I hated writing when I was young—I can remember this as early as the first grade. I also was not delighted in drawing pictures with my writing. When it came to classwork, I wanted to be done as quickly as possible with little to no effort. I think that is the majority of people, everywhere. I sat next to a girl named Tiffany. I could tell that she loved to draw and spent most of her time on her artwork. I was fascinated by her talent. The time spent on her artwork cost her time to write. The assignment was to draw a picture and write a story, or write a story and draw a picture. Dread filled my head with frustration as the time passed to finish the assignment. Not Tiffany, she was joyous and loved schoolwork. I spent most of my time trying to write with very little time to draw anything. When we were done, the next part of the assignment was to stand in front of the class and tell the story we had just written. A paragraph.
This particular day stands out because I felt as though I figured out how to get out of this torment, but I was wrong. Tiffany drew beautiful pictures that told the story that was in her head. She did not have to write; she had to draw a scenario to tell a story. What she wrote were sentences that were waves of an ocean in a drawing. And I took that feeling of relief that I, too, could do that. I was so wrong. I could not draw. I had no imagination. I was not able to write or draw because I could not think of an original story to tell.
I hated writing. I still do sometimes. Any time I am asked to write it down or draft up a summary and whatnot. My frustration level goes up, and I want to make rude comments. It is not my fault that you cannot remember something so simple. As difficult as someone wants to make it for me, I make it equally as difficult the other way around. Everyone plays to their strengths. Someone rarely takes the challenge of their weakness.
I found my way to write, the one to get by, and the one to keep her attention, whoever she was. Adolescence flowered my mind with imagination, then bloomed into poetry. The change of attention went from girls wanting my attention to me wanting their attention and figuring out a way to keep their attention. I don’t believe it worked much on my end, maintaining attention. I eventually grew out of it. After spending enough time rhyming words, the development of my writing expanded and eventually became a positive activity of mine.