The first story I ever wrote was about a cute baby unicorn. I didn’t actually write it though, I just drew pictures because I didn’t know how to write yet. Later, I made up my own songs, but with the same problem.
The first real writing I remember was when I was in second grade. We had these cute little booklets that we wrote stories in every day. Again, my favorite one I wrote was about a little unicorn with no horn. I actually plagiarized this one from my favorite book, but that was back when I didn’t know what plagiarism was.
After second grade, I didn’t have to do any serious writing until I was in fifth grade. I had gotten in trouble for not listening to the teacher when she was reading a book to the class, and she made me write a thousand word essay. To my young, fifth-grader mind, a thousand words seem like the worst punishment one could bestow on a kid. What was worse, the teacher was my aunt, and I couldn’t understand how she could do that to me! After that experience, I paid attention. From then on, I viewed writing as a punishment given by teachers to make students suffer. Up until junior high, that is. That’s when I met my friend Ashley, who absolutely LOVES to write. She let me read some of her stories, and they were really good. I got a couple ideas from her, and figured that it wouldn't hurt to write them down. I built off of those stories, but never actually finished them. Currently they’re collecting dust on my computer.
After that I realized that writing really wasn’t all that bad. Who would have thought? A thousand words? That was nothing.
Then came Mrs. Card’s research paper. Learning how to write a five-paragraph essay made me start thinking back to the whole torture thing. But as I finished up, I discovered that even research papers aren’t that hard, as long as you get enough information.
That thought stuck with me through Mrs. Wakefield’s class as well. I thought I was doing pretty well, up until the UBSCT essay. At that point I was absolutely sure that I was doomed to fail the test and have to live on the streets as a hobo, sleeping on park benches and begging for food. Surprisingly, (for me at least) I passed! I figured I’d graduate after all. No sleeping on park benches for me!
So for now at least, I kind of like writing. That will all change in college I guess, but right now I’ll enjoy it while the easy stuff lasts. That’s not saying that I want to go and write more papers though, not if I can get out of it. I’d like to stick to writing in my journal and giving notes to my friends, thank you very much.
