The Best Appetizer to Bring to a Writer's Community: Yourself

I have a complicated relationship with writing. I’ve posted several blogposts throughout the years describing the successes and failures of different tactics I’ve used to actually enjoy writing: Writing: To Love or To Hate, Overcoming the Dementor and Essay Writing: From Frolicking to Mental Breakdowns. The common factor that’s helped me be successful in writing, is one I haven’t blogged about yet: being apart of a community of writers.

Great Britain, Visited.

Almost to the top of Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh, Scotland

At the end of the first day of my study abroad, I laid down in a hostel bed in Scotland and wrote, dazedly, "My pictures cannot capture the beauty my eyes have seen." I feel the same now. I've started so many blog posts trying to summarize the trip. I don't know if my words can capture the beauty my eyes have seen, the hills my legs have climbed, and the animal poop my nose has smelled.  Am I being dramatic? Cliché? Possibly, probably. But sometimes life is wonderfully dramatic and magical and to be unreservedly gushy is to be truthful. Because this was a fairy-tale that was real.

Let's Get Personal!

FOR ENGLAND!

This month, I submitted a personal essay/narrative for a writing contest because, England don't come cheap and  I wanted to challenge myself in a new writing style. And I learned a lot from this experience! My topic was pretty open and vague: "Applied Christianity in daily living."
I've flirted with doing this essay contest since last semester and planned on doing it over Christmas Break, but let's be real, Christmas break was all about family, friends, and taking a reprieve from everything. After coming back from Christmas break, I wrote down this essay on every weekly to do list, and, in true procrastinator fashion, never did anything till I had 3 days to go. Last semester, I read this awesome BYU devotional speech about fear and faith, and it changed my perspective on life. So I knew I wanted to write something about changing my fear to faith, but I wasn't sure how to go about it. In my manic process of speed writing, I learned a lot about personal essays:

Overcoming the Dementor

Dear November 2014 Annalee,
You do finish your essay mostly on time. While editing it throughout thanksgiving break, do not despair. Things turn out okay. All that editing work is so appreciated when you accidentally sleep in too late the day it's due and only have an hour before you have to walk into class. As you frantically try and put in the correct MLA formatting and rewrite those last couple sentences in that terrifying hour, know that your essay does not suck. Honestly, the suckage is 0%. So good job!  But that said, it still could be better. I can't believe you missed writing "a" and "the" a couple times.
Now if only you would have actually wrote the 30 book reviews as you read them this semester.  That all-nighter was not a fun time.
Love,
Your Future Self

After crossing the finish line for my papers, I usually feel like a dementor sucked out all the love and fire I had going into it. But this time, that did not happen!

Writing: to Love or to Hate?

(Public Domain) The Bonfire of Hatred and Fear

Once upon a time in third grade, I found writing fun. My teacher made sure we all had the traditional wide-ruled, black& white composition notebooks, and gave us fun and creative prompts. Once a week we would all share what we wrote. I liked the freedom of it. I didn't have to worry about intros, conclusions and passive voice.  My teacher eventually taught us the standard 5 paragraph style to prepare for the essay test, but I didn't feel the pressure then.


By the time I got to high school, my love of writing warped. And by warped I mean my grade-driven panic and tendency to over think nearly strangled it to death and then lit it on fire as an inauguration of hatred and fear.