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Passion in Writing

Whew, this week has just flown by. I realized today that I forgot my post this week. But something was reaffirmed to me in class this week: the best writing always comes from something you are passionate about.

I was presenting on a novel I had read, and was sharing an insight I had that was different from every other critic out there. I had several people in class tell me that there was my paper topic because I was passionate about it. It reminded me of a similar experience I had in a criticism class during my undergraduate work.

We studied several short stories and three styles of criticism at a time, and then had to write a paper using one of the styles. There was one story I read that I absolutely hated. I hated how it was written, and it hit a little too close to home for my comfort. Anyway, I racked my brain trying to come up with a paper topic, and I just kept coming back to this story and one particular method. I balked at it for as long as I could, but finally just wrote the paper. It was one of the best papers I have ever written. The professor was even impressed and recommended me to the honors committee.

Passion is not the same as liking something; it's all about feeling strongly about it. That could even mean that you feel strongly about writing something down or a certain way more so than about the topic. I don't know why passion makes it better. It could be that because you are passionate about it, you are more willing to put the time in to get it right, or even that you have all your ducks in a row before you ever start. But whatever it is, passion always makes the strongest writing.

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