June 11, 2008

• Writing for Life

  “The sex was wonderful and satisfying.  I was exhausted and spent.  He rested his head on my shoulders and slept
  for awhile.  He woke up, and said he was
  hungry.  I joked “Well, you know what
  they say.   If you eat Chinese, you’ll be
  hungry in a few hours.”  It was one of
  the corniest jokes I’ve made.”  

  That was an excerpt from a story I wrote quite some time
  ago.  I was going through some of my
  files & stumbled across that old story. 
  I reread it and cringed at some of the grammar errors.  I almost started to rewrite it.  I also renewed acquaintances with a few
  partially written stories. Some of these just have a few points and ideas while
  others have a faint outline.   All of them are in a state of suspended
  animation.  Every so often, I’ll go back
  to them and add a few things here and there hoping some of them will germinate.  Tending a garden
  in a desert would probably be easier.  

  When I was in high school, almost all of my papers and essays had
  comments about my writing.  It needed improvement. 
  My teachers told me that my content was fine.  But I needed to improve my writing so I could
  get my points across.   I ignored them thinking that things would get
  better over time.  I barely tolerated
  English classes.  Shakespeare was
  boring.  Thomas Hardy was mind
  numbing.  I knew what Waiting for Godot
  felt like.  Alliteration, antagonist,
  plots, themes and their devious friends hounded me in every English class.  The only term that I, as a pimply faced teenager, thought I knew was
  climax.  Sadly, in literature, climax has
  a very different meaning.    

  During my first year of university, we all had to get tested
  for our English proficiency.  I yawned as
  I took the test.  I remember feeling
  annoyed at even taking this thing.  A few
  days later, I received an invitation to attend remedial writing classes.  This was the first of many humbling
  experiences at school.

  The English teacher was one of the best teachers I had.  She was very different than any of the
  English teachers in high school.  She didn’t
  make us feel ashamed.  I remember a lot
  of laughter and encouragement.  She
  taught us the basics and left it up to us to take it to the next level.  I wouldn’t say my writing dramatically
  improved.  I did enough to pass and got
  my degree.  For the longest time at work,
  writing was simply a chore – a means to an end. 
  

  When I started my Xanga, I slowly started to enjoy writing.  Some of the early writing lessons started to
  surface from the deep cavernous gaps in my brain.  Synapses that have long stopped firing
  started to fire again.  Words were more
  than tools.  Hunting down the right
  adjective or adverb became a small adventure. 
  Sentences could be reconstructed several times until it conveyed the
  mood and emotion I wanted.  I started to
  read about writing and have a better appreciation of what it takes to write well.  I feel I’ve only taken a few
  steps in this long journey.  Some of you
  are incredibly good writers and are well along this path.  You have left encouragements and tips for others like me to follow.  I continue to take tiny steps on this journey and dare to
  dream.  

  Oh, as for the first paragraph in this entry, I found that sex is an effective
  way of getting people to read your blogs. 
    

  • 12:30 AM
  • 19 Comments