It is hard for me to pinpoint the exact moment that I fell in love with literature. For me, books have always been a constant support system, form of entertainment, and a motivational tool. I only vaguely remember a time in my life where books did not play a significant role in contributing to my life and developing my character. The characters in the books I read and wrote shaped me into who I am almost as much as my family and teachers did. It is because of them that I discovered not just my love of reading and writing, but also who I was a person.
One of my earliest memories revolves around the first book that I ever read by myself. The memory itself is vague, I must have been about four years old, and the only concrete detail I have about
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I don’t consider myself to be a writer anymore. While I enjoy the physical process of creating characters, building worlds, and putting a pen to the page, the writing process as a whole now terrifies me. The idea of someone reading and judging my work causes me to panic, even if that someone is myself criticizing what I just wrote. I believe this to be the case because I have always viewed writing as a way of having control, giving me the ability to find a perfection that I am not able to have in the real world. As a child, I did not view this mindset as problematic because at the earliest points in my life, I thought that I was one of the greatest writers in the world. I had the childlike mindset that I could be anything that I wanted to be if I tried hard and believed in myself. And I believed in myself more than anything else in the world. I had no experience, no knowledge of any writers in the literary canon, nothing to compare my own work to. However as I grew up, read more, and exposed myself to beautiful and talented writers, I began to doubt my own abilities. I taught myself to believe that I could never create worlds as beautiful as Tolkien’s, characters as developed as Austen’s, prose as humorous as Shaw’s. In my head, if I did not have the ability to write like them, I should not write at all. So I gave up writing. Of course I still wrote academic writing and articles for my high school newspaper, but getting the nerve to write a creative piece was nearly impossible. This was one of the darkest points in my life. Without writing, without a creative outlet to express myself with, I developed severe anxiety and depression. It wasn’t until I received help for these outside issues that I could be able to slowly reestablish myself as a
My parents have always stressed the importance of reading. Throughout my whole life, they have motivated me to read and they have encouraged me to find books that I find interesting to read. Because of their encouragement, I am an avid reader today. When I was a child, just starting to enjoy reading I liked to read books that were fiction. Some of my favorite books to read as a child are series that I still love today and I think I still have every book in each series stored in my attic. They are The Boxcar Children, Junie B. Jones, and The Magic Tree House.
My whole life I have never been the greatest at reading, but I have always tried to improve and push myself to do better. Reading and writing areis twoone of the needs of daily life. With that being said, you can conclude that I have always struggled. My problem was I always read too fast through the books or writing prompts, and I never remembered what I had read. But, with help I overcame my problems and started getting better at reading and writing.
Over the years, as time passes by I have become to better understand myself and learn what captures and disappoints my attention. As a young boy I would think no books pertaining to school or gaining beneficial knowledge would ever interest me. As I read and learned about different cultures and heard mesmerizing stories of Prophets I became eager to read more along with interesting worldly based novels. Miraculous real life events and interesting action based novels are the only stories that grab my attention. This has been the case for me for some time and I continue to learn and explore to see what else I can find that interests me.
In high school, I did not appreciate the stories that I was forced to read. I could not see how I could relate to any of the characters I read about. It was not until I experienced real life and its tragedies, that I gained an appreciation and understanding of certain stories and the characters in them. In my own life...
My relationship with writing has been much like roller coaster.Some experiences I had no control over. Other experiences were more influential. Ultimately it wasn’t until I started reading not because I had to read but because I wanted to, that's when my relationship reached change. I would have probably never cared about writing as I do today if it weren't for the critics in my family. When I was a child, my aunts and uncles always been in competition with who's child is better in school. I have always hated reading and writing because of the pressure to prove my family wrong was overwhelming for me. I had to prove them wrong and show them that I was capable of being "smart" which according to them was getting straight A's in all your classes.
Ever since I was a child, I've never liked reading. Every time I was told to read, I would just sleep or do something else instead. In "A Love Affair with Books" by Bernadete Piassa tells a story about her passion for reading books. Piassa demonstrates how reading books has influenced her life. Reading her story has given me a different perspective on books. It has showed me that not only are they words written on paper, they are also feelings and expressions.
My dad taught me that books could be my teachers, my mom taught me that our backyard could be my classroom, and my sister showed me that you could bring books into the swimming pool. I did not know it when I would spend hours in the pool reading a book that my parents weren’t encouraging it in vain, but my family life, for good reason, was centered on books. We were the planets orbiting around one sun that was the bookshelf. Little did I know that books would be the catalyst to academic success in my early life, and I owe it all to my family. Although a life with a book in your nose might seem boring, I was never bored. Living through the characters vicariously, I explored Narnia with Lucy, attended Hogwarts with Harry, and rode dragons with Eragon. Of course
When trying to think of a positive writing experience I have had in my lifetime, particularly as a small child, I could not think of any. So I began to ask myself why is it that I do not like writing, what happened in my life for me to have such animosity towards the act. I was finally able to think of an event and realized that it had all begun in the 3rd grade. One day, as a punishment for talking during class, I was kept inside during recess and was forced to write Wise Old Owls until my hands began to cramp. For 45 minutes, I was only allowed to write the same old phrase over and over again; “The wise old owl sat on an oak, the more he heard, the less he spoke, the less he spoke the more he heard, why can’t I be like that wise old bird”. To this day I can still remember that little rhyme and to this day I can remember that same feeling I felt as a elementary school student. From that point on I have always had an aversion for writing, it always seemed like a punishment. I still do not understand how people can journal. I don’t see how someone can sit down and write an entry or a novel just for the hell of it. It seems unnatural to me, but I guess that all of these feelings are just because I see writing as a punishment, an
Once the writing is done, this is where the fear comes alive. It’s the fear of failure, disappointment, disapproval, and maybe even success. Collin Brooke and Allison Carr say, “The ability to write well comes neither naturally nor easily.” (Failure Can Be an Important Part of Writing Development 63) This statement is something I wish I could let myself believe. I have a preconceived notion that writers are born, not made. That my brother, a fellow writer, will see more success than myself. Why would anyone ever care what I have to say about anything? These are the fears and insecurities that limit me from growing with my process. Brooke and Carr also say about writers, “...they are the ones who are able to make mistakes, learn from them, and keep writing until they get it right.” (63) If I could challenge my process, I would challenge myself to do exactly what this quote says. My first draft always has to be the perfect draft, but this is unrealistic. I limit myself before I even start with this ideology. My hope for my process is to challenge myself to take more risks, write more drafts, and fail so I can at least say I tried. I may even challenge myself to get a head start on some of those due dates...
I used to have to take these tests about all the books I would read in school and I would always ace them all. I knew that reading was something I liked because I was always very intrigued by it. Also in middle school I found my true writing voice. I remember taking a creative writing class in six grade and I was always the student who wrote more than what was expected for my writing assignments. I would write stories about things such as my friends and the experiences that I had in school. Sometimes I would even write my own plays and in my plays the characters would be people in family and people from school. I would always try to make the plot super interesting in my plays. One time I wrote a play about my brothers and me traveling to space and finding aliens. Overall, I really fell in love with literacy throughout my middle school years because I was able to read books more at an advance level and I also was able to write more intense stories. Literacy has been a positive influence in my life all throughout my school
Reading and writing has always played a vital part in my life. From toddler to adult, pre-elementary to college, I’ve managed to sharpen both skills to my liking. However, even though it significantly helped, schooling was not what influenced me to continue developing those skills into talent. Many different things shaped and influenced my learning, and now reading and writing have become the safety net of my life. I know that even if I have nothing else in the future, I’ll still have my talent and knowledge. To ensure my success, I hope to further develop those skills so that I may fulfill my wishes.
I had just turned eleven and received a book, Eleven by Lauren Myracle, from my mother as a birthday gift. As I opened the page and read the first line I immediately had an overwhelmingly bubbly feeling. The sheer coincidences made me feel like that book was written with me in mind. I read on and on non stop for the rest of the day because how could I turn away from a book that was hypothetically written about me. It expressed my pre-teen drama, things only an eleven-year-old would consider drama and it inspired me. It gave me the sudden urge to pour my heart into the little mini books I was known for writing and leaving around the house. Writing was something that I was very passionate as a little girl and is still something I am very passionate about as a young adult. The little things I did in my childhood
There are many different types of events that shape who we are as writers and how we view literacy. Reading and writing is viewed as a chore among a number of people because of bad experiences they had when they were first starting to read and write. In my experience reading and writing has always been something to rejoice, not renounce, and that is because I have had positive memories about them.
Reading was never something I fussed about growing up. As a child, I loved genres of realistic fiction. I was hooked on The New Adventures of Mary Kate and Ashley, Goosebumps, The Amazing Days of Abby Hayes, Judy Moody, and especially, Zoobooks and Highlights magazines. My mother was always ready to help build my reading and writing skills. She took me to the library constantly to feed my passion for books and knowledge. I loved exploring the shelfs, organizing the books, and filling up my library cart. I tried keeping a diary in elementary school to keep track of my outings with my parents and grandparents to museums, zoos, movies, and libraries. This flash of writing enthusiasm was spun from books I read in the 4th and 5th grade that were
Literature can be entertaining, funny, beautiful and tragic. It takes us beyond our limited experience of Live to show us the lives of the other people at other times. We are intellectually and emotionally stirred by studying Literature.