what's the number of times the letter "i" appears in:
where did the writing begin?
i believe it all started with being an avid reader. as soon as i could recognise the letters of the alphabet i was rather enthusiastic about sounding out words wherever i could see them. my sources tell me that i would sit in the car and gleefully sound out all the words i could see as we drove along. just so you know, small things still entertain my small mind.
i didn’t even finish my first sentence. sigh. a flick through this notebook shows that i was thankfully more successful with later attempts. i am, however, happy to see that even at this young age i was not predisposed to telling stories that were all about me, taking a mere four sentences before i got ‘board’ with writing about myself and my day. also, my stories may have improved, but i believe my handwriting has unfortunately deteriorated since this time.
so, up until about the age of 10, i concentrated on my love of reading. i remember during my school years in england having book lists and participating in reading competitions. i would stay up late and read as many books as i could from the designated lists and ask family members to sponsor my reading challenges. i should probably note here that i wasn’t quite so enthusiastic about the texts they asked us to read in high school. shakespeare vs titles such as “i want my potty!” there was no contest really.
then 1995 came. the year my family moved to australia. a new country, a new school and what seemed like a new language. the words that i had loved chanting in the car for all those years, suddenly became a point of interest and cause for light hearted jest to my new young australian comrades. “listen to how she says darrrnce! it’s daaance!” i was already quite shy, but i retreated some more, embarrassed by the accent that coincidentally i now wish i still had.
nonetheless, the words didn’t disappear just because i no longer spoke them so often. instead of speaking them i found great pleasure in writing them. within my first few months at that primary school i had won my first writing award. i believe i wrote a riveting piece on dolphins, with a hand drawn illustration to match (n.b. my artistic career was not so successful). my career as a writer had begun, and that trophy still sits on my bookshelf with pride of place. coincidentally, my new best friend was most displeased by my success, as she had won this particular award the previous year. as young children sometimes are, she became quite cruel with jealousy and not long after, i transferred to a different school where i was not laughed at for my accent, and made a new best friend who is still my best friend today. happy endings all round.
granted, these days the boxes are more along the lines of folders on our computers, and instead of ‘terrible stories’ and ‘great stories’ they’re called ‘absolute crap’ and ‘not so crap’. but the message remains the same. practice and just keep writing. it all keeps coming back to those relatively straightforward words of wisdom. the manner in which we write may have changed with the speedy evolution of desktop computers and the internet, mostly to our benefit as writers, but the way we write, the way that we become better writers, is still the same. practice.
over a decade later and here i am, still happily writing away and enjoying the process of telling stories and sharing them with others.
i know! i’m sure i didn’t take good enough heed of it then, but they were right on the mark really. the mean kids weren’t too bad really…and if they don’t make good fodder for stories then i can just claim they helped in ‘character building’.
write terrible stories…that’s great advice! i don’t write nearly enough because i’m afraid of writing something terrible. in reality, i need to write terrible things or i’m never going to write great things. thank you for sharing this.
i know exactly what you mean. i have moments when i think i shouldn’t write anything down until it’s perfect…but how then can we practice to make it perfect? thanks for stopping by moonchild11!
i absolutely loved this post, katy. it can be paralyzing to try to create something “great.” sometimes it’s enough to just *create.* thanks for the reality check!
i’m glad you liked it! it certainly can be paralysing to create something great, but often we have to churn out the crap to get to the greatness!
user
The passage contains 263 "i"s.
assistant