I love to write. It's cathartic, it's relaxing, it allows me to clearly and thoroughly express my thoughts on any given topic. It's part of my legacy: as long as there is an Internet, or a copy of my Word documents, or my old creative writing notebooks, or my travel journals, a portion of me will live on after I go. It's a conversation-starter, and a conversation-ender—here, let me point you to the blog post I wrote, which more eloquently covers everything I was planning to say. It's the reason entire afternoons disappear and I wonder why I feel like I got nothing done. It's brought me together with people I've never met, helped form years-long friendships, and made more of an impact on my education and career than I can calculate.
I write like I speak (with parenthetical asides—and emphasis). I never outline; either I have a framework in mind, or I start writing and see where I end up. I edit and revise as I go—once I finish a paragraph, it's done, unless something I write (or don't write) later on prompts me to go back and touch things up. I agonize over sentence structure and word choice; I even rewrite sentences if the words and spaces aren't arranged in a manner that's visually appealing to me. I read and reread what I've written, sometimes spending more time double-checking my work than writing work to double-check. I'm a perfectionist, and that makes writing a very slow process.
That doesn't mean my writing is perfect. I'm long-winded. I'm not always satisfied that I've accurately represented the truth, my memories, or my opinions. I get weary when I spend too long on one thing, and I get sloppy when I hold myself to a deadline. I focus too much on the negative, if only because it's so much easier to articulate than the positive.
I look back at my earliest writings for GameFAQs, Exfanding Your Horizons, and GameCola, and I can see how much I've grown and changed as a writer. I think of the writing assignments I had in elementary school—some of which are preserved for posterity in a box in the closet—and I realize the goofy little kid I used to be never really grew up; he just got a bigger vocabulary. Forever constant, yet never the same; that's me.
I write like I speak (with parenthetical asides—and emphasis). I never outline; either I have a framework in mind, or I start writing and see where I end up. I edit and revise as I go—once I finish a paragraph, it's done, unless something I write (or don't write) later on prompts me to go back and touch things up. I agonize over sentence structure and word choice; I even rewrite sentences if the words and spaces aren't arranged in a manner that's visually appealing to me. I read and reread what I've written, sometimes spending more time double-checking my work than writing work to double-check. I'm a perfectionist, and that makes writing a very slow process.
That doesn't mean my writing is perfect. I'm long-winded. I'm not always satisfied that I've accurately represented the truth, my memories, or my opinions. I get weary when I spend too long on one thing, and I get sloppy when I hold myself to a deadline. I focus too much on the negative, if only because it's so much easier to articulate than the positive.
I look back at my earliest writings for GameFAQs, Exfanding Your Horizons, and GameCola, and I can see how much I've grown and changed as a writer. I think of the writing assignments I had in elementary school—some of which are preserved for posterity in a box in the closet—and I realize the goofy little kid I used to be never really grew up; he just got a bigger vocabulary. Forever constant, yet never the same; that's me.
RSS Feed
