I see myself as one of those writers like Sonia Sotomayer. I am very scared of public opinion on anything that I do, not just writing. Writing is one of the things I’m most scared of though, I have inherited through my childhood. In my childhood I had to meet so many expectations from my family. Mom and Dad always pushed me to do my best, and that was good and bad. It wasn’t necasarily just my school work, it was sports. Dad was an All-State basketball and football player for his school and expected the same out of me. Dad was on the bad side of pushing me to do better, he did the whole thing where he was never proud of me. That’s all I ever actually wanted as a kid, to be appreciated and for Mom and Dad to see me as something to proud of. Sure Mom was proud of me, but that’s what moms are supposed to do, every boy wants their dad’s approval. It drove me mad that I was never “appreciated” by Dad, he would never understand how I felt. And that’s what set up my fear of disapproval.

            I also feel that I can be a very confident writer at the same time though, which might not make sense. If I feel very passionate about that topic or want to show that I can put a valid point forward, I will do whatever is needed to express that. It is in that point where I don’t care what people think because I’m letting them know what it’s like to see it possibly from a different point of view and if they don’t respect that, that’s their loss. That’s basically how my good pieces of work come about, is that if I enjoy what I’m reading and that I feel I can have a positive impact by writing something about it.

            I really don’t prepare myself for writing too well, it’s just not me. Every English class taught me that I need to have an outline and notecards, and that just made things too complicated for me. It made me feel like I needed to have notes from to remember what I was thinking at the time or an outline to form the paper, but I can’t work that way. My best work in school came from when I would read a piece or an article of some sort and open up a text document and let my thoughts do the work. It wasn’t even like I was doing anything, my fingers were just typing and I wasn’t controlling them. That’s what kind of writer I am.

            Maybe I’m not the best writer because of my insecurities and lack of organization and that could slow me down I guess. I need to realize everything isn’t going to perfect or close to it when I try to formulate it. To be honest, I am just being way too sensitive about something that shouldn’t be. This self-perception I have about myself is definitely hindering my writing skills. I have to write like I only need to impress myself and do what I think I is right. The best writers of their time went against the rules and did something different to stand out. That goes with everything in the world. Look at the Renaissance for instance, that was full of change and artists doing things out of the ordinary. The whole world of art changed, and it was a GOOD thing, so I need to apply that to my writing, though it may be different it can be a good thing!

            Some of the writings I enjoy are research papers, if they’re on something I find appealing. I love giving out information and teaching people other things that they might not have known before. Research papers are especially fun when I can give my own input to the paper, or how I feel about what I’m writing. Being able to express my feelings on anything that I write about is something that I love doing. I also enjoy writing things with a lot of meaning, in my off time I like to write song lyrics every so often.

            There are definitely writings that I dislike, and unfortunately for any English teacher, there is a lot of things I dislike about writing. Anything that I need to prepare thousands of notes or anything that I have to prepare an outline to help “Organize” my thoughts is definitely something I will not be fond of. I’m a spontaneous writer that reads a piece and writes what I think about the piece right after I’m done while the thoughts are fresh. As I’ve said before, I’m not one to be organized or even care to organize my thoughts. I feel like the teacher is trying to refine my thoughts into what they think should be a good paper.

            It’s funny that I bring up the rule of grammar as a rule that blocks my writing. I feel it’s like an excuse to not want to write but grammar is sometimes hard to get a hold of when you’re trying to write a super long paper. It angers me when I spend a lot of time on a paper and get my point across and do great research and only get a C because of “grammar”. Like seriously? I understand yes, grammar can be important, but if I got my point across and hit all the main points what’s wrong some LITTLE grammar problems? It’s not like I wasn’t understood because I forgot a comma or anything. So when it comes to writing a paper, if I don’t feel my grammar is absolutely correct I scratch the whole sentence, no matter how great it could’ve been.

            When I went back to my blog post, I realized I focus a lot on emotion when I write, that I feed off of positive energy and use it my benefit when I write. I say this because I use the phrases “I feel” and “pep talk” often in the post. It is true that I am an emotional writer, because when I read something that sparks something in my brain or makes my heart drop, I’m instantly thinking of many different ways I could address the issue in writing. On the flip side, if I’m depressed or saddened by the reading, I am kind of scared of putting any emotion into the writing seeing as it might get ridiculed, only making it worse. I also found out from the blog that I’m very scared of being judged by my peers, they’re the ones I seek approval from when I’m not home and away at school.