As soon as I became conscious of writing I realized the power that existed within it, the absolute freedom to express what, at the young age of twelve, seemed so inexpressible. It wasn't until a lot later that I became conscious of the healing powers of writing, and I mean writing when used as a tool of self reflection. When we write in a way that's completely honest to ourselves, when we remove (or merely identify) whatever fears we have and really look and deconstruct who we are, why we are who we are, how we feel, why we feel how we feel, what we've done to contribute to those feelings and whether those actions have been positive or harmful then transformation begins.
Let me side track for a moment. I started writing because of Harry Potter (bless your heart J. K. Rowling!) That's right, H.P. fan fiction which to most doesn't sound like it'd amount to much. In my experience fiction is viewed as the lesser of the many writing categories. I mean it's not like it's based on anything valuable, it's all pretend right? *insert twitching eye and throbbing vein on forehead* As soon as I started writing I learned that for as imaginative and wild as things get they're always deeply rooted in very real and personal aspects of my life. Passing Strange puts it best, "I illuminate with fiction the darkness truth cannot explain."
Getting BACK on track. The point is writing, in particular fiction, allowed me to process all the things I was going through and learning (Buddhism) at the time. And then my writing became thoughts & stories which then turned into letters to friends. Why letters? Well I've said it before; writing can be extremely lonely when there's no one to read what you've written, especially when it's your only means of coherently expressing yourself. Is writing absolutely essential to my mental and spiritual survival? Hell Yes. What's the point of this rant? Get a journal, start writing, get used to talking to yourself on paper. There's something undeniably powerful in being able to read through old notebooks and journals and through that being able to see how far you've come and how you've grown since then.
As someone who's recently graduated with a BA in Writing, I guess I'm just contemplating what writing really means to me and how I can use that in the work I'm doing now. Writing is amazingly therapeutic and it's about time we introduced it to kids in the school system in a way that isn't restricted by grammar and rigid formats. In the last couple of months I've worked with kids and it's really kinda sad to see they're so challenged by the concept that writing can be as creative and as imaginative as they want. They're so traumatized by grammar and spelling that most of them never even try to get to the page in the first place.
If you're a teacher or someone who works with kids, (or someone who's just terrified of writing) get them to be creative with their writing. Throw away the grammar and spelling, those are things that can be corrected later, get them comfortable and feeling safe with this new form of expression. Ease into it with stories, then letters to someone they know and before you know it they'll be ready for introspection.
But I guess my opinion of writing in the school system is a rambling post for another day.
Until then...
Mucho amor Y paz,
Yo.
