Unwritten

That's the state of my articles for my Intro to Magazine class. Well, two of them. I've decided, since half the blogs I've been reading are about writing, that it's high time for me to post one as well.

Writing used to come easy to me. Sometimes, it still comes easy to me. But for this class, it's incredibly hard. A big reason is probably because of my professor. He holds us up to industry standards in our weed-out class, which honestly scares the shit out of me. Mainly because I've never really had a journalism class that I've actually written articles in. I've hardly had any practice, and I'm afraid that what I write will be so different than what it's supposed to be like that he'll rip me a new one.

But in other classes, writing is so easy. I can whip out a five page essay in about a half an hour, depending on if I already have my research done and a general idea of where I'm going. I don't plan these blogs out ahead of time either, and I like to think they're somewhat cohesive and understandable. And creative writing, so long as I have a basic idea of my plot, I can get fairly far in my stories. But with those, it always ends up that I hit a brick wall, unless they're going to be under 30 pages long.

I know it's a hard knock life for me coming up, but writing's been a part of me for so long I don't think I'd ever be able to leave it behind. I never thought I'd end up as a journalism major in college. I was thinking more of psychology or teaching maybe. But I changed on a whim when I got to orientation, and I'm glad I did. The journey is long and hard, but at the end I know it'll be worth it. Once I finally get the hang of writing articles and eventually see my name in a magazine.

I guess I should explain how I got interested in writing, because I'm not planning on blogging about writing again. In 3rd grade we learned the traditional five paragraph essay format. They were short paragraphs, of course, but I found that I wrote quicker than most people in my class, and could write about whatever I wanted. We had a lot of essays in elementary school, and continued on to middle school. Middle school was where I learned about grammar and all the fun stuff that goes into writing. And in 8th grade we were introduced to creative writing. Some friends and I started a story, and I never looked back.

There were three women who have shaped the writer I have become, and I wish I could thank them all: Mrs. Hassler, Mrs. Wheeler, and J.K. Rowling. Yes, J.K. Rowling. The Harry Potter series pulled me in like the Wishbone series had a few years before. I guess I grew out of Wishbone and Harry was waiting with open arms. I could write a whole blog on why I love Harry Potter, and I might, since I'm sure I'll be bored this weekend.

I wonder if I'll finally have a man to break into that list: a one Mr. Brad King. I'm not sure yet if he will, but I have a feeling that for at least one person in our Intro to Mag class, he will join their numbers.