The memory of loving to write will surely help the me who is about to write

Looking back, I have loved writing since I was a child.

It started when I was in the first or second grade of elementary school. We had a regular homework assignment to write a diary. I think it was about two or three times a week. Every time, we were supposed to start with "Teacher, you know what?" and the diary was called the "You Know What Notebook."

The amount of text each time was minimal. I think it was about three to five lines in a composition notebook where each character had a large square. I don't really remember what was fun about it. But I think that even as a child, I felt it suited my personality. Also, I remember looking forward to the teacher putting a flower stamp where I had written in kanji, or writing comments about what I had written.

The foundational experience that feedback from someone leads to the joy of writing was right here.

I once wrote about the death of the Java sparrow I was keeping. The sadness when the little bird, which had lost its energy the day before, was lying dead the next morning. The fact that I had a dream about the bird on the night I went to sleep worried about it. This was a major work for me at the time, and it was chosen as the class representative composition and read over the school broadcast. Thinking about it now, it was a school that put a lot of effort into compositions.

Actually, the part about dreaming of the little bird was a creative invention; I didn't really have that dream. There was no lie in the description of my sad feelings, but it was strange that the adults didn't notice which parts of what I wrote were true and which were not.

I experienced for the first time then that writing is also about creating. Although I didn't recognize it as a concept at the time.

After that, as I moved up in grades, it was no longer "You know what," but the homework to write a diary continued.

I think it was in the third grade of elementary school when we were given the homework to write a diary titled "I Found Spring." When I stopped by a park along the school route with a friend, I found small blue wildflowers blooming here and there. I picked a few, brought them home, looked up that the flower was called "Veronica persica," and wrote about the flower in my diary.

I was already practicing back then the act of keeping a theme in mind and going out to look for material to write about.

When I reached the fifth grade, the system changed to one where we could write as much as we liked even without homework and submit it to the teacher periodically. I became suddenly enthusiastic and wrote every day. A friend I was close with also liked to write, and she and I mass-produced essays as if competing. There was a rule that notebooks finished to the end would be stacked on top of the blackboard, and the number of volumes for her and me was always competing for first and second place in the class.

What spurred that competition was the class newspaper that the teacher published periodically. From the diaries the teacher read, they would choose the ones that were well-written and publish them in the newspaper. And they would give specific critiques, such as that the writing had a sense of speed, or that it was concise and persuasive.

Simple and hardworking as I was, I wanted to be published in that class newspaper, so I wrote every single day. In fact, I was published a few times, and I remember one of them.

I wrote about my desire to become better at writing. It's funny because it's no different from what I'm doing now. At the time, the 11 or 12-year-old me decided what I would do to become better at writing.

1. Write every day 2. Write a lot

I feel like there was a third one, but I can't remember. What I think is admirable is that I had properly realized that there are no shortcuts to improving one's writing (though I think there are tricks). At the time, it was an era without the internet. It wasn't a goal I had borrowed from seeing it somewhere; it is certain that it was a genuine thought that came from within me based on my own experience, however small.

I think my enthusiasm for writing faded as I entered junior high school and my life became busy with studies and club activities, but the habit of writing, even if not every day, continued until university. However, after I started working, I only wrote very occasionally. Thinking about it now, it's a shame.

While writing this article, the memories related to my modest history of writing, which I had forgotten for a long time, connected one by one and came back with clear resolution. I think it is an important foothold that connects to the me of today. Although I went through a long blank period, I am happy that I have arrived at writing again now.

No matter what form I continue to write in from here on, I think I will return here to read this note from time to time. Because I feel like it will surely help the me who is about to write.