What is? What's impossible? Shocker: me writing a nonfiction essay, that's what. "A 5-paragraph thing?" you ask. No, a normal, blah-blah-blah essay. "What?"
I can't do it and I don't know why! Here I am writing on a blog and I'm enrolled in a nonfiction class that defies all rules of writing. My teacher is amazing and the book we're reading is bizarre. But good. "Several Short Sentence About Writing" by Verlyn Klinkenborg. A great writer. He knows what he's talking about. And I don't. I've written A-essays for years. Some Bs too, but we don't talk about those. I'm a good writer. When I put my mind to it and can concentrate. I've said a million times this blog is not a show-case, but maybe it is. The kinds of essays my teacher wants us to write are not about "I learned this" or "let me inform you of this". They are crazy hard to write because they do not have a point. If you haven't had a professor like her than you can't understand. And it's so hard to not "preach" or "teach" in essays. I had no idea how hard it was. She says "write and discover a long the way. If you know what your point is before you start, then you're doing it wrong." I can't have a point. I can't have an introduction and conclusion I need a scene. Dialogue. I know, it sounds easy! I thought so too, but now I'm mad with effort. All I want to do is write an essay with a point and a "lesson" or something. But it's so hard!
I wish I could impart to you the difficulty I am having with this class. I'm trying desperately get it right because my writing is getting generally worse in the class and I don't want her thinking I'm this loser who wants to be a writer some day but can't write nonfiction, unstructured essays. But I am! I can't not do it and it's killing me! Ugh.
I'm blogging right now because I was working on 2 essays (for different classes) and one was for nonfiction. I don't know why I can't just write something that doesn't have deep "meaning" or a "lesson to be learned". Maybe I've been teaching writing too long. But she's a teacher too and is really good and has a lot published. Grrrr, why can't I write nonfiction? I just need to say something, that's all.
You know what? I hate writing on this blog and posting something that "has no conclusion" or "so in the end" thing tact onto the end. I hate that. I felt like that was wrong and I have trained myself out of it. You know those posts. Where I just talk, don't teach. Don't you hate those? But that's what she wants! And I can't do it. I've started and re-written this one essay 3 times now and I keep trying to "show you what I learned" and that's not what it's about. I write in my journal and on here all the time like that. But I can't do it. Why do I have to preach? Because I like being in a position of power? I said that once. That it might have something to do with my social anxiety. That I don't like being around older people or people who treat my like a dumb little kid. Well, no one likes that, but I take it to a much higher level. I love teaching though. I love tutoring. My age, older, younger, it doesn't matter. Thank God I'm good at it, but I think I love it because I'm in charge and I'm not under any one. I hate being the underling. Sometimes. Not all the time. I like people who lead. Not people who stomp on me.
People who lead are different than the ones that put others down or treat them like lessers. I do that with my students. I respect them, listen to them, and I love them. I don't mind that. So I like showing and teaching. Listen to my story and what I learned. But I can't do that in these essays. It's just a "one time this happened and yeah" kind of thing. I have a hard time doing that. I want to but it's hard. Like I've said a million times.
So I also think that has to do with my social anxieties. I'm not clinical (that I know of) but I have it and depression pretty bad. So I need to feel secure in my knowledge. These essays take away from that. That's not a bad thing, it's just a new thing I can learn write about later. :) If i learn it. I want to. So here I go...
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