By: RACHEL NUNER
Staff Writer
rnuner@iusb.edu
Writing is absolutely essential in college while also being the foundation for communication, and it has always been one of my strongest points throughout my education. I suppose that’s where I should start.
I fell in love with writing in the seventh grade. I had an extraordinary teacher who pushed me to come up with the best writings I could possibly produce. Whether it was a research paper, creative writing assignment or a simple response for a homework question, I made sure I thoroughly covered all the bases.
While in high school, I found the same thing to be true—that writing was a comfortable thing for me. I would struggle in my math and science classes, but English class and Newspaper club were never factors of stress in my life. By the end of my junior year in high school, I began considering journalism as my future career.
Working for my high school newspaper was an awesome experience, but it wasn’t until my freshman year at IU South Bend that I realized how different journalistic writing was from the type of creative writing I was used to. I love using emotionally charged words and metaphors, and that’s not something I can do as easily when it comes to the journalistic style of writing.
Last semester, I “broke down” when I suffered from the lack of inspiration. Weeks upon weeks of writer’s block felt like torture. Week after week my stories were too short, there weren’t enough quotes, and there was no passion in me to make them better. I wasn’t sure if I was really fit to be a journalist.
Having moved past my crisis from last semester, quite a bit of passion for writing has come back to me. I’m feeling a little more confident, and I’m hoping to grow as a writer, especially being part of a tiny yet extremely driven team of writers. I have only one year left before being cast out into the “real world” on the search for a job. I really needed some passion to come back to me this semester, and I believe it has.
Having a clear head, I can now pinpoint why I continue to write. I write because it makes me feel as though I have a say in this world. I write because even though it sometimes frustrates me, I feel like a million bucks after completing a story. I write because it sometimes gives me butterflies on even my worst days. I write because I love it, regardless of the struggles.
