Writing About Writing

     I like writing. Just not with barriers. Writing with barriers frustrates me because of how limited your ideas have to be. I enjoy it when I have something to start off of, like a spark of inspiration, not a specific format you have to follow. Having barriers with writing is like having to fence in a bull. You try and try, but the bull just keeps trying to ram into the fencing to get out.
     With that said, the best piece (or pieces) of writing I think I have ever done is in my journal. I keep a journal every summer. It's not just a place where I practice writing, but a place where I can vent about an event in my life without stop. And no one there to grade my writing with a big fat letter. My journal is my journal and no one else's. I write about the things that I'm interested in, not what other people are interested in.
     I am proud of all the journals that I have kept because they reflect my true self. And over the journals, I see just how much I have grown as a person and as a writer. My first journal was in the 1st grade. It was written in a princess pink notebook with diary written on the cover and a tiny lock on the side. I wrote in it with sloppy red crayon and a dull pencil. My first page had an introduction about myself and the reason why I was writing in the journal. The reason was that it was an assignment from girl scouts that had attempted to teach us how to vent our feelings on the page and not by our attitudes. After a few years and more then a few journals, I found that it does help me vent. In a way it feels like a friend always standing by you... in the form of a notebook.