From Our Young Writers: Choosing Your Own Path

In addition to the main event every November, NaNoWriMo provides free creative writing resources to educators and young participants around the world through our Young Writers Program. This month, we’ve asked some of our young writers to share their own words of wisdom. Today, Jenna O’del, young author of Hidden Presences , discusses how writing–and teaching–can help you discover your individual path:

Hello writers!

Are you ready to set sail on the writing ocean? To travel down the literary path? Shockingly, NaNoWriMo is only a few weeks away–but you’ll be fine, because we writers are stubborn, and can conquer any challenge we come across.

One of the biggest challenges a writer faces is forging their own path to becoming a writer. Every writer takes a different path. Some are long, some are short. Some wind like a worm, some are crossed by rivers and bridges, while still others include various drop-offs you’ll need to jump across.

My own path was (and still is) winding: bending between genres, taking me down different roads of reading, and finally leading me to teach what I learned to others. On this path, I learned much, including that just as everyone has their own path, everyone has their own writing style. Everyone writes their own story in a way only they can tell.

I relied on this philosophy when I taught creative writing workshops at my high school, during the second half of my junior year and the entirety of my senior year. These workshops, the idea of a non-fiction writer and fellow student, met weekly, giving students a time to do nothing but write, and discuss how to write various topics and genres. I learned just as much from teaching these workshops as my fellow students did—because a teacher, when he teaches, teaches himself.

“Through writing and teaching, I learned to look at everything from a thousand perspectives.”

Teaching these workshops reminded me of the fact that from the little grain of sand to the mighty dragon, everything has its own story. That little grain is not just a piece of sand: it is a small sample of rose quartz, which saw the dinosaurs lumber by when it was part of a larger stone, and now watches the setting sun every night. The dragon meanwhile is a messenger, relaying words and magic between the planets of the solar system, where most of the dragons reside.

Teaching highlights various realizations: your impact on other people, new ideas about what you’re teaching, and revelations about yourself, as you work to ensure that the class you are about to give is one that will make your students come back to class again and again and again. You learn about how you, yourself, come up with ideas, and where you find them.

Through writing and teaching, I learned to look at everything from a thousand perspectives. I learned to wonder about the stories of the things I looked at every day. And I learned not just to look, but to see.

I learned to gaze into the things around me, to observe their environments. I learned to use all of my senses. I became more conscious of using detail in writing–the kind of detail that lets the reader not just read, but experience the story so vividly that it’s like they’re right in the center of the story.

When I write, I want to bring that experience to my readers. I want to make my readers as much a part of my story’s world as my characters are.

As I taught, or read another book, I remembered time and again that everything has a story, and everything can destroy, colorize, or turn another’s story upside down. Everything matters, and can have roles whose sizes are unimaginable until you figure out how they fit into your story.

So writers, good luck in adding another chapter (literally) to the story of your life, as you compose a tale of however many words you end up writing this November and beyond. If you get stuck, consider this: Since everything matters, you can make anything, from that little rose quartz grain to the messenger dragon, change the world of your own story.

Jenna O'del is the young Rhode Island author of Hidden Presences, the first of the Hidden Strength series. When not writing, sailing, or spending time with horses, she has taught creative writing workshops. The yet-untitled second installation of the Hidden Strength series will be published November 15th.

Top photo by Flickr user Derek Bruff.