English as Expression

Kelli Crowe got me thinking this morning. Her latest blog post is about a project her sons have been working on. It's really cool, but she notes that

Currently, David likes to write in all caps. ...I think it['s] more about expressing his individuality than anything.

I completely agree.

Over my already long, decorated and prolific writing career <cough, cough>, I have realized something about my creative writing: I do it for my own enjoyment. This is most acutely demonstrated in my poetry, which few enjoy and even fewer understand.

I have written a ton--including an 82 page, single-spaced, 10point Times font rambling poem that acted as my journal over one of my college summers. The "Tome," as I fondly titled it, has been read by two people.

Two.

And I'm one of them.

Thus, the biggest challenge for me, as a writer, has been learning how to write for other people. I'm still working on that. But I love writing, probably largely due to the fact that my parents let me find joy in my expression, and only later bled over my papers in an attempt to make them coherent.

So, besides ALL CAPS, what other ways of self-expression may arise? I can only give you a few examples from my own life:

I loved the Courier font for years.

I love puns and word plays.

I decided early on that "cannot" and "each other" and "P.S." were all silly, as well as the practice of putting the period on the inside of a quote if the last word was "irregular." So:

Ps. We can not bear to listen to eachother when someone is "abnormal".

Sadly, when writing more academically--as I do on this blog--I have to remind myself to do it "properly," but sometimes I don't catch these errors.

And because I love to read myself write, I tend to be rather verbose at times as well.

So for fear for boring my audience who doesn't love my writing nearly as much as I do, I will draw this all to a point: Do not "correct" your child's writing if they are doing something out of exploration and enjoyment of the English language.

I mean, I'm convinced that some poets became "great" because they refused to capitalize anything. Just assume your child is destined for greatness.

~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Expectant Father