I have always wanted to be a great writer. Below I sum up my own experiences and ideas about writing.

Theory of Writing

In East Asia, where I come from, traditional learning begins with studying classical texts written by ancient sages. Young students learn to read the texts before learning to write until they get familiar with and almost memorize the texts. Only then, students start writing comments on what they have learned from the texts and develop their own style of writing. As soon as students learn how to write, they copy famous verses and prose. In doing so, they strengthen their writing skills as well as gain critical insights into literature in general.

I read somewhere that Abraham Lincoln was so poor when he was a little boy that he couldn’t afford to buy books he liked to read. Instead of buying, he borrowed books from other people and copied the books at night by hand. While copying the books, he got a sense of the writers ideas and also picked up their writing styles. That is how Lincoln built up his writing skills: the same way East Asians have done for long time. There is nothing special about learning how to write. It is just too simple to be true.

Reading can also affect writing profoundly. By reading about other people’s experiences or their thoughts, I can expand my boundaries of experience. Within the closed boundary of my personal experience, I have little to say or write about. Reading provokes my brain, which sometimes results in writing. So in my case most of my writing begins with reading. It seems that I have built a virtual library of my own in my brain. Every time I have to write something,  I invariably turn to that library searching for reference material.

Although I read a lot, I cannot say I enjoy writing for sure to be honest. Perhaps writing is not yet very enjoyable to me compared to reading. Without any pressure, I suppose, few people would like to write seriously except when texting on the phone or writing in social media platforms. A long long time ago, back in college, I had a lot of difficulty expressing my ideas in writing even if I had a vast amount of information and knowledge, which was really frustrating to me. One day I discussed  this problem with one of my friends, who, then, was a graduate student. He told me a story about Niccolo Machiavelli, an Italian philosopher, and the author of The Prince. One day a close friend of Machiavelli’s asked him why he was always writing something on paper, why he was so obsessed with writing. Machiavelli confessed that he could not dare to say he knew about something for sure before he could write clearly about it. His confession came as a shock to me. Since then, it has grown into a habit that I test my own ideas or knowledge by writing on paper or typing on a computer.

I have realized that there can be a huge gap between what I know about a topic and what I can actually say about it. Indeed, writing can contribute to fill the gap. The more I write, the more clear my ideas become. This semester, I had a real opportunity to write as much as I could under pressure. Sometimes I felt frustrated, but in the end I was very happy about what I achieved. And I dare to wish to reference Decartes by adding that I write, therefore I am.