By Kristie Wayward
My favorite task, when I was going to school, was when we were asked to write. It might be essay questions, a book report… or later, a research thesis. This was not because I liked writing, but because I found it to be something I could do fairly well without working too hard at it.
I was generally a lazy student when it came to mundane tasks like repetitive math problems. I rarely turned in any homework, and never really studied at all. My lack of trying did reflect in the grades I received, and all in all, I was a terrible student. But I learned that being able to write was a useful skill to have, even if it was not especially fulfilling.
Reading books, every chance I could get, helped me learn to write. I attended grade school when they first were getting rid of the ‘phonics’ teaching methods. We were taught how to read using what was called the sight-reading method. A giant projector with a timer — an example of 1970s cutting edge technology — would flash a word on the screen for a few seconds and then quickly move on to the next one. We were basically being taught to memorize how words looked, rather than understanding how to sound them out. For me personally, it was a terrible experience and I was shaping up to be a terrible reader. By the time I was in second grade, I had to go to special education for remedial reading.
Unfortunately, the attempts at remediation did little to help me read and anything ‘special ed’ was a social stigma in those days. Kids are cruel… and I did not fit in that well anyway… and anyone that had to go to the special ed room would be sacrificed to the grade school pecking order. Fortunately, around that time, I came down with the chicken pox, and in those days, my school wanted students to stay home for about 7 to 10 days for chickenpox. I don’t remember much about the chicken pox other than it is itchy and the first rule of chickenpox is you don’t scratch the pox.
It was very boring back in the days of over-the-air television unless you wanted to watch “The Price is Right” or “The Days of Our Lives”. Before streaming TV and the Internet, you were forced to find something to do, and children were to be seen and not heard. I found a set of books from the Black Stallion series and started muddling my way through the first book. The first volume was a struggle, but I persevered as I had nothing else to do with my time. My perseverance paid off and by the end of the second book, something clicked in my head and I started reading faster and faster.
I completed almost all the books in the series before returning to school, and I was then able to read a book or two a day.
Soon, I was going to the library almost everyday after school. The library — unlike school — was a place I could go and learn about the things that interested me. I spent every free minute reading books on science, history, electronics and more. I soon discovered that books that sounded good when read out loud also sounded good in my head when reading silently. As a result, I concluded that I ought to read everything I wrote out loud to myself. If it sounds good when you read it to yourself out loud, then the writing is probably decent.
If you can’t read it aloud and have it sound good, or it’s awkward to read aloud, then it probably isn’t any good. Just reading in your head silently allows your mind to correct what it sees and you may miss an awkward sentence or double word. Hard to read sentences are immediately apparent when read out loud.
This process doesn’t necessarily mean you have written a good story or have proven your argument. It just means the writing will flow when read, and not cause the reader to get frustrated or tired while reading.
My oldest son, growing up, wrote stories every free moment he had. He has wanted to be an author for as long as I can remember. The problem for him is that he loves to write but it’s a struggle for him. He would try so hard that he would overcompensate. He had extremely creative ideas but follow-through left a lot to be desired. The harder he tried, the more he frustration he felt, trying to express himself through writing. His artistic expression was forced, by trying to make it too complex or too polished.
He wanted to be a good author so badly, it was actually negatively impacting his creative expression.
Decades later he still loves to write and, as an adult, has written a couple of books. In fact, he teaches writing on the college level and is pretty good at it. In his case, his persistence and refusing to give up in frustration, shaped him to be able to write. He has taught himself to write well, but while he enjoys it, I think writing still requires a lot of work for him.
I believe anyone can become proficient at a preferred creative outlet with enough practice and struggle. My son has had a drive for writing that wouldn’t go away and he was able to overcome and teach himself how to express himself through the written word. If that had been me, I would have given up years ago — like I did, struggling to learn how to draw. I always wished I could give him my ability to simply write what is in my head without using working outlines or rough drafts.
I write stories in my head everyday but when I commit it to paper or ‘the cloud’ powered by Google or Microsoft, it still feels like something is missing. I always feel like I want an image to accompany the text to properly explain my thoughts.
Writing never meant anything to me other than as a tool to accomplish other goals. My dream was to be able to draw. I understand how my son’s struggles with writing feels, as I have never been able to easily express my creativity in the visual form that matches what I see in my head.
I have been drawing obsessively since I was a very young child. In fact, I spent most of my time in school trying to be an artist — in the notebooks where I was supposed to be writing class notes or doing homework assignments. My problem is I love visual art, but I’m not good at it, and have never created anything I thought was any good.
The pinnacle of creative expression, for me, would be to create cartoons. You can get a point across with a good cartoon better than in a paragraph of words. Strange how much angst lies in having creative ideas but being unable to express them. In my head, I can picture the drawing… but I can’t reproduce it externally.
Art and creative expression do not always produce objects of a tangible cash value. However, all art and creative expression should be encouraged. Creative expression is a snapshot of the human condition. You may not find a certain work to ‘mean’ anything to you, but it may inspire the person standing next to you. Even if it inspires no one but the person who created it, the creative expression is still of value. It captures a moment in time of someone who is just an insignificant speck in this gigantic universe.
Creative expression can allow one to leave an immortal piece of themselves in this short life we live here. I would have never known what some of my relatives — who died before my birth — even looked like, if it were not for an old photo hiding in a photo album. I have learned the thoughts and dreams of others from an old letter written many decades ago… or a picture someone painted, or a song they recorded on tape.
Art and creative expression is all humans have to leave a mark somewhere that they were here. Perhaps no one will ever see it or perhaps it will be something famous like the writings of Shakespeare or the paintings of Michelangelo. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how many people see what you create or if anyone but yourself likes it. The theory of quantum physics suggests that everything that we do or think does in fact make a change to the universe, due to quantum entanglement.
And so, if nothing else, you are creating something for the universe and at the same time for yourself…
Read Part Two, tomorrow…