Who I Am as a Writer Essay Example

Who am I as a writer? This is a question I could not wrap my head around until I talked it out with my mother. I do not personally consider myself a writer, though I am the daughter of one. According to her, she is a speaker who writes, not a writer who speaks. She has been a bigger help to my writing than all my years of schooling. She is my go-to for writing advice.

In all actuality, I prefer editing to writing and I am drawn more toward non-fiction than fiction writing. There have been times when my mom has given me the opportunity to offer edits to her work in the past and I thoroughly enjoyed that experience. No matter how hard I try, I can not help but edit in my head when reading just about anything. Being diagnosed with ADHD means my brain has a hard time focusing on one task at a time. One way I can explain would be that it is like having a primary and secondary mind. When my primary focus is reading, my secondary mind needs something to do in the background. I have recently found out that if I walk around whilst reading I can stay focused and engaged in a book. When I edit while reading, it keeps me focused, but I have also noticed that it limits my ability to enjoy the story. My experience in writing could be simply put as none. There have been multiple years where I have never even been required to write an essay. One year I had a teacher who made us only write and rewrite on the same essay all year long. This left a bad impression of what writing would feel like. 

I suppose I am a good writer considering how little teaching I have had in it. I usually get good grades on my essays because I have mastered doing exactly what my teachers want to see. School has taught me to regurgitate information, so over time I have gained the skill of rewording things well. Creativity is not often found in my peers' work as well, since we have all been taught to write for standardized tests.  

I believe a good writer is someone who can take criticism. Someone whose self-worth is not wrapped up in their writing. Someone who understands who their audience is. Whereas a bad writer might be an author who has poor grammar or does not research their topic. For example, I recently read a fiction book that tackled the topic of sexual assault and the way the author went about it was completely wrong. He had her physically unhurt and emotionally and mentally ready to talk about what happened within seconds of her attack. It was very clear throughout his book he had done absolutely no research or consulting of any women on a topic he knows nothing about. Bad writing can ruin a good story. 

My typing skills are leisurely at best, which means I can not think and type at the same speed. I have to slow my brain down to be able to type what I am thinking or wait until I have a sentence completed in my head before typing it out. Overall...it is a slow process even when my brain is racing with ideas. As of yet, I have not been motivated to write on my own without an assigned reason. Basically, I do not want to write until I am good at it. And yes, I do realize that is not a helpful quality about myself. I have a hard time attempting things I do not already do well….perhaps it is my fatal flaw. The learning process of trying and failing is difficult for me. 

If I am being completely honest I am taking this class primarily for the college credit and to raise my GPA. My sister recommended this class to me because of the teacher she had two years ago at Clay. I was concerned when there was a different teacher listed on my schedule, but now that we are a month in, I have really enjoyed the conversations in this class and glad I signed up for it.  I need to get more confident in my writing skills before going to college and this class will help bridge that gap. This is not meant in an “annoying student” way, but more of an “I want to be confident in the writing work I turn in” way and I am usually not. My typical attitude towards writing is that it is boring and it hurts my head. Usually writing is just a means to an end for me (i.e. a grade). I want to be able to communicate my thoughts onto paper and gain skills that will help me in the future. Communication classes are something that I am interested in taking once I get to college and I do not want to go in there as the most under qualified student. Again hinting at my fear of failure being a driving force in my life. 

Delving deeper into my writing approach, I have realized that what I have been doing is overthinking before typing anything. School has not provided the opportunity to write freely. Instead, requiring us to always stick to the format. Some of the things I suffer from include: analysis paralysis, format paralysis, idea paralysis… etc. Another thing I do is procrastinate (like every good writer according to my mom). I do this every time. I am the person who writes their essay the day before it is due. I revise my work while typing, which creates difficulty because I am always deleting sentences then forgetting what I am thinking or where I was going. The only papers I have ever been proud of were the three papers I wrote in 5th grade. They were brutally honest about my own life. They were almost like therapy for me to write, and I was proud that I actually did it. Looking forward to the end of this year, I am hopeful that I will have more writing work that will leave me proud.