While I am going into education because I love English, my true passion is to be a writer. I have all of these beautiful ideas for books locked inside just yearning to leap onto the page, and yet they stay trapped, swimming in my mind waiting for their escape. I have often questioned my reasons for not putting pen to paper. It's not like I don't have the ideas, or don't know where to begin. I thought perhaps I was intimidated by the process, so I bought several books on how to write a first book, and how to get published... still nothing.
During the Skype conversation with Linda Christensen on May 23, 2012 she said something that is going to change my life forever. While listening to the story about “Victor” I realized that I have been doing the same thing; my writing often has no depth because I am disconnecting from my writing and avoiding dealing with my past. I have always viewed my past as horrific, and the rest mundane. I figured that there was either no interest in my life, or that no one would want to hear or have to face those details.
Looking back now, I can see evidence of it trying to surface throughout my writing history. When I was young, one of the first series of books I became obsessed with were The Boxcar Children about a group of siblings that ran away and set up a home in an abandoned boxcar. My sister and I used to act it out, setting up a playhouse in an old shed behind my grandmother's cabin. In fifth grade I even wrote a story about running away with thought-out details about what to take and how to sneak out, etc. I realize how passionate I am about shows on television that advocate on behalf of abuse victims such as "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit". Subsequent projects where I have been allowed to expand upon a topic of my choice seem to ultimately revert to abuse awareness or something closely related such as the "Help" project on Blogspot that I have listed in my links.
I realize now that Mr. Teacher was right; you have to write about what you know.
During the Skype conversation with Linda Christensen on May 23, 2012 she said something that is going to change my life forever. While listening to the story about “Victor” I realized that I have been doing the same thing; my writing often has no depth because I am disconnecting from my writing and avoiding dealing with my past. I have always viewed my past as horrific, and the rest mundane. I figured that there was either no interest in my life, or that no one would want to hear or have to face those details.
Looking back now, I can see evidence of it trying to surface throughout my writing history. When I was young, one of the first series of books I became obsessed with were The Boxcar Children about a group of siblings that ran away and set up a home in an abandoned boxcar. My sister and I used to act it out, setting up a playhouse in an old shed behind my grandmother's cabin. In fifth grade I even wrote a story about running away with thought-out details about what to take and how to sneak out, etc. I realize how passionate I am about shows on television that advocate on behalf of abuse victims such as "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit". Subsequent projects where I have been allowed to expand upon a topic of my choice seem to ultimately revert to abuse awareness or something closely related such as the "Help" project on Blogspot that I have listed in my links.
I realize now that Mr. Teacher was right; you have to write about what you know.