A Reason for Writing, Part One

first published on ylcf.org, July 21, 2008
read original comments here

When I was in second or third grade, my parents chose a penmanship curriculum called A Reason for Writing. It was supposed to be a great curriculum, combining the learning of good penmanship with a bit of fun and creativity.

At the end of each week, I would pull one of the pre-decorated and lined sheets of paper from the back of the book, color the illustration framing the lines and then write a personal letter to send to a friend or family member.

It should have been fun, but let me tell you, I hated that book. I just couldn’t stand that curriculum. I dreaded doing it each day. Dreaded writing row after row of curly cursive letters, keeping them uniform and within the correct lines. Combination of perfectionist and lackadaisical that I am, I would often end up in tears when I saw the red circles around letters I’d written sloppily. I wanted it to be perfect, but I just hadn’t really cared when actually completing the assignment.

But while forming an aversion to writing, I was actually discovering, in my free time, a love for writing. Real writing. Not the “cross your t’s and dot your i’s” kind of writing, but the art of putting words to a page. Of capturing an abstract thought and harnessing it into something another person might understand. Of having a concrete place to save all my imaginings, my fears, my joys, my craziness.

When I turned seven, a grandmother-like figure gave me my first diary. It was beige with little hearts on the cover and the pages numbered by the days of the year. Best of all, it had a lock and a key. At seven years old, nothing could be more nifty than that. After the party was over and my little friends were gone, I turned to April 1, put my Lisa Frank pencil to the paper… and unlocked a little bit of magic in my heart.

By the time I was nine, I’d begun my first “novel.” My writing buddy, had given me a thin three-ring-binder and a stack of paper after I’d read the first chapter of her “epic novel” and decided to start my own. Over the next couple years, I made it four whole chapters into my book, entitled Agarn Life. It was the story of the Agarn family (making up odd and outlandish names was also one of my hobbies) and their adventurous life on the prairie. I have absolutely no idea where that plot came from. It couldn’t possibly have had anything to do with the Little House books I was poring over. I don’t remember much of the story line anymore, except for the fact that around eleven or twelve years old, I realized I’d better hurry this story along if I hoped to get it published sometime soon–as I was certain it would be–so I decided to do something drastic and kill off the family patriarch. He was trampled by cattle or something equally dramatic.

Over the next several years, I filled countless spiral notebooks with stories, wrote to dozens of pen-pals regularly, and faithfully wrote in my journal. During my particularly eventful and ridiculously drama-filled sixteenth year, I easily filled three entire journals in about six months.

In a girls’ magazine I subscribed to during my teen years, I once read a short piece which called writing in a journal a “record of God’s faithfulness.” That little phrase stuck with me. Record of His faithfulness.

Is that what I was doing? I wrote in my letters and journals about my daily life, my ups and downs, my deepest thoughts and feelings. My stories were reflections of my imagination; often dreams written on paper. What was the point of any of it? Was it a “record” of anything, or just mindless words written by a young girl?

As I got a little older and the trail of my life rounded some unexpected corners, I continued to fill the pages of my journals and even still write short imaginative pieces. But soon most of the fictional stories were left, half-finished, in notebooks tucked in keepsake boxes. The pen-pals grew up and the letters became less frequent or moved to email instead. Even the journals into which I’d once poured my heart and soul were being opened less and less often. After a particularly difficult time during which I’d written page after page after page in my journal, only to later realize that, in fact, I’d not even been honest with myself in the folds of that little volume, I became less comfortable with putting my thoughts on paper. What was really the point anyway?

Soon I had a husband who was a quiet kind of guy and would listen to me ramble on and on and on for hours every evening. On the lines of my pretty little journal I’d write particularly meaningful scripture references, sometimes accompanied by a few brief thoughts. But now that I had someone who would listen to my ongoing and endless ramblings about life and such, I rarely wrote much about it on paper anymore.

Then I heard that some of those old pen pals and the girls who had read those sweet teen girls’ magazines were actually still keeping in touch with each other–they’d all just moved online. I visited the online journaling site and saw names I recognized and quickly found old far-away friends.

And then, one night, while on the phone with my best girlfriend who was also perusing through the lists of mutual old friends…

I signed up.