My Writing Timeline

This post was written by Natalie, a student in the FLVS Creative Writing Club.

When I was much, much younger, I saw writing as a chore. There’s not a lot a 7-year-old girl being homeschooled in southwest Florida had to write about, and I certainly didn’t do much of it.

As I grew older, the process of writing morphed from a chore into a helpful emotional outlet and then into a hobby. Although I’ve never been a serious, hardcore dedicated writer, I can say that writing definitely should be credited for its impact in my life.

The earliest I can remember writing would be in my tween years. As most people behave when going through that time in their lives, I could get quite emotional and crave an outlet to vent my frustrations or just write a poem expressing my honest feelings.

I read a ton of books back then and can attribute a lot of my literacy skills to my reading. I kept diary after diary for a few years and grew my writing skills without even realizing it. Writing about anything going on in my life made me think about events and interactions more deeply than I ever had before.

I went through a role-playing phase in my early teen years. I remember when I began to role-play, my literacy was probably average. However, I learned so much by interacting and gaining writing (and basic English grammar) experience with others. Role-playing was truly a turning point in my writing as it helped me become not only more literate, but more creative with my writing. As someone who learns best by imitation and experience, I can say that this was perhaps the most influential part to my writing skills today.

As I moved on from my role-playing hobby, I finally joined the FLVS Creative Writing Club (CWC). I joined when I was 14 and still a novice writer, eager to learn and expand my writing expertise even more. I met my best friend within a couple months of being in the club and she slowly eased me into the writer’s culture of which she was already a part. Interacting with other writers and getting input for all my projects and ideas inspired me to move forward further than I ever thought I would go with writing.

Up to this point in my “writer’s timeline,” I was seeing significant improvements in my academics from all the extra writing experience I had gained. I always tell people to never underestimate the power of a good writer because a writer possesses a skill that can be transformed into a million different forms. My grades and scores were already showing positive results from all the extracurricular writing. The years of passively absorbing knowledge and experience were paying off.

Fast forward to present-day when I am the best writer I’ve ever been. Maturity and even more experience has made me the writer I am today. I have almost four years of seniority in the CWC and valuable pieces of writing over the years to show for it. I finished NaNoWriMo and NaPoWriMo* under the years of being here and gained loads of experience from many other challenges and projects that pushed me to step out of my comfort zone. All the writing I’ve done throughout my life has given me the ability to write professional-looking articles and essays for various activities and assignments I still get to do today. Although I will not be making a career out of writing, it is nice to go back and see just how persevering through the years has payed off.

*National Novel Writing Month / National Poetry Writing Month

This article was originally published on the FLVS Creative Writing Club blog.