There’s nothing better than writing freely, without worry
When I was a kid, staring at the teacher discussing subject, verb, and adjectives, none of what she said could take me out of the daydreams I was having of my book.
The book was a sequel in a Peter Pan collection, not the original novel, but an incredible remaster in 5, 500 pg. books.
Even though I knew that grammar and punctuation were the backbone of my favorite series, it didn’t make me any more interested in that dull English class. In fact, the class made me hate writing.
Even though I had a nice English teacher (the only nice one out of 5 yrs of public school), she didn’t spark any interest for me. Why? Because there was nothing interesting about the structure of words, only the stories that words could put together.
Later that year, there was a writing contest at school that everyone had to do. I was reading another 500 pg. book of a fantasy adventure novel, and as I was hiding it from my English teacher in class, it dawned on me as she was discussing the writing contest…
that I could rearrange the ideas of the story I was reading to suit my own.
That’s exactly what I did, even though organizing my writing was grueling, I wrote according to my imagination. Nonetheless of the voice in the back of my head telling me, “Remember, you need to edit all of this later!”
When I submitted the story, I never thought of actually winning the contest.
A few months later, no — I didn’t win, but as I walked onto the stage in my school’s auditorium, over 500 kids seated behind me for our grade, the English teacher called out my name stating, “2nd place for Sci-Fi!”
I knew that I won 2nd place because of my ideas, but deep down I still didn’t feel like a winner. Mostly because I knew that my dad had helped me greatly with grammar and punctuation that it felt more like he did the work than me.
Years later, I felt the same about writing. There was the mental block I had to editing and understanding the grammar rules. I wasn’t terrible at it, at least I knew enough to speak and communicate, but not well enough to have confidence to write.
After all, that voice in my head would say, “you know you’ll have to edit this,” whenever a writing project in high school came up.
It wasn’t until, since I was home schooled for high school, that I had to write a story for a graded project did I feel my love for stories start motivating me.
When all I thought had changed
The story was about a real-life experience I had. As it’s somewhat personal I’ll only explain my thought process.
Since I had experienced this situation first-hand, I knew the details about it and the sequence of events of how it happened. This made writing a breeze and enjoyable because that inner voice didn’t dwindle my confidence. Instead, I felt empowered because I knew what to write.
It was as if my brain had organized the story’s sequence of events for me ahead of time, and all I needed to do was write freely about it.
Later, when it came to edit. I realized that having the organization done in my mind ahead of time helped me to both structure and maintain good grammar throughout!
Mostly though, I think I was naturally able to keep good grammar because of how much I used to read as a kid. After all, as a well-known writer in the 20th century stated:
“Read, read, read. Read everything — trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it.” — William Faulkner
When I submitted this story, to my disbelief I got 100%!
From the writing process I realized an important lesson, I don’t need to have everything perfect before I write. In fact, the less I focus on perfection now, the more “perfect” I write because I edit less later.
Writing for passion
That wasn’t all for my writing adventures, I had another graded project that I had the confidence to complete just as well (because of getting a 100% on the last one), but I ended up misunderstanding the whole assignment. You can read more about that here.
The lesson I learned from that graded project is that ==there are stories and there are articles==. Stories are made to flow, without needing a structured outline; and articles need a logical structure in order to communicate its points. Having logical structure was what I had to learn the hard way in my last writing project of high school. Yet, it was important that I learned that lesson, because I wouldn’t be writing on Medium if I didn’t!
When I started my college studies remotely, I didn’t have any desire to write. Though I knew I could write stories well, so I did that in my personal time. Around summer though, a year after starting college, I realized the avenue of making money by writing.
Since Substack and Medium were the most popular platforms and writers were chosing between them, I knew that I needed a way to pay for my college studies without taking a lot of energy out of me. After all, I was beginning a Notion template business as is, wouldn’t writing take a lot of energy too?
After stepping into Medium and deciding it was the one, it wasn’t until a few months later that I started writing consistently. Sure, my writing was badly organized and written, but the lessons I learned in high school taught me the importance of structure.
Using those same techniques, I practiced month after month and now I’ve crossed over 500 followers!
Though, it isn’t the follower count that matters. What matters more to me is the confidence I’ve gained from fails and wins to communicate and share my stories with others.
You may wonder though… why do you still enjoy bad grammar?
Well, after my public school years of dealing with dull English teachers and then realizing my love of writing freely, I still have some scars when it comes to being critiqued.
After all, since I only have so much time to write in the mornings and it’s tough for me to focus on editing as is, I suppose the need to edit and be given feedback about my writing takes away my motivation.
I know what you’re probably thinking, that’s a bad habit to have! Without critique and feedback we’re likely to do worse as writers than get better.
I know this though, by reading other works I’m sure to “absorb” and continue learning how to write better. Then in time, maybe I can write better and even have a boost-worthy post (in Medium lingo).
For now, my writing process is ==enjoying to write freely, without worry.==
I might not like critique for fear that I’ll lose my motivation, but by continuing to read quality works, I know that over time I’ll get better at writing.