the same thing you did, or you can put your character to save the person. At the end of the day, it goes, however, you want it to go. I chose my direction based on how much thought I put into one way rather than the other. If I have more to say about one thing then I’d have a better story because there is so much I can say and not have to stretch my idea out. With this type of thinking I was able to write my best pieces and I know with more experience I will write even better.