I joined the "Odyssey" branch at WPI for multiple reasons. The first and foremost one was that I wanted to, and still want to, minor in English if at all possible. Odyssey would allow me to hone my literary skills and apply them to a real-life scenario. The second reason was I wanted to continue writing no matter what happened. Forcing myself to sit down and write would further develop my skills as a writer. You know what they say: practice makes perfect. The final reason was to develop my sense of creativity further; to allow my imagination to grow and blossom. In reality, these goals as a writer have been more challenging to achieve than intended.
Most people don't really realize the challenges writing itself poses if you're doing it for leisure. The main problem I've been struggling with is actually forcing myself to sit down and write. When you're in college or university or whatever you call your higher education, your life happens too fast to think (let alone write). This especially happens at WPI quite often. Three weeks into the quarter, you already have your midterms. Fast-forward to two weeks, you may have another midterm. BOOM. Then comes finals.
It just doesn't happen with tests too. If you're taking a lab science, labs reports are due weekly. There goes hours of your day, now reallocated towards analyzing. Pretty much, life becomes academia. The extent of your writing becomes data analysis and conclusions of lab reports. At least it's good writing practice.
When your life happens, it doesn't just include academics. It includes clubs and sports and even friends as well. Just for fun, at this point. Sometimes, you'll be so thrilled by these possibilities that the one writing club you joined becomes lower on your list of priorities. It's that you don't live writing though; life just happens.
When life just happens though, you may or may not struggle to find something to write about. Especially on something as subjective as the free web, it's become a challenge to find something that people want to read. There are many times during the week where I struggle to come up with things to write about. The things that I do come up with may be discarded. Too political. Too serious. Too personal. Not relatable enough. Oftentimes, I myself turn to satire writing just because it's in my comfort zone and I know people will relate to it.
That's only one aspect though. You go through periods of time where you have everything to write about but no time to write about it, and periods of time where you have all the time to write but nothing to write about. It's a little bit of a conundrum, you see. The most ironic part about this is that it is the job of the writer to be creative, and express it. Being a good writer, however, means rising to the challenge and tackling it with the means necessary. Being a good writer means to never stop writing and to never stop improving.
