1st Person:
I've never been a big reader but I have always enjoyed to write. Ever since I was young, as far back as I can remember, I was writing. Not in a journal context but more of stories and the like. I would write and even illustrate my own works.
I would, as any good writer, enjoyed developing my characters and grew to love them. My first, favorite character, was a cat named Thorough. Thorough as in "That analysis was thorough". Quite a big word for the average third grader. I remember that I liked the way that word sounded and it was a simple as that. Thorough had many adventures, as I'm sure my parents painstakingly recall, as I would read ALL of the stories to them at bed time.
In the fourth and fifth grade I was obsessed with the "Goosebumps" series. They were books of the mystery genre and some were a little dark. This fueled my imagination and I would try to write short stories similar to those. Thorough and her adventures were tossed aside, replaced by children my age, trying to escape from haunted houses and evil "everyday" objects, which came to life.
In Middle and High School I had a rough personal life and writing helped me get through the toughest of times. My writing turned into poems, which I hoped someday would become song lyrics. These were usually pretty angry and dark; but I know that they were valuable because I was using my imagination. My senior year I took a Poetry class, in my last semester, with some of my best friends. It was the best way to wrap up that chapter of my life. I found a way to make my writings seem less dark and more inspiring, which was how I was trying to focus my energy.
In college I was required to write a lot. I loved trying to find creative ways to say the things I needed to. For my Liberal Studies degree requirement I needed to take an additional English class, which led me to writing for the school newspaper. That was the proudest moment I had writing.
2nd Person:
You've always loved to write. The way writing makes you use your mind, stretching the limits of your imagination, and gets your creative juices flowing. The rush of new ideas and new ways to tell the stories you want to tell is unlike any other spark of genius. It gets you hooked to keep writing to see what you come up with next.
From stories in your childhood, to poems in your teenage years, each piece has been an exciting challenge to compose. You started writing about things that you loved and grew to love to write something beautiful out of the mondane.
You've always been a little shy about your writing and were always a little apprehensive to share your newest creation. That changed when you took a poetry class, in high school, where you strutted your stuff in front of peers and friends alike. In a warm environment it was easy to share and now that scariness has been lifted for you.
In college you wrote speeches, lengthy papers and newspaper articles. It was a whole new avenue of writing. Some pieces had strict guidelines with rubrics and grading requirements. That had you striving for perfection. Newspaper articles had their own set of demands. They needed to be interesting enough to hook a reader, in a sea of other pieces; and most importantly, they needed to be relatable to the students in which you were writing for. Either way was a work out for your mind, but it was always worth the effort.
3rd Person:
She had always been told that she was creative, with a knack for writing; but it wasn't until her papers came back, with acceptable grades, that she felt validated. She used to be very shy about her works, mainly because she was her own worst critic. By the time she was writing academically her shyness was replaced by confidence, which she would need when she started writing for her college's newspaper, the Eagle Eye.
She initially was apprehensive about taking a course to write for the student newspaper. She already had a lot of demanding classes that semester, like Anatomy and Physiology, that would soaked up her time like a sponge. It was her second year and fourth semester, so if she wanted to graduate on time she would have to take the class to fulfill an English requirement. Honestly, she couldn't see herself doing well asking a stranger questions and reporting back; but before she knew it she was interviewing the school's Director of Nursing.
The course itself was very structured, as the professor would tell the class what issues needed to be written about and the students would choose. There was always room for questions and if you wanted to write about something else there was always an ear to listen and someone to give it a shot. The class had about seven students to start and dwindled down to about five, by the end of the first few weeks. The topics that she would choose from excited her and before she knew it she was on assignment.
It was a whole new world for her, sitting down with someone, pen in hand, with a list of questions she was dying to ask. She would bring a tape recorder, as accurately quoting her interviewee's is a skill that all journalists need to master. She interviewed students and a wide variety of faculty members about what was going on in the ever changing and expanding college. The fun part for her, of the whole reporting processes, was taking all that gathered information and turning it into something that would captivate the readers. For example, the prospect of a new parking lot is not ordinarily exciting, but she could try and make it so.
The articles themselves were graded, but to her, nothing was more satisfying than a peer telling her that they read what she wrote and that they liked it.
