Piece #3 (Listicle) — 10 Reasons Why You Should Write
There are lots of reasons why you should write:
- If speaking is how humans directly communicate with each other, then writing is how we transcribe our thoughts and words into written or printed form and record them.
2. Whether you’re upset or joyful, writing is a great and healthy way of getting it out of your system — something like a secret journal, or just for general practice. It organises our thoughts and hones our ability to express them meaningfully.
3. If you keep a journal, writing can be a great way to measure how perspectives may have changed over time. Are you the same as you were a week ago? A month? A year? Writing is an excellent way to look at your personal growth and what aspects of yourself you want to improve.
4. Writing makes it much easier and more efficient to share your ideas with others than it is to speak on the spot. For those who aren’t comfortable with speaking their thoughts aloud and need some sort of support, just writing what you think, what you’re passionate about and what you feel is another great method of communication. The most common examples of these consists of blogs, cue cards and even text messages.
5. Writing has a profound effect on the world. Books, whether fictional or non-fictional, can have a big impact on our general lives and how we perceive our surroundings. They can do as little as encourage us to get out of bed after a hard day yesterday or they can inspire the masses, bringing about revolutionary change. Because of writing, people can develop a better understanding of others and become less prejudiced. I have referenced George Orwell’s 1984 and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird as the most famous examples because of the strong social commentary in the books’ respective messages, especially back in the days that the books were published.
6. Like above, if you’re passionate about a social cause, you can use writing as a way of enacting said cause. You could volunteer at a homeless shelter and share your experiences, or you could raise awareness for serious illnesses. Ultimately, if you have strong feelings about issues that you care about, you should write about it.
7. In order to improve your writing, you need to read more and gain more life experiences. Get out of your comfort zone and interact with the world in a way you haven’t done before. Go to a concert with friends, do something fun or go to a museum exhibit — you can research and get information from just about anywhere. You just need to get into it and start.
8. Writing deeply connects any community; just look at the growing popularity of various fandoms and other niches. When you write, you support and inspire others to write and share your and their own work within the community. Similar ideas, approaches and feedback are shared, and growth and success are encouraged. Communities are a great way to form connections with other people, meet in real life and even form strong life-long friendships.
9. Writing is a fantastic way to practice language usage, where to place and structure words for effective use, empowering a sentence with just a word adjustment, etc. Aside from all of the above, writing is great fun because you get to create entire universes in which to put your beloved characters in. Had a weird dream that could make a great story idea? Write it down! Has a favourite TV show inspired you in some way that made you get out a pen and paper or your laptop? Write. It. Down. Even if you don’t have an idea, just write. Write like the wind. Maybe your mind will come across a gold mine of ideas.
10. But most important of all? Write because you enjoy it.
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Bibliography:
- Orwell, George. 1984. New York: Signet Classic, 1950.
- Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006.
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Under Certificate IV in Professional Writing and Editing, 20-year-old Grace Bergstein, who struggles with anxiety, wants to pursue her interest in writing after taking a gap year in 2021. The content will be informative, helpful, relevant and/or fun, catering to the interests/needs of the user persona. Because Grace is a beginner at RMIT, I want to explore content that she could read and relate to and share with her classmates. She wants to squeeze in all of the learning and information that she can so that she can have a positive year, pick up the necessary skills to become an urban fantasy writer and gradually push to get her career started.
