Why I Write

From a young age I was always a fan of reading and writing stories. I would read any book handed to me in school and was constantly creating stories in my head that I wanted to tell people. Going into high school I was unsure of what I would want to pursue, but continued to enjoy writing and reading in my English courses. As I learned about so many ways to write creative stories as well as academic papers, I began to see that I enjoyed writing more than many of my classmates, and thought I could make a career from my interests. 

Down the line I was unsure of what I could do to become a writer or what I wanted to focus on with my writing skills from high school. I still loved to create stories, but I also enjoyed writing for a specific purpose that my high school provided. So, I was torn between focusing on creative writing and learning how to write professionally post-high school, and where I would specifically go to learn that. Then a pandemic hit, which through a curve in to all of my plans for college. 

I decided to gain my associate’s degree from a community college and then pursue my Bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago as an English major. However the question still remained of creative writing or professional writing, so I took an Introduction to Professional Writing course at UIC to see if I would actually like the types of writing techniques I was taught. I ended up loving the course and felt it was as engaging as creative writing was for me. So, I added both professional and creative writing as the concentrations for my English major. From there I took more courses focusing on technical writing, more creative writing courses to build my own writing style, and classes that could overall contribute to my writing ability and skills. 

With both of my concentrations finally selected, I decided to move forward to see what careers I could pursue with my experience in two different areas of writing. There are different roles that I could work in that would focus on one area or the other. Some roles would be professional writing based and others would only be creative writing, but may not be as engaging as professional writing roles. That is, until I found out about copywriters. The role of a copywriter is to tell the story or message of a company and maintain the image and brand in your writing to align with them. It combines the ability to communicate the message that is needed for professional writing along with the creative element to maintain the same overall feeling when writing for a company. It is the perfect combination of the two interests that I have had since I was younger with creating stories and writing for a purpose. 

Now that I realized the role I wanted to work in post-graduation I wanted to gain experience within the field in any way that I could. My first internship was with the company Publishing Hackers as a social media intern. The company’s focus was to help authors self-publish their books and create an audience for them. I was charged with creating and designing different social media posts for clients and the company’s main pages that fit with each individual’s image and brand and attracted a larger following to them. This was focused more on content creation than specifically writing, but it gave me an amazing introduction to customizing my work for a client’s image and how they want to present themselves to their audiences. Along with that, the design elements that I was taught about can be combined with my writing ability to create even better and more engaging products for companies. 

As I prepare to graduate with my bachelor’s degree, I hope to gain more experience specifically as a copywriter, and continue to grow my skills in writing. The role of a writer is ever-changing and adaptable, just like how we communicate with each other. My skills in communication and conveying a message continue to improve and grow as I begin to work more in my field and I will maintain my ability to adapt and change as my role in writing changes.