my growth as a writer..

Throughout grades sixth through ninth, I believe that I have grown tremendously as a writer. When I read my writings from ninth grade, then read my writings from sixth grade, I think, " I was such a bad writer back then!" My writings were very plain and sometimes did not make much sense. My vocabulary was horrible. I used very plain words, and I used words over and over again.
Vocabulary has always been a struggle for me. In middle school, I would want to use big words to make my writing sound better, but I did not always know how to use them. When I did use them, I would use them the wrong way or they just wouldn't fit in with the sentence or paragraph that I was writing. There would be a bunch of plain little words then one big word right in the middle of the sentence! In one of my writings, I do not use great vocabulary until the very end of the writing. Throughout the writing I am using the same words over and over. At the end I decided to throw some big words in and I came up with: " Whenever you are scared and nervous just think of my story and hopefully you will overcome your fearfulness and nervousness."

TALK TALK TALK....

WARNING THIS ISN'T THAT LYRICAL.MORE OF A STORY BUT I STILL HOPE YOU ENJOYWhen the credits roll....Sometimes you wanna rewind to your favorite part to relive THAT moment.THAT feeling you had when you first saw it.Sometimes you wish you could change the story and go back to the start.(That reset button...oh we gon find it.lol)Sometimes we have to settle for pausing it.(click)The credits show what made the movie possible....But if your (my) life was a movie there's no remote to control your world and keep YOUR SOUL SOLE.They say that breaking up is just apart of life.Meaning its just apart of love.Meaning it was scripted and no matter howgifted you are cuz not even the producer director and the lead actor(you and ME) can shift it.It's kinda twisted.They say i felt it but im not sure if i felt it.They said when its over it hurts like hell.BUT HELLI feel lifted.LIFTED?LIFTED?They say the reason for the hurt is because its the response after you put 100% in.I'm trippin...(dont worry i got more rhymes)See in my mind i rewind and think of the goodtimes and then go behind the scenes to the dream and see the bad times.Hmmm.....Maybe i was there......Maybe i wasn't.....but there's no after effect you expect becuse instead of "Oh i can't live without her" I detect"Man.You've matured to a level never expected and never intended"But i'm my own witness through all the heaven and hell i been through I've grown in my spirit and in my mental.Now......I'm a real man with real plans who is readily equipped with the mind for a real woman who can handle me and be best business partner and number 1 fan and best friend....The pimp inside hears:HA...a new facit to your game nephew?.Lol.That'll kill them in the streets if you use that...Naw.Well maybe not......Maybe so............I dont know.........But i do know thisI gotta thank her when the credits roll.....Thank you DREAM.You helped me belive in a GOODLIFE.

my writing methods...

When I tried to do the building block method, I dont think i was doing it right, although it did help the thinking process because I had freinds that did it with me. We had a discussion about what we all were going to right. Since I am a kinesthetic learner, and I learn by feeling by using my senses, I believe that the building blocks helped me, because I was touching something.

Another method that I used that I am familiar with is free writing. I sat down and wrote until I came up with what I was trying to do. I already knew what I wanted to write about in the first place so I wrote about the details of my paper, and how deep into it I was going to get. So those are the two methods of writing that I did for my paper. They both worked splendidly.

Is Racism Still Alive?

People don't really like to talk about racism, but is it because we have all moved pass it? Is it because it is still alive and they just don't want to talk about how they feel on the subject? I recently went to a "get together" for a friends birthday. Amanda turned 19 Sept 6Th, and she decided not to have a huge party this year, but to have a handful of her closest friends over for weenie roast, at her house in Galesburg. There ended up being about 15 of us that attended, and we all had an interesting time. There were 3 people from out of town, including me that came to celebrate. There was about 9 girls, all of whom were Caucasian, and 6 guys, all of whom were Caucasian, but two of us, Raymond and I. About 2 hours into the festivity, everything was going great, we had gotten familiar with one another, and there was no tension. All except for a couple of the guest were obviously distant from Raymond and I. During group discussions about any given subject, I would try not to voice my opinion, and to just listen. Raymond voiced his opinion on every subject, and the same group of people who were distant always opposed and verbally attacked, which is what killed the group discussion portion of the party. Here and there racial comments were made in a jokingly matter, but the thing that baffled me was the fact that it was coming from the same group of people. We ended up playing football, boys against girls, and the game was hardly fair because Raymond nor I, ever got the ball. It was almost as if we were there, but we weren't guest. We were more like spectators, because the tension between the shades of skin had spread throughout the party guest. It was supposed to be more like a sleep over type of thing, but Raymond and I both decided to depart earlier, at like 3 in the morning. All the other guest stayed. I find it hard to believe that Amanda didn't notice the tension between us. Maybe she did, but she just didn't know what to do in that type of situation, when your guest aren't getting along. Normally I would have addressed the situation myself, but I tried to keep everything calm and collective as possible for the sake of her birthday. My question to my reader is, do you think that it was racial tension that ruined the night for Raymond and I? Or do you think its just because they weren't familiar with the two of us, since we were 2 of the 3 that weren't from Galesburg?

The writer in me..

To be quite honest, I never write intentionally. Whenever I do write it almost always has to be because something bad is happening to me at that point in time. The times when its not, is because I'm listening to music. I listen to neosoul. NeoSoul is basically the "new soul" music. It is composed of poetry and "feel good" music. Its a very emotionally based genre of music that happens to make me think about poetry! I write poetry almost every time I do write. I write about events that has happened in the day, and the point of it all is how it made me feel, and my immediate reaction. Me being an African American brother motivates me to write about my surroundings, my people, my family, love, the economy, what they expect from me, my heritage, my neighborhood, and personal current events. Out of all those topics the main thing that I seem to write about the most is love. Maybe its because when I listen to music while I'm writing, most of the music is about love. Maybe its because when I write the room is dim, and I'm sitting on my bed in a calm warm setting. Either way it always turns out to be about love. Most of the music that I listen to talks about how something went wrong within the given relationship, but when I write about love I write about how things feel right. I write about how she is making me feel like the man I WANT to be for her even though I may not be being a man at all. I write about how beautiful, radiant, resilient, womaned and powerful she is. Other than that I don't write. I find it hard to write while being timed. I find it hard because while I'm supposed to be writing I am usually spending my time looking at how time is flying. I find myself just getting started when the teacher is collecting the writing samples. I do my best work when I am by myself, in my room, and when I'm NOT being timed. I know that writing is healthy, because every time I do get done writing I feel as if I have figured out the very thing that had me baffled before. Writing really does help out a lot. The only problem with it is that writing at home is very stressful. I only have my mother and father and my three sisters who are younger than me, but they happen to be the most needy people on the face of the planet! They don't know when to allow people to be by themselves, and to them homework is no exception. The other bad thing about writing is getting started, and figuring out main points that you want to cover while on that particular subject, which is why I rarely write.