When I think about writing as a career option for myself, I think of it as a way to tell the world what I am thinking. I want to voice my opinions, my experiences, and my beliefs through words, because as Dumbledore said in Harry Potter, “Words are, in my not so humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic, capable of both inflicting injury and remedying it.”
When I got to college and started writing for HerCampus, as well as for the opinion section of my schools newspaper, I never had any of my writing read before. Once some of my writing was read for the first time in college, I finally understood the impact of words. Not only can my words impact other people, the words that I write and publish for the world to read represent me. People take what you write and publish, and they decide that they know who you are.
Many different people have agreed or disagreed with my writings before, and I am perfectly aware that when I present my writing to others, I am accepting any reactions that people may have to it. I understand that what I say matters when it is in print, but I also understand that people will use anything they can to label you.
Other people see us through screens, through pictures, and through lenses. For writers, we are viewed through the words we put onto paper. People will read our work through a lens, they will twist our words however they want, and they will interpret our stories any way they please. People will make assumptions about us because of the opinions we have and the things we say. People will label us as all kinds of things, even though no reader can ever know an author’s character, they can only ever know what the author chooses to tell them.
To anyone who has been criticized, ridiculed, hated, or belittled for your opinions or writings, remember that no one can ever paint a picture of you without all the colors. Stay Strong Sister.
Katrina