Kemi the writer, is what I've been calling myself for the last 5 minutes now. But am I really a writer? As I look down memory lane of my writing journey, I often fight with myself on whether or not I deserve such a title. In the 6th grade I first began writing and I could not stop. I created fake magazines, wrote fictional books and poems none stop. By my freshman year of high school, I've created poems about experiences I've never even had and my friends love it! By my senior year I was a well known spoken-word poet in my school. Admittedly my writing came from a place of pain. Whether it was parental drama, boyfriend drama or just straight up hormones, I was one emotional teenager and writing helped me make sense of my thoughts. After the pain subsided and I felt whole I wondered would my gift of writing disappear with my pain. Before I even had time to test my creative boundaries and capabilities with a more happy content mentally, I went to college.
Upon entertaining college every dream and aspiration I mothered of being a writer climbed to the top of the Union building, said a prayer and jumped off. The classification of "writer" was replaced with class fool. I had to face the sad reality that my grammar was terrible, my sentence structure was weak and overall my academic writing was not where I thought it was. Papers with red ink would come back to me with comments like "great content, weak writing". As many professors would tell me the same thing, I had no clue what I was doing wrong.
Though extremely discouraged, luckily for the rest of the world, I'm way too obsessed with expressing my feelings with others. So during my Junior year of Undergrad I created a Christian blog and my social media friends loved it! I received emails and comments encouraging me to go further with my writing. I truly enjoyed writing my blog because I was not going to be graded, I spoke on the things I loved, and there was no grammar police to arrest me with their red inked handcuff. But if I'm to be real with myself, I began to hide behind my blog writing. Because I loved to tell stories and express myself and was good it at, I often disregarded and even looked down on the world of academic writing. I'd say things like "who created this standard anyway? Why is this way of writing acceptable and this way not?"
But when I stop and be real with myself, the truth is I would love to become a better academic writer.Why not have different genres of writing under my belt? How far can I run from academic writing if essentially I'm getting my master in English education. Not very far guys, not very far.
I love to write to help others. I love to write to find myself. I love to write to write to freeze time. I enjoy writing. But I completely freeze when it has to be academic. My goal is to feel comfortable writing, period. No matter what genre. I want to teach my students that one can overcome their challenges, and surpass their own limitations. So, as far as the opening question goes. Do I consider myself a writer. Yesssss. A blog writer and an academic writer in the making!
