Personal Narrative: My Writing Story

I’ve never been much of a writer. When I was little my parents focused strongly on being a good reader and the importance of reading, but never the importance of writing. I struggled throughout all of elementary school and Middle school trying to be a better writer. I never felt like a “strong” writer. After about 5th grade I came to think of writing papers and essays as the worst possible punishment in school. I had a breakdown in 6th grade when I heard we had to write a research paper. I even vowed in 8th grade after I had to write a 4 page research paper that I would never take a writing class in Highschool no matter what. And yet as my Junior year in High School rolled around I found myself taking a College Level Composition class.

My writing process has drastically changed in the last few months. I am at a point where I still make mistakes, but the fear is gone. Currently coming out of WAC101. The most important thing I have taken away was to write often and then rewrite. This has been extremely beneficial in helping my comfort level, approach, and process to writing. Before I started that class I had a fear to write with constantly questioning every sentence I jotted down, asking myself is it good enough? What will someone say about that? Now, I feel I have the ability to write to a few different audiences with structure and substance. Not saying I am an amazing writer now because I am still far from good.

Mostly everyone’s first experience with language is similar. The first words that a newborn will hear are usually very simple. Almost every time someone new enters the world and first sucks oxygen into their lungs, they hear something along the line of “congratulations! It’s a boy (or girl)”. A child’s first look at written language however, can be a completely different experience. What I share with you today is my writing experience throughout my childhood and how my family, friends and my education have played roles in the growth of my writing ability, as well as how I engage in the act of writing.

They all loved our writing classes and would write stories and articles and spoken word pieces every chance that they got but not me. I enjoyed literature class more, reading about the tragedies of Hamlet and the exciting adventures Beowulf. When I was in writing classes I always felt like writing assignments were so constricting. I was never interested in the topics we were writing about or even if I did find the topic interesting I would rather research and read about it, not write about my findings. However, in my junior year of high school we were given an assignment to write three narrative stories about anything we wanted. We were going to read everyone’s stories in class and talk about them each day. I didn’t know where to start, as per usual with me, so, I went to my teacher and asked for help. He told me I could tell a story about myself, talk about something no one knows about me, since the stories would be anonymous. This got me thinking about what people don’t know about me and I ended up writing about my anxiety and it was so easy to write about. Just the feeling of getting something off my chest was great. This really changed the way I looked at writing. I always thought of writing in terms of books I liked reading. I always held my writing up next to highly praised works. It wasn’t fair to compare my class papers to the works of Mark Twain and

This piece of writing is a narrative writing piece, my aim is to create an atmosphere of fear and create an experience of the operation. In the writing, I used first person pronouns to show that was a first hand experience. I used I, me, and myself in this writing. I also used sensory details as the smell of the material in the operating room - the smell of anti-infective was strong and strange for me. It helps to create an atmosphere and makes the writing more authentic. I used colour adjectives to help the reader visualize the scenes – pale and blue watch. Furthermore, I also used the sounds to make my writing lively and vivid – “Tik-tok, tik-tok, tik-tok”

Writing has been a part of my life since I was a young lad. I loved making up stories, writing them down, and then telling these stories to my family. My dreams were to become a writer one day, but those dreams were destroyed by my step-father. He would tell me that I would never succeed in writing and never make a career out of it. I moved on from writing at a young age and did not enjoy it growing up after that moment. Once I got into high school I did not learn much techniques on writing due to my 9nth and 10nth grade teachers never putting effort into teaching the students. They would put a movie on every day and just be on their phones for the most part. This way of teaching changed when I entered 11nth grade. My English teacher, Mr. Ho, was different than my previous teachers.

What is your relationship with writing? We all have to write, whether we like to do it or not. Writing is a crucial element to a normal, functional life. This touches work, school, family, and interpersonal relationships. Everyone’s personal dynamic with writing is a little different.

Writing is always giving me that love and hate feeling. Generally, if you ask me about my writings, I assume you are asking about personal writing, because academic writing is something I just have started last year. In addition, one thing that I love about writing is that give me a chance to express myself. So, let’s focus on my personal writing first. Like most of the kids from China, I officially started writing in my first year of elementary school. I don’t know if you can tell but I was being considered one of the best writer in our class. I was that kid whose writing was always being read in front of class as the good example. I was, kind of proud, at least at that period. A lot of credit must go to my mom, who has taught me how to write

I have always struggled with my writing assignments. If I had the option not to write I would take that option with no hesitation. I truly dreaded it, when we have to type essays. Now, I have been into two English classes where I have felt a little more comfortable in being able to write something without being so embarrassed or ashamed in what I’m about to turn it. I still feel horrible about my spelling and grammar.

Seventh grade was a drag to my education. I was mentally unstable and extremely introverted. My academics never faltered during this time, and I never had problems with authority. Learning was my first love. It was passion for education that prompted me to experiment outside of school.

When I was a little girl I loved to write, my father would give me silly little writing prompts and I would write short paragraphs of made up scenarios. My father really encouraged my writing at an early age, but as I grew a little bit older I realize that I struggled with it a lot. I can remember my very first personal journal. The stuff I would write was so underdeveloped, because I was so young but I didn’t care at the time. As I grew older, I became fond of roleplaying online on websites or in video games such as World of Warcraft. I continued to roleplay through high school at the same time trying to do the school work my teachers were giving me. My teachers knew I was struggling at the time and didn’t take much interest in helping

It all comes back to when I picked up my first book as a child. I was always the kid that would sit in the corner and read while everyone was playing outside. I remember staring at the words typed on the pages on my books and wanting to be the one that wrote them. It came so naturally to me. As my love for reading grew, I started to be capable of writing. At that moment, it was just messy scribbles and circles on blank paper but to me, it was so much more.

“‘Oww!,’ I said as I fell off my bike.” These are the first words of a personal essay that I wrote in the second grade about learning how to ride a bicycle. I remember them so clearly because my teacher boasted to the class about my use of such an eye-catching introductory remark, so it seems appropriate to use those words here as well. Not only do these words mark the beginning of a growing girl’s literary journey, but also the start to a timeline of establishing a tangible identity for myself that is further revealed within memories of trashy magazines, banned books, and most notably, my own writing.

Writing to me has changed over the years as I experience more as I grow up. From thinking that writing is dull to believing writing is expressive and vibrant. From the learning toddler to the naive twelve year-old to the seventeen year-old scholar. I have many great and horrible experiences in writing which led to the writer I am today.

But as I grew older, I went through this drought of creativity. Everything I was writing was for school reports and essays. Writing started to lose it’s luster; it just felt like a chore to me and I