Blog Post #1 "What is Writing?"

     Throughout my high school career, I've been conditioned to associate writing with a feeling of disdain. This was most apparent sophomore year, when my teacher assigned a 6 page research paper about a literary device. Mine happened to be magical realism, which is nowhere near as exciting as the name suggests. It was excruciatingly boring and I ran out of things to say around page 3. I found myself going in circles, rephrasing the same points that I'd made earlier in the paper. I never really loved writing, as I never felt that I had strong talent for it, but that experience definitely shaped my views on it. I want to be proven wrong, though, and to have my opinions reshaped.

     As for what makes writing good, I'd have to say that it's in the eye of the beholder. Every person has a different piece of literature that they refer to as their favorite, so "good" writing is clearly subjective. However, there are characteristics that make writing more enjoyable. The author needs to cater to what the reader wants, and what the reader does NOT want is to be bored. Books and newspapers are already going to the wayside in favor of more subversive forms of media, and people who write boring and monotonous essays aren't doing the cause any justice. Some things that I find interesting when I'm reading is very colorful similes like, "The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant," or even better, similes that are more like anti-jokes like, "John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met." As you can see, I'm easily entertained. I'm not sure how blog etiquette works as far as conclusions, so I'll just leave with "Thus concludes my blog post".