Forced Writing
“Go clean your room.
” Do you enjoy being told what to do? I can’t remember the last time I was motivated or excited that someone was telling me what to do. So if people don’t want to be told to clean their room, why would they want to be told they have to write something? I also forgot to mention that not only are you being told to write something, but you also only have three different topics to choose from. Don’t like any of them? Well, I guess that’s too bad. Now think back to being told to clean your room. You get home from school and there are a million other things you’d rather be doing, but your mom tells you that you need to clean your room or you’re not going out this weekend. Are you going to now immediately head back to your room and clean it? Of course you are.
After you creep on Facebook, eat some chips, and play with your dog. With pride though? If pride is throwing your clothes under your bed, sweeping some stuff up with your feet, and spit shining your mirror, then yes. But in the end, you still cleaned your room so you’re going to be rewarded with the privilege to go out this weekend. That’s just like being assigned an essay to write.
You don’t actually want to right it; especially not when there’s working out to be done, a job to be at, and an hour worth of Chemistry homework. But, you’re going to end up writing it anyways so you can attempt to earn a decent grade. The essay will more than likely turn out unoriginal, boring, and end up with red marks all over it from that lovely red pen your teacher loves to use. Extra credit should be rewarded if there’s even little or slight passion in the writing. You didn’t take any pride in it, but at least you didn’t just copy and paste something off the Internet.
Wait… or did you? Two nights later you’re sitting around at home and there’s no working out to be done, or a job to be at, and finally a night without an hour worth of Chemistry homework. Your blog is two clicks away, and in minutes you’ll be typing fast and furiously. The best part about YOUR blog is that it’s yours. No one is going to tell you what you have to write about. If you want to type five hundred words about how much your boyfriend sucks, you can. There’s no one stopping you.
You can write about whatever interests you. You don’t have to write an essay describing your writing. You can describe and define your writing through something witty and humorous that someone else will actually enjoy reading versus your teacher with her red grading pen. The fact that you don’t have to meet any standards or complete the blog to earn something makes writing your blog that much more enjoyable. “Run to the store and get me some onions for the soup.
” Freedom of writing your blog is over, back to being told what to do. You’d sprint to the store to get some chocolate chips if Mom was going to make you some cookies, right?
