4 Sep 2007

This article was written for Robert Cook's ENGL 101 class at Yongsan in Term V.

My fingers played with the keys, teasing them with light touches. They were restless and hungry. Pain laced up and down my tensed arm. Joints groaned in protest. There I was ready to type, yet my normal enthusiasm was gone. Something wasn't right. As my nails scratched fruitlessly at the sea of letters before them, my mind swung with mixed emotions. I wanted to write, because I lived to write, yet something within kept shaking its head. There was something nagging my mind.

It must be the assignment, in fact this very assignment, holding me back. I can't get it out of my head. I can't write for enjoyment unless the work is done. I realized it today. I felt apprehension and dismay. The act of writing had been leached of the flavor it once had. Unlike the refreshing sensation of writing for oneself, writing for the man is something else.

Dig deep into your thoughts. Pull from the depths a memory of success. Did you write it down or tell your friends? Wasn't the feeling grand? Like drinking a cold glass of water on a dreadfully hot day, writing for oneself is satisfying in every way. Yet there are days we must write for someone else. Unlike the freedom of self-wrought words, we're constrained with multiple chains. You must write it on time so the words come rushed. Even when inspiration won't come, you must write on. When you walk or rest the nagging voice says, "You're not done yet." When writing is an assignment it's no longer a joyous enterprise, but another slab of work that does little to compromise.

I'm rarely stressed when playing the musical keys of the pencil and the pen. Each thought is written down with care. Yet when I write for an assignment no matter what it is, I'm always reminded that I must, "Do this, and this, and this." I'm constrained by time, subject, methods, and limits. Numbers and words become mush as the clock ticks. Keys hammer into the keyboard - I'm rushed. When I fail to write for the sake of writing, the magic seems to fade and become lost.

There can't be much difference - writing for writing's sake in contrast to an assignment. Both use words and language, and require tact. Both use structure, sentences and all that. No matter what you tend to have indentions and pronunciation, grammar and spelling. The mediums are no different: pen, pencil, paper and pc. Both are eventually read - whether or not they're completed. So what's the difference between the two?

When I come home or when I'm awake and think of many things, my fingers itch to write and type. I turn those words into reality. I'm always anxious to get back on my keys so that I may relax and write happily. Yet when an assignment for writing is given to me, no matter the class, I can't help but hear that nagging voice again. It won't be what I want to write, though they mask it subtly. The chains are hard to see, yet their constraints far too confiding.

It isn't fear about my writing skill. It's not the critics that I despise. It is simple and in this contrast I'll make it quite clear. The greatest difference between writing for others and writing for me: One is labor, mechanical and nagging - The other is unrestrained, free and relaxing. I acknowledge that I must write the quota to get the grade, but there is no pleasure that way. It just isn't the same.