February 2, 2010
For the Love of Writing
I took an Advanced Writing class during the last semester of my senior year of high school. My reason for taking the class was to gain an easy “A” while I worked hard on more difficult classes like Calculus and Psychology.
Aside from the easy “A”, I received some of the most valuable experiences of my life. My teacher was Mrs. Tusek and she taught us more than just writing technique. She showed us how to love the process of moving a thought from our mind to the page.
We wrote plays, short stories, essays, poems, news articles, research papers, journal entries, movie scripts, novellas, and even a full-scale novel (as a class). Of all the classes I’ve taken, that Advanced Writing class was the most valuable and most practical.Even now, eight years later, I enjoy writing more than any other solitary activity. When I’m on my bike or watching a movie my mind is wandering to how I might be able to work my experience into a blog post or an article for a local newspaper or magazine.I’m an ENTJ, which means that I naturally enjoy leading people and devising/executing plans, but some of my most enjoyable tasks at work are when I’m writing a blog post for theYouVersion blog or drafting a proposal for a new property or writing an introduction for a new team member. I love being a project manager so I have fun to-do lists, but writing is always the highlight of my day.One of my dreams is to publish a book. I’ve thought about writing a biography, but that involves way too much research. Then I thought about a topical book, but I don’t have enough experience in any one thing to write a whole book about it.Finally, I thought about writing a good ol’ novel about a college student’s first summer away from home in a small town working as an intern at a church while he makes a “living” as a lifeguard for the local public pool. I’m debating on whether it should be a memoir (since it’s my own story) or written in the 3rd person. In either case, it’s a big project that I balk at each time I think about actually starting.Another dream is to be a regular contributor for a widely read print publication. (There’s something special about having your name in black-and-white on newspaper print. It immediately becomes a souvenir.) There are a handful of local publications that I could submit an article to, but I just don’t have the guts to do it for fear of rejection (I guess).But I’m in no rush. Writing is a passion for me. It’s not a means to an end; it is the end.
