Exploring Personal Narratives: A Journey Towards Better Writing

Journal 1: 8/29
I define a writer as someone who is capable of writing real literature and make it understable for the readers. I would not consider myself a writer. I don 't really do any writing outside of school papers. I only write when it 's necessary because I don 't find much enjoyment in it and i 'm insecure about my writing skills. Strengths I have that are capable of helping my writing capability is my creativity. A weakness of mine is struggling with grammar, I’ve struggled ever since grade school. I 'm a very outgoing person, but as a student, I struggle admitting that I need help and that 's where I’ve lacked with my writing because I haven 't asked for the help that I needed. There really are not aspects I enjoy. The only thing
I 'm more understanding on the idea that my thoughts could change but the just haven 't yet. Through this project I feel like I struggled. I’m not a creative person so trying to pretend I was a author was difficult. Especially difficult because I don’t think I’m good at writing it 's hard explaining why I think someone else wrote the way they wrote. I really do want to feel confident in my writing so hopefully my perspective will change as the year goes on. Before this project I thought “good” writing was the writing that followed the rules but now I understand it 's the author who makes there own rules. No writing style is the right style is how you yourself interpretes good writing that makes it actual good writing
Examples of “Perfect’ writing- A fault in our stars
The hour proceeded apace: Fights were recounted, battles won amid wars sure to be lost; hope was clung to; families were both celebrated and denounced; it was agreed that friends just didn’t get it; tears were shed; comfort proffered. Neither Augustus Waters nor I spoke again until Patrick said, “Augustus, perhaps you’d like to share your fears with the group.”
“My fears?”
Patrick seemed lost. “Would, uh, would anyone like to speak to that?”
I hadn’t been in proper school in three years. My parents were my two best friends. My third best friend was an author who did not know I existed. I was a fairly shy person—not the hand-raising type.
And yet, just this once, I decided to speak. I half raised my hand and Patrick, his delight evident, immediately said, “Hazel!” I was, I’m sure he assumed, opening up. Becoming Part Of The Group.
I looked over at Augustus Waters, who looked back at me. You could almost see through his eyes they were so blue. “There will come a time,” I said, “when all of us are dead. All of us. There will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed or that our species ever did anything. There will be no one left to remember Aristotle or Cleopatra, let alone you. Everything that we did and built and wrote and thought and discovered will be forgotten and all of this”—I gestured encompassingly—“will have been for naught. Maybe that time is coming soon and maybe it is millions of years away, but even if we survive the collapse of our sun, we will not survive forever. There was time before organisms experienced consciousness, and there will be time after. And if the inevitability of human oblivion worries you, I encourage you to ignore it. God knows that’s what everyone else