My voice is a powerful tool, and when I write I know I'm more eloquent, powerful, and skilled than when I'm speaking directly to someone, especially a group. I have the space to edit, rephrase, and clarify before I actually release my words to the world. I hope that these words have an effect on you, dear reader, and I hope that you respond to them as you feel compelled.
I first seriously started to write in my freshman year, when I took the Creative Writing elective at my school. I loved it. We wrote a short story every day, only a page or so from a small prompt, and we talked about them and read each other's stories. The teacher encouraged us to write diverse, personal stories, but always the goal was to have fun with what we were doing. The entire class was entirely stress-free and very fun for me. I've kept up my story-writing ever since, mostly through a personal blog and transformative works, and I've made some of my best friends through sharing my writing with the world.
This year, though, in AP Language and Composition, we've had to write an awful lot of practice essays for the exam. These past few weeks, we've been pushing hard, especially on the opinion prompts, in which we are given some background on an issue, a quote, or a question about the nature of an abstract concept. I love having this opportunity to give my feelings- especially when I'm graded well for my ideas and the strength of my conviction. We write about the power of books (great but double-edged), the value of competition (more harm than good), the importance of nationality versus individuality (individuality encompasses nationality if you want it to, but nationality sometimes suppresses individuality).
If I may flatter myself, I'm a pretty good writer. My experience has given me vocabulary, eloquence, and the kind of rhetorical skills you can't get out of a book. Using these skills is the great joy in my life. I have my school to thank for the baseline- but I also give myself credit for taking control and building my own way to recognition. I have my own kind of power. I just need to keep using it.
I know not all schools offer this level of rigor, or even writing classes at all. There's plenty of untapped skill out there in people who don't have opportunity or time to write as they might want to. It's hard to make something and to put it out there without compensation. I may never be able to make a living off of writing my stories; that's a fact I face and I will defy it if I can. I may even never formally publish my writing; providing well-written, diverse stories for free through the Internet is part of a new movement I'm a proud part of already. I can't predict the future, especially while I'm still so young and I have years ahead of me to pick up and drop careers, hobbies, commissions. I want to live my life proud of who I am and what I've done; that's all.
