... Is because I love reading. My favorite book growing up was A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle. This children’s book is still one of my favorites to this day. It has themes of love and brokenness and redemption, and the storytelling is incredibly beautiful. The author, Madeleine L’Engle, has a few quotes about writing and life that inspire me to write.

“Stories make us more alive, more human, more courageous, more loving.”

“When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability... To be alive is to be vulnerable.”

“A book, too, can be a star, a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe.”

Writers need to continue to tell stories because it makes the world a better place. L’Engle said it makes us more loving and vulnerable. Even though she writes primarily fiction, these quotes can be applied to feature writing and journalism. If we don’t seek out stories to write about, no one’s voice will be heard. Stories can be factual and true and still have compassion and a human-element. Sometimes when I get stressed about my work or anxious about journalism, I reread these quotes from L’Engle and remind myself why I should write and why I love storytelling.

... I glean a morbid satisfaction out of staring at a blank page. It is the most infuriating part of the process, but simultaneously the potential the blank page holds is exciting to me.

Like Hemingway, I can’t begin to write without organizing all my thoughts in my head first, so staring at the blank page is how I spend most of my time. Thoughts usually race around my head and I try to pick something out of the chaos that makes sense. This usually takes multiple attempts because I get frustrated and take breaks.

Breaks consist of watching YouTube videos to get my mind off writing. This process, on occasion, can take several hours. However, I find that it can be helpful to forget about what I need to write for short moments because when I return to writing it allows me to come with a new perspective.

Once I figure out the lede, the rest comes easily. Typically, I edit while I write so often I will write three grafs and then go back and read the grafs leading up to it to make sure everything makes sense together. If they don’t flow, I’ll do some rearranging or editing and then get back to writing more words onto the page.

The hardest part is developing the specifics because I think about things in a very big picture way. Usually I find the details will usually go into the beginning and the end. So, writing the middle is easier because I remember the information from interviews that I want to include in my story.

The final touch is listening to music. That almost always gets me in the writing mood, I just have to pick the appropriate playlist that fits the vibe of what I’m writing.

... however, the most impactful thing that inspires me is telling the stories of those who have overcome adversity in their lives to be at the triumph where they are today. As an avid sports fan my whole life, some of my favorite stories that I’ve ever read about are athletes who have either grown up with tough upbringings or initially went undrafted in their respective sports. Reading about the journey from these tough times to these athletes rising to the pinnacle of their sport really inspires me.

While I was fortunate to have a great childhood, sports also served a similar capacity to me serving as a distraction. When I was growing up my dad had a multitude of medical issues but was always there to coach me and watch me play recreational sports throughout my town. I like to think this served as a brief distraction for both of us from his injuries, allowing him to coach me in something and share something with me that I loved. The idea of sports serving as inspiration or a distraction for athletes in difficult times, is really what captivates me and inspires me as a writer. One of my favorite publications to read is the Players Tribune for this reason. The Players Tribune started in 2014, allows athletes across a wide variety of professional sports to tell their stories about overcoming hardship. Reading these stories has served as further writing inspiration for me to one day be able to tell stories of athletes overcoming hardship and utilizing sports as an avenue to overcome these challenges.

Since arriving at Maryland, I had the opportunity to write one of these stories about a volleyball player who overcame several knee injuries to become one of the best players on the time. While I’m not a fan of volleyball, I really enjoyed writing this story detailing her journey of perseverance to come back to health and make an impact. The remainder of my time at Maryland, I hope to continue writing these kinds of stories and display to readers the power that sports has to help someone overcome hardship and adversity. The passion to tell these kinds of stories drives me to become a better writer and allow readers to better understand the positive impact that sports can have on someone’s life.

I like this quote because I think it speaks to both my writing process and one of the many reasons I enjoy writing. This quote evokes the imagery of a bright floral arrangement with each flower being individually unique, and yet each one working in unison with the others to create a beautiful bouquet. Each flower adds something to the bouquet whether in line, shape, color or texture. Similarly, when I am writing, I want to make sure that each sentence adds something to the paragraph that I’m building. This results in me laboring over sentences, until I have something that I am pleased with and that is best able to convey the message that I am trying to communicate. This usually means writing out the same sentence multiple times while cautiously changing sentence structures, word choices and phrasing. At times this process can be burdensome and time-consuming, but I have found that it is very much worth it when you have a finished paragraph that is both purposeful and pleasing to the ears.

I also like this quote because it suggests that a writer is also inherently an artist and writing is a creative process. Writers and artists alike must use both craft and creativity in their work. Without one, the other suffers. A writer can know all the literary techniques in the world, but if they don’t know how to use them in a way that is unique then they have failed the reader. The same can be said of a painter, sculptor, musician or dancer. It is not enough to just have skills, you must also have an imagination. One of the reasons I love writing is because it forces me to think outside of the bounds of the familiar and comfortable and take risks. As I have grown as a writer, I have come to appreciate the beauty of words and language more than I ever thought possible and through my writing I hope to illuminate this beauty for my readers.

“The world is a canvas to our imagination.”

Henry David Thoreau said this; one of the first writers who inspired me to not write words to a page solely for the sake of productivity but to do so intentionally. To do so with purpose. To do so to connect myself to the world and the people around me.

This quote doesn’t say “my” imagination or “your” imagination, but “our” imagination. This implies that a craft of any kind is a communal effort. It is intended for people to gather. It is intended for people to gather around and stand behind.

With that being said, writing is my exercise towards empathy of the human condition. I write to remind myself that I’m not alone in what I feel. I write to comfort others from thinking that they may be alone in theirs.

I write because I care; about the people I meet and the subjects I study. I care about hope in humanity. I believe it to a lie to think it is lost. I write to pull myself from my introverted isolation, to willingly throw myself into a state of vulnerability that though frightening is the only step towards any kind of growth.

Writing is my act of love, for myself and others.

This “blank canvas” that Thoreau references could be literal, considering my artistic education. But broadly speaking, this “canvas” could be a blank silkscreen, blank computer screen or blank notebook page, and while confronting the blank nothingness can be crippling, I try to view it with Thoreau’s same sense of Romantic optimism. I try to see any creative opportunity through a lens of excitement for endless possibility; that although the black words I stamp on white pages may not imprint the whole world, they could be enough to imprint someone’s world.

... knowing perfectly well that you probably can't, but also knowing that literature is indispensable to the world... The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even but a millimeter the way people look at reality, then you can change it.”

― James Baldwin

I find this quote to be true. One of the reasons why writing is so fascinating to me is because it is a concrete stream of evidence that allows people to see your point of view, whether it be reality or fiction while also allowing the reader to have their ideas about what this writing means.

... that I find very accurate is by Ernest Hemingway.

"I do most of my work in my head. I never begin to write until my ideas are in order. Frequently I recite passages of dialogue as it is being written; the ear is a good censor. I never set down a sentence on paper until I have it so expressed that it will be clear to anyone.

This is a quote that I heavily relate to as it is something that I do in my own writing process. When I am at an event to cover it, I try not to start writing until I have all of the information that can I can make a story from. Sometimes because of deadlines I have no choice but to write the event as it is going on. This is something that causes a noticiable lack in quality compared to when I have a later deadline for the story. This rushed manner of writing often causes me to have all of the different thoughts and moments from the event jubled together haphazardly with a lack of cohesion.

My prefferred method of writing is to get everything together based on how they relate. When I interview people I try to listen for repeating themes among characters. This allows me to have them put together based on simialer theme. This gives the writing of the story greater focus

... and, thus far, relatively unfailing. Though I have tried to use different methods to see if one might be more efficient, I have always stubbornly reverted back to the same sequence of steps. I first complete all of my interviews and transcribe them all myself. I do not begin writing until I have spoken to everyone I can, because there could always be a better character that I haven’t found yet that could be a stronger focus for the story. I transcribe the interviews on my own because I find that going through them helps me to recall certain parts of the conversations I might forget—helping me to pinpoint the strongest points made and craft a more cohesive story.

After transcribing, I write and rewrite my lede until it is perfect. Without a strong lede to build off of, I find my story falls flat. Once I have constructed a compelling, descriptive lede I am happy with, I can move on to the rest of my story, quickly stacking context and quotes all the way until the story’s end. I find that half the time I spend on the story is devoted to these first 100 to 200 words, and that the next half goes towards the rest.

Yet, even then, I still go back over and over to revise and restructure. I even go back into my interview recordings to make sure that I have the best quotes and I did not miss anything. Though this is a tedious process, I find that there is no other alternative that still gives me the best quality story. Often, if I try to use a program to transcribe for me or I try to write while I speak to someone, I end up scratching everything and going back to this process anyway—wasting more time than I would if I had just stuck to the original sequence. As Larry King said, “Write. Rewrite. When not writing or rewriting, read. I know of no shortcuts.” This is what the writer goes through constantly, and there is not any simpler way of mastering your writing than going over it again and again until satisfaction.

To me, there was no closer sense of peace than stepping into a Barnes and Noble, a library, or best of all, the Scholastic Book Fair. Once a year, maybe twice if we were lucky, us students at Hamilton Elementary School got to experience one of life’s most simple pleasures known as the Scholastic Book Fair. The company would come to our school and completely transform our multi-purpose room. Colorful displays of Junie B. Jones and the Magic Treehouse decorated the room, distracting from the smell of gym class dodgeballs and whatever was being served that day for lunch. With a crisp twenty-dollar bill in my pocket, I would browse the rows of books, careful to avoid the temptations of toys and chackies so as to not risk being reprimanded by my parents for wasting my money. It was there that I picked up a copy of The Amazing Days of Abby Hayesby Anne Mazer. The one I had chosen from the series was aptly titled “The Pen is Mightier than the Sword” and the main character had been chosen as the lead reporter for her classroom newspaper through which she learned how to help others with her reporting abilities. While it wasn’t that day in 4thgrade that instantly sparked my love for journalism, I firmly believe that the subconscious knowledge that I could help others, educate and represent, through my writing, that inspires me to further my career.

I have far too many unpopular opinions, but only one related to writing: I love cliches.

I love the underdog story, the meet-cute, the mean girl, the ugly duckling - you name it, I want to read it, watch it or hear it through my earbuds.

I think the biggest explanation for this is that every cliche stems from a human experience, and human experiences are what inspire me most as a writer.

Cliches exemplify one side of human experience, the side that all (or most) people have either personally gone through or witnessed for themselves. I would never turn down the chance to write about a fairytale wedding, or a horrible boss, or something that I know would capture the attention of a reader due to the simple reason of familiarity. They might whine or groan about how they’ve seen it before, but they would at least skim the piece to investigate and prove themselves right.

However, what the reader might fail to realize is that no two humans are exactly alike. If I were to write about an age-old story that seems like a cliche upon first glance, I would include details that would set the piece apart from every other Cinderella story that came before it. That, I believe, is the key to maintaining a reader’s attention: draw them in with something they do know, and keep them with something they don’t.

The other side of human experience - and the one that particularly inspires me to write - encompasses the situations and lifestyles not commonly witnessed by the masses. My favorite stories I’ve written to date have all featured unique, little-known walks of life and the people who inhabit them. I like to think of it in this way: if I would start telling one of my friends about something by saying, “Hey, did you know about” or “Hey, did you hear that there’s” then there’s an extremely high chance I would like to write about it.

I’ll use two stories as an example: the first, a feature I did on an herb shop in College Park that also specializes in crystals and homeopathy; the second, a story I wrote about a house in College Park that doubles as an underground music venue for local bands.

“Hey, did you know about Smile Herb Shop? It’s an alternative medicine shop right here in College Park.”

“Hey, did you hear that there’s a house in College Park where local bands come play shows?”

It’s a foolproof method, honestly.