Draft 2

Brian Ingebretsen

2/16/14

ENGL 1A

The Ink of a Heart

My literary history is somewhat in its prepubescent stages; I understand the dynamics and mechanics but I have yet to do anything remarkable with it. I enjoy writing to the fullest extent; I love where your ideas can take you and I love the satisfaction of creating well thought out and profound statements such as this one. To me, writing brings about blissful solace while simultaneously delivering a message that is both powerful and assertive, cementing the written word as the pinnacle of the conveyance of ideas. The writing in my life will be ever changing and with the help that I have received from my teachers combined with what I learned from my experiences, I know that my writing ability has only begun to blossom.

            I grew up in the small town called Pleasanton in the state of California and I took to reading at young age. I loved reading so much that it developed into a love of writing and from then on I would always do my best on school essays and papers using the diction and syntax that I had known at the time so it’s safe to say that in my early years I wasn’t a very good writer. I had all of the ideas but due to my stubbornness and laziness, they rarely got out onto paper which is ironic because if I wasn’t told to write I would write like crazy. Little by little, however, I learned how to write more fluently and how to really get my ideas across; I grew out of my stubbornness and began to write. Once I got into high school, my writing had just passed the threshold of mediocrity which meant that I had been underprepared for what the higher education had in store for me. This would prove to be my downfall in the beginning but with the right teachers, I excelled to a new dimension of writing that I had never once entered before. I was able to add emotion into my writing, it wasn’t just a school essay anymore and it was a testament to myself and to what I have been through. I used my experiences to fuel the paper I was writing to make the emotion tangible and hard to put down even for the most obscure of papers such as a book review or a compare and contrast piece. However, I was still missing the story telling aspect of my writing, I had the connections and the depth but I needed to develop my story. At about the same time I was just beginning American Literature in my junior year of high school with a teacher who had a reputation of being one of the hardest and she indeed live up to her name. Though it was difficult, I developed that new story aspect to my writing therefore completing my goal. I could now tell a story with depth and emotion, I could take any writing assignment and make it my own that is full of my experiences and my emotions. She is the defining figure in my journey of the written word because she helped me complete my goal, I have all of the ingredients to make a fantastic paper and maybe even someday, a novel.

            Unbeknownst to myself, my writing achievement had also affected my personality and the way I look at others. I learned to convey more emotion and look at things in regards to depth and symbolism to fully understand someone. The same year as my writing breakthrough I took a class on psychology which opened my eyes to what humans really think and how to read in verbal cues so mixing that and a new depth and understanding, I have learned to view humans in a more eloquent light. Understanding where they came from and what they are feeling at that very moment, the emotion that they use the most, their heart break and tears of joy, really makes me happy that I learned so much. Now I plan on using my newly found ability to succeed throughout my college career and into the future, I plan to use this ability at work, I plan to use it with my family, and I plan to use it in my everyday life. I am a biology major and my goal is to become a forensic biologist who works in a lab and uses superior skill to solve cases and provide justice back into a dangerous world. Though the only writing I would be doing would consist of lab reports and police reports, my people skills will help me just as much as the evidence. If I can make the suspects or victims comfortable I can get more out of them, using their valuable information to help stop a killer or a thief. With this new skill, I can already see the stars of success in my future.

            Writing encompasses everything that we do whether it is scientifically or personally related. It takes us places that we may or may not want to go, it’s that powerful and affect the way people feel towards one another. Writing divides and pulls together, it hurts and heals, and it ultimately makes you into a better person. Writing is viewed in hundreds of different perspectives; right now you are feeling different about reading this than I am writing it. There are different experiences that can go into an essay like this and those experiences often turn the paper into a completely different story. This assignment is the same for all of us yet our papers could not be any more different. This is why the concept of writing will never be perfected and why it will keep on changing and improving and getting better, there will always be different interpretations of writing as well as different feelings towards it.