Remembering Writing, Remembering Reading

Brandt's essay focuses on the progression of reading and writing through childhood and beyond. The basis of her arguments stem from some 400 interviews she conducted with a wide variety of people from a Wisconsin town I assume is meant to represent Anywhere, USA. I have a hard time remembering what might be my "first" writing experience, it seems to me that it has always just been something I did, some "natural extension of language," as Brandt puts it. But as I read, I attempted to recall some of my own writing experiences and the people and events that made me grow as a writer.

She speaks of the "ambiguity" of writing, the indifference with which some people treat it as a skill. I agree that some of the daily activities writing is required for seem mundane, but as a child, I don't ever remember thinking of writing that was something tedious but necessary. I suppose that has a lot to do with circumstance, my parents were both in professions that required extensive writing: my mother a newscaster and my father who graduated with a degree in English and has held a wide variety of jobs from teacher to web developer to marketing executive (all of which involving varying degrees of writing). My maternal grandparents were also both published authors, so it was always an environment where writing was encouraged and, when done well, praised.

As far as school-related writing goes, I assume my experiences are fairly typical: handwriting assignments, the dreaded five-paragraph essays (later, term papers) and projects, etc. However, it was academic writing that first lead me toward what would become my major and my passion: screenwriting. I remember in middle school, every student was required to enter the Pennsylvania Scholastic Writing Competition and submit a piece from any of a dozen or so categories. When we received the list of categories, most of my classmates went straight for the "short short essay" or poetry categories (300-600 words and 100 lines, respectively). However, my eye was drawn to what looked like the most daunting category (and, I remember, the one my teacher said she was sure none of us would attempt): Dramatic Script (50+ PAGES). The script, I remember, was awful, some sob story about a girl who got cancer and repented for her sorry ways, only to wake up and realize it was all a dream. It was a seventh-graders feeble attempt at being profound, but all that mattered tome was that it was a script. I had done it. And I could do it again.

I also remember another writing style from middle school and high school: the "note" (which I passed copious numbers of). It was a large school and once we started switching classes, sometimes you could go a full day without getting a chance to talk to your friends. Notes exchanged as we passed in the hall were the easiest (and most exclusive) way to communicate. In high school, my best friend and I even had a running notebook that we would write back and forth in and exchange. Prior to the text message being invented, notes like this were the easiest form of written communication between peers.

I do empathize with Brandt's conclusion that personal, nonacademic writing is intensely private in nature and hard to qualify because so few want to share. I did have journals as a kid, but used them mostly for "fiction" or sensationalized versions of what was happening in my own life. Fictional or not, they were still intensely private. To this day, I still get a gnawing feeling in my stomach when others read any of my writing, be it script, personal essay, or academic paper. I think these feelings stem from writing because of how terribly subjective it is; the idea that you could pour your heart and soul into a piece that you think is wonderful and someone else could see it as complete drivel is just a little too traumatic for writers to take. That's why, until you have some teacher or peer who tells you what you've written is brilliant, you want to keep it completely to yourself.