Who I am as a Writer
Written on:
Prompts:
- How diverse are your writing experiences? Have you written lots of different things or do you feel like you have mostly done variations of the same thing?
- Which sounds more true to you: "I am a good/bad writer" or "I am good/bad at writing"? Why would you choose one over the other?
- How much (if any) of your attitude about writing is linked to what happened in school and/or grades? What about other kinds of feedback you have received on your writing?
- When have you most enjoyed writing? When have you least enjoyed it? What is the difference between those experiences?
My Answer
It’s not hard to separate my writing history into several distinct ages: teenage to twenties, after starting the business to the point I left Japan, and since learning English as a second language until now.
When I was young, I wrote to brag and to look or sound smart. Even when I wrote love letters, I was trying to sound somewhat smarter.
After starting my own business, I felt the need to persuade others seriously. That’s because, if I had failed, I would have lost my money, not my employers’. That mechanism kicked in. I learned how to write mostly from books and online courses. It was that time when I found the enjoyment of writing. Depending on what and how I wrote, I would be rewarded literally. At this point, I also seriously thought about the target readers. They were potential customers, possible contractors, and prospective employees. I gave serious thought to who they were, what they thought, and how to move them to the extent that I could do best at the time of each writing.
Many have changed since I started ESL classes at Seattle and Palo Alto community colleges. Although I knew what I learned previously in Japan was imported from the U.S. (partly devised in an infopreneurial context and partly inherited from a traditional sales copywriting space), I had not learned the core of them. Now that I realize that I learned the important core from all of the ESL instructors, I want to send my sincere acknowledgment to them.
Copyright © 2025 Takeo Shimazu