WP4: Intertwining Voices
I always considered myself a bad writer in school, unable to craft eloquent sentences that would live up to my academic standards. I struggled with grammar and structure and, as a result, would often become frustrated. I was very insecure of my academic writing; but interestingly enough, I found comfort and interest in my own personal work. The phrases I would perfectly craft together — only meant for me to understand. I knew that no one would be there to judge or nitpick every sentence that I poured my heart into. I spent hours writing every day, and I enjoyed that time spent typing away every heavy emotion that was weighing me down. Letting all the built-up pain and worries dissolve with every sentence. I grew a love for writing alone but despised writing in an academic setting.
Writing alone gave me the ability to use my creativity, to use different techniques and styles of different authors. It allowed me to use my voice when I knew no one was listening — which undeniably brought a great deal of comfort. I knew that I was safe from judgment, and no one would question my writing ability. I was perfectly safe from the red marks of criticism and could type away without questioning the readability and credibility of my work. And in many ways, I feel like this made me a stronger writer. When I wasn’t questioning myself, I could write ten pages of work that I was proud of with extreme ease.
In my mind, there were two types of writing, academic and pleasure: one I hated and one I loved. But I never let them intertwine — with the fear that one would be ruined.
However, by taking this course, my perspective has changed. I now believe that writing can be intertwined; your voice SHOULD shine through no matter what type of writing piece. I realized that I was trying so hard to sound like someone else in an academic setting — my work was unauthentic. This lack of authenticity was extremely noticeable by teachers and made my writing weak. I was so focused on catering to a teacher’s wants; I wasn’t allowing myself to think on a deeper level. I have always been told my entire life to “dig deeper” and never understood the phrase. Having taken this class, I noticed that it was because of the restrictions I was placing on myself. When I write for my own enjoyment, I let my ideas run wild, and I make sure to explain every last detail. I heavily lack this skill in academic settings. This class has made me aware of this flaw; I was forced to challenge my own preconceived ideas and personal biases in order to create strong detailed arguments. Making sure that I had a strong purpose and my writing held meaning.
An example being in my WP3, I had to write a 2,700 word essay without losing the meaning of my purpose which was on, “women of color dealing with imposter syndrome.” It was very challenging to keep this narrative throughout without losing focus, but I always made sure to center it back to the word and my experiences, helping me stay focused. (Duran, 2021)
This was also seen in my experience writing posts on medium; I was now placed in a platform where I had to intertwine both my personal and academic voice. It wouldn’t go without saying that I was TERRIFIED; I was scared of someone judging my academic work that was coming from a vulnerable place. When writing these posts, my main concern was not about where I was putting commas but the story I was going to tell. The Medium post helped me learn how to structure a story and my ideas using both voices. I learned how to write using a strong narrative, but also construct meaningful research. While also making it engaging and a learning experience for an audience. I knew that I had the narrative part down but was unaware of how to intertwine a narrative with academic writing. This class ultimately taught me that as long as I had a strong WHY I could build on that foundation and use that one core idea and follow it through my work, no matter that is a personal story or a piece of data. With this idea, I learned how to construct posts that weren’t so much like journal pieces but pieces of writing that helped with meaning and purpose. A work that audiences could understand and empathize with and also learn from.
While this knowledge helped me immensely, I was terrified of fully being confident in emerging my personal voice into my academic work. I was scared that my audience would not understand my perspective and feared that my words would be misunderstood. It wasn’t until one day in class, where we had a conversation on poetry, and dissecting the meaning from poems. Although I have always appreciated poetry and the subjectivity of it all, I always tried to digest the REAL meaning. I would use the techniques used from English class to dissect sense from every phrase. Always looking up the meaning of the poem to try to make sense of the convoluted metaphors and analogies.
But in a conversation in class, you made us aware of the subjectivity of poetry, that it isn’t meant to be fully understood. That most pieces of work are up for interpretation, and the words that we have made meaning of are not even agreed upon by the authors.(Donika, 2021) This was a bit of a breakthrough moment for me, as I realized that my writing will be read differently by every person because we are all unique individuals. We all have had different lives that have made us who we are, creating our identities. It would be wrong and naive to believe that every person will find the exact meaning of my work or even understand my ideas. This has given me the confidence to speak my voice and I hope for readers to take something out of my writing that they believe to be meaningful instead of vice versa.
Having this confidence in intertwining my academic and personal voices has created a new love that I never believed possible. Throughout this semester, I felt confronted with the obstacle of taking on a new journey of intertwining my love for writing for pleasure with my hatred of academic writing. And even though I was forced to do so, I am so grateful to have been taken on this journey. I am now confident that I can intestine both voices effectively while holding onto a strong purpose. Knowing that my writing will be subjective, and I hope for it to be, I hope for others to challenge my ideas as I have done with other authors. I hope that in the future, I can use my newfound knowledge and use this towards my writing skills, using ONE voice in creating work that I am proud of.
Work Cited:
Padea, Donika. “What Is the Subjective Poetry?” What Is the Subjective Poetry? | EveryThingWhat.com, https://everythingwhat.com/what-is-the-subjective-poetry.
