Autobiography why I write essay.

Mr. Evans

English 102-2WA

1/29/15

Why I Write

Throughout my life I have written for many reasons. Some of these reasons were personal, intended only for myself, and others were meant to be read. It has meant different things to me at different stages of my life. As I look back on my childhood and adolescence, I realize that writing has been very important to my development as a person.

Barry Hannah has written, “I forget almost nothing.” I, on the other hand, feel as if I forget almost everything, especially when it comes to my childhood. I do not remember learning how to read or write. In fact, I do not remember much of anything during my elementary school years. However, I do remember receiving diaries and journals for Christmas or as birthday gifts. I probably went through at least five by the time I was ten. During the majority of my childhood, my diaries were mainly used to jot down what happened that day, as opposed to how I felt. However, that changed when I was given a diary with a small lock on it. Of course, as a young girl I had many thoughts that I wanted to keep private, like my mom was mean or my little brother was annoying. As I got a little older, my journal entries became more developed. For a teenage girl everything is so emotional and dramatic. Keeping a journal became about trying to make sense of my emotions and to control my racing mind long enough to put my thoughts on paper. My entries eventually became about my boyfriends. I wrote a lot about my first love. When we first started dating the majority of my journal entries were more like love letters. When he eventually broke up with me, the entries became full of my depressed thoughts. I wrote obsessively about him for months after our breakup. However, writing in my journal eventually became therapeutic and, in some ways, helped to mend my broken heart. I think that it is very important for adolescents, like Stephan Elliot, to write down their thoughts and feelings. Elliot wrote, “I was writing to communicate. I had all this emotion I couldn’t sort through.” Keeping a journal and writing poems or stories can all be very beneficial for young people. It can help to make sense of all of the emotional turmoil and clutter in their head.

After I graduated from high school and moved out of my parent’s house, I no longer kept journals. Writing was rarely something that I thought about. I was more preoccupied with hanging out with my friends than anything else. I was having such a great time that rarely felt the need to write. One day I came across a book that was written out of inspiration from the All American Rejects song, “My Dirty Little Secret”. The book consisted of pictures of random people holding up pieces of paper with their secrets written on them. For some reason I really liked the idea of creating a similar book filled with my own secrets. I made my book out of a binder filled with construction paper. It ended up being a book of random thoughts and wishes, I didn’t actually have many secrets. I think that I felt the need to create this book because writing in it was a way of finding myself. “I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.” (Didion) I believe that many people use writing in this way. People use writing as a way to navigate through their own life. “When I am at my best I don’t know where I am going. Writing is an exploration and I’m a detective, a treasure hunter searching for clues.” (Elliot) At that point in my life my writing had become less about sorting through my emotions and more about finding out what I wanted and where I was going.

As I grew into my later twenties, I became a mother, got married, and life became incredibly busy. Writing was not a priority, therefore, I did not write about anything for years. However, when I returned to college, it suddenly became necessary to write essays and papers. During my English 101 class, I had to relearn how to correctly form an essay. Having a direct outline of how an essay should be organized helped and, after a few mistakes, the semester went fairly well. When I enrolled in my humanities class, I was required to write a research paper every week. These papers had less to do with grammar and more to do with research and my opinions on my findings. The subject of our papers usually involved current events. I had previously been unaware or uninterested in what went on in the world beyond my own experiences. However, during my time listening to lectures and doing research, I suddenly became politically interested in what was happening in the world. My reasons for writing became similar to some of George Orwell’s reasons. For example, he wrote, “Political purpose – using the word ‘political’ in the widest possible sense. Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other people’s ideas of the kind of society that they should strive after.” I chose to write my mid-term paper about Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO’s). The knowledge that I acquired while doing research for this paper changed the way that I viewed the FDA, the USDA, and our government in general when it comes to the safety of our food. My research paper became argumentative as I encouraged my reader to strive for a change in our society and to protest against the production of GMO’s. A quote by Joan Didion reminded me of how I felt while I was writing my paper. She wrote, “In many ways writing is the act of saying I, of imposing oneself upon other people, of saying listen to me, see it my way, change your mind.” During my humanities class, I also wrote a paper on the theories of Dr. Judy Wood concerning the events of 9/11. Dr. Wood’s theories were very interesting and made me question the history that I had been told about 9/11. Again, I felt a connection to George Orwell when he wrote, “Historical impulse. Desire to see things as they are, to find out the true facts and store them up for the use of prosperity.” The research done while writing these papers have changed the way that I see the world and has influenced my writing forever.

The reasons that people write are varied. Stephen Elliot has written that, “The process is different for everyone.” At times, writing has been an outlet for my emotions. At other times, writing has been a way to express my thoughts and options on certain topics. “Often it is simply an overriding need to talk.” (Hannah) Whatever my reason for writing is, when I am finished, I always feel as though it has been a positive experience. Writing this paper has helped me to remember how much writing has influenced me in the past and I am confident that it will continue to be beneficial throughout my life.

Works Cited

Orwell, George. “Why I Write”. Orwell.ru. Gangrel. Summer 1946. Web. 29 January 2015

Elliot, Stephen. Why I Write”. The Rumpus. Canteen. 20 August 2009. Web. 29 January 2015

Hannah, Barry. “Why I Write”. Oxford American. Issue 20. Spring 1998. Web. 29 January 2015

Didion, Joan. “Why I Write”. New York Times Book Review. 5 December 1976. Web. 29 January 2015