Inspiration:
Ever since I was extremely young, I have been completely addicted to writing and reading. Literature has had a tight hold on me since I opened my first Junie B. Jones book in probably kindergarten.
I credit my mother with my intense love for fiction. For the first 14 years of my life, she was a sixth-grade English teacher, a career she had immense passion for. For Christmas, my sister and I found books under our tree. For Easter, books were located in our Easter baskets. For birthdays, we received books with handwritten messages from the gifter, encouraging us to read more and more.
To say I was inspired is an understatement. Every single journal I have ever owned is filled to the brim with diary entries that highlight the best and worst experiences of my life, mixed in with numerous short story and novel ideas, or even just planning out my week. I’ve probably misplaced or thrown away more than half of them from my childhood, unfortunately, but the love for writing and jotting down my ideas has always remained.
I recall writing family stories, made-up fictional characters from made-up towns. I recall writing on the school bus on my school-issued tablet about a girl who adopted a dog. I can recall dreams that I’ve had that have inspired me to write short stories and snippets of text, organizing notes and ideas into a cohesive and interesting storyline.
Experience:
I took AP Literature and Composition as a Junior in High School. I freaking loved it. The stories we read were phenomenal; it was my first real introduction to classic literature like The Great Gatsby or Pride and Prejudice, and it’s safe to say that Jane Austen is still one of my favorite writers of all time. Reading stories that captured so much literary history was so phenomenal; it inspired me even more to write short stories and fiction. We read poetry, one of my favorites being The Naked and The Nude by Robert Graves, a phenomenal poem in which I wrote an analytic essay about and received great credit for. We read Shakespearean plays such as Hamlet and Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, all of which I was completely fascinated with. The idea that someone can tell such an impactful story that we still continue to read and learn about today is so fascinating to me; so inspiring to me.
My college English class I took my senior year of high school also brought forth great opportunities for me to write. We wrote compare-and-contrast essays in which I was able to practice my analytic writing, as well as definition papers that provided great challenges for me to overcome. During our second semester, I fell in love with even more literature, reading MacBeth, and Lord of the Flies for the first time (I know, I was definitely late to the party there…), and writing opinions and creative or analytical pieces that I fell completely in love with.
Reading and writing have been such a crucial part of my life for so long, each providing an excellent outlet for my non-stop brain.
Application:
Joining Her Campus has been so wonderful. It has been such an interesting experience for me to be able to write about what I love and actually see it get published, which is what eventually led me to Substack, an online site in which the writing community can come together and share work. I love that I can write for random people on the internet, which fuels my addiction even more. Although I must admit I am aware that very few people see or will ever see my work, being provided with an outlet for my non-stop thinking brain has been extremely pleasing nonetheless.Â
It is genuinely so rewarding to me. Being able to write and experience people who actually enjoy what my brain sparks up is insane. Even if people don’t read it, as I’ve mentioned, it is so freeing to just spit my thoughts out on paper or a computer screen.
Writing will always be an outlet for me; it is one of the only constant things I have in life. Being able to do so for an audience, no matter the size.