Yukyung Bang/Exercise 2 (p. 11)/Narrative Composition Tuesday 9-11 a.m.

  I can say, with confidence, that I do not like writing. And I believe this is because I am too self-conscious with regard to it. I did not write much back in my school years, but when I had to write, I wrote to be evaluated and graded by teachers. This gave me a false impression that all types of writing are for others, not for myself. Consequently, I put greater priority to  readers than to myself when writing. Even if it is for myself only, I'm afraid who might read my writing, or I would say, my personal thoughts. Several times I tried to keep a journal, but except for the first few pages, my diaries always remained empty and eventually were used for writing down (or drawing, of course) something else − recipes, to-do lists, or bucket lists when it started booming in Korea. The invisible readers make me frustrated and avoid writing as much as possible. As for other types of writing which are expected to be read by others, such as school assignments and even e-mails, it became worse. As a result, I found my writings unreal and insincere even though they are my own creations. I lie, add something, make it more dramatic, and take out some ugly parts so that readers would like my writing and me. So, a lot of writing assignments that have been given to me since I entered the university have given me a hard time. Because I knew that I would make up a story rather than describe what I really had in mind, I usually put them off until the last minute even though I was under pressure. Now that I think about it, I was aware of my problem but did not try hard to solve it.

 

  However, it's not that I have never tried to be truly myself when writing. When I was in the United States as an exchange student last year, I took a non-fiction writing class to overcome the fear of writing. It was challenging since I had to write in English but helped me a lot to write freely. I guess it was because I was in a different and fresh setting, being out of familiar surroundings. The professor encouraged us to write anything, even the tiniest things, that popped up in our head, such as song lyrics and a shopping list. The experience taught me a pleasant feeling of writing without worrying, which I had not been able to feel before. From that time on, I have been keeping a journal, if occasional and closer to merely recording what happened to me than expressing my feelings towards it. Even though I'm not perfectly free from writing with readers in mind more than I need to, I believe that I am getting better, and so is my writing.