Writing

October 21, 2008

This is my fourth journaling entry and it’s about writing. The whole journaling thing seems to be going alright with only a few bumps here and there. I take forever to write anything so I’m hoping consistent journaling will help speed me up and therefore make it more enjoyable. As I mentioned before I can be a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to putting things on paper. My reasoning is that writing is the best way for someone to communicate what they feel. You can take your time and really think about the how to express your thoughts in their purest (I’m talking emotion and those feelings you get that aren’t easily translated into words) form. So when I try to write something I inevitably end up rewriting my sentences over and over trying to improve the translation from brain to paper. I end up spending too much time worrying about each sentence and not enough about the whole picture.

I also get frustrated with my lack of writing talent. I’m always second guessing my grammar, spelling and sentence structure. Half the time I feel like a blind man trying to drive: not quite sure if I’m obeying the rules of the road or not. It wouldn’t bother me so much if I didn’t like reading like I do. Reading has been a hobby of mine since I was little, in fact when I was young my parents used to take away my books when they grounded me and this was the worst punishment imaginable to me at the time. I remember in the fourth grade I was reading Jurassic Park: The Lost World at the same time as my teacher and we would talk about it. English was always my favorite subject in school. I’ve always been proud of my reading habits. So one could assume that I’d be pretty good with the technical aspects of writing but I feel like a lot of it has gone in one ear and out the other. I often wonder if French Immersion has anything to do with it. Most of my schooling was in French so I think I might have focused a bit less on English than the English kids did.

I’m not banging my head against a wall and telling myself I suck at writing. I think I do alright but I’m just mildly annoyed I haven’t learned more through osmosis. Writing is an art though so I suppose practice makes a big difference and I’ve never really got into it. I think journaling will be good practice and I should learn a thing or two. I’m going to try to be less critical and minimize my editing, maybe try to make it more like a stream of consciousness. After all this is for my benefit and I’m not trying to impress anyone so I needn’t write like it’s an essay. I haven’t but anything up yet publicly (on blogs) but I plan on doing so soon. I think I’ll wait until I start the UBBT and then put all of it up there (including these earlier entrees). Once I’m off and running with my UBBT requirements I’ll be writing about my training a lot more so it should be easier to come up with ideas. I am enjoying it so far though; once I get started it’s easy. I find the longer I spend on a writing sessions the more I get into it and it’s easy to keep going. The hard part is starting. My computer has a way of distracting me.