Writer Reflection

English 250
Matt Beth                  

Eighth Grade was a funny time for me. The days were filled with boredom and just complete boredom and social awkwardness, similar to what most angsty preteens experience. It’s the time in one’s life where every friend you have hasn’t quite grasped the concept of empathy leaving you with a certain level of lonliness. This usually would eat away at me and prior to the year of eighth grade, I never really had an outlet. Mr. Joseph was my English teacher that year and I don’t know that I’ll ever forget that man. He completely revolutionized my perception of writing and helped me to discover one of the greatest outlets that I will ever have.
            Mr. Joseph introduced me to the power of poetry and free writing as a method of relieving stress and vocalizing opinions. His lessons proved to be a catalyst for passion that would expand over the course of the next several years. You see, I love to write. I jump at the chance to do so. It started off with me writing when I was upset or there was something bugging me and has transformed into something much more. As of late, I write whenever I have free time. I write when I feel strongly about anything. I write when I cant even gather all the thoughts jumbled in my head.

Poetry and narratives are where I think I excel the most but that’s not to say that I think I am a great writer. Far from it actually. Similar to what Goodman’s article stated, I always find my ideas to be unoriginal or inferior in comparison to those who have come before me. Usually I can conquer these barriers but I’d be lying if I said that they have never stopped me, mid-writing and made me give up. I also feel like I have a very cookie cutter style, especially when it comes to writing poetry. Generally I follow a simple style like an ABAB or AABB rhyme scheme with a repetitive meter. The culmination of my unoriginal and inferior ideas as well as my cookie cutter style is the biggest reason why I am self-conscious and doubt my writing.
            Many of my friends however have told me that they think I am a very good writer. I’m not always sure if that’s flattery or honesty, but either way I’ll take it! It’s always nice to have positive reinforcement. Comments that they have made that I agree with, at least to a certain extent, is my use of literary devices and the metaphors that I use. One of the pieces that Ive written that I am most proud of is a poem that I wrote last year for my AP Language and Composition class. My prompt was to write a love poem, which I thought would be extremely hard since I had never written such a thing. But what resulted a poem about a beautiful landscape that was a metaphor for a girl. My teacher even sent it to all the other teachers in the English department, which I found shocking and really encouraging as well. It’s proud moments like that that keep me wanting to write and help me to conquer the negative, self-defeating attitude that hinders my writing.

            So far, based on our discussions in class as well as the reading that we have already done, I am feeling relatively confident about writing. I really enjoyed what Goodman had to say about leaving your comfort zone and that your inner critic is the number one thing holding you back from being successful in writing. Putting it into perspective like that makes me feel much more confident about letting loose and just letting my ideas flow out of the pen, or in this case flow into the keyboard! This isn’t to say though that I have no hesitations or am ready to pour my soul out to the world via my writing. It’s more so that I am more willing to be myself and show myself to others through my work. Has my confidence gone up? I’d say a bit. But I think time will tell if that is really the case as we get into more writing and I continue to write on my own!