Words! Words! Words!

Reading A's blog has made me want to start writing poetry (don't worry, I'm not going to) which is a really weird thing because I don't like poetry. A while back, one of my friends from camp messaged me a poem that he wrote, asking me to critique it, and he sent it to maybe six other kids that are really good writers. I couldn't understand why I was included in this message. I am vehemently opposed to poetry, especially amongst adolescents.

I'm not a writer the way others my age are. I don't write poetry or fiction, I write what's happening around me and what I think about. I do this because I need to loosen up. In my absolute favorite book of all time, I Capture The Castle, the protagonist is keeping a journal partly to practice speed writing, but also to refine her style. She says that her father (who is an author) tells her that she "combine[s] stateliness with a desperate attempt to be funny" and tells her "to relax and let the words flow out." This pretty well describes my writing style, I feel. Cassandra Mortmain is a lot like me-- and I am a lot like her.

Anyway. In eighth grade, I kept a notebook that was sort of like a diary, but I wrote it in the third person and changed everybody's name in a moronic attempt at anonymity. I carried this notebook around with me during school, so I worried a lot about people seeing it. In ninth grade, I carried around two notebooks--one of which I finished--that were straight up diaries where I also recorded quotes and lists. I didn't do the third person or different names thing, but maybe I should have, since C read it and I was more humiliated than I think I've ever been in my entire life. Now, I keep a diary at home. I've finished three paper journals, and it's amusing to go back and read them and burn with embarrassment at how pretentious I was (and still am).

I really want to believe that my writing style has evolved, but I don't think it's changed so much as I've just grown into it. I wrote pretty much the same way I do now when I was in eighth grade. I guess I sounded really smart, but more than that, I just sound like a pretentious little snot. Which I was. (Less so now. At least, I hope.) Basic narration suits me. If I let myself slip just a little, I'd get all self-indulgent, with the overuse of commas and second person and what have you.