It’s for the same reason as why I read: to make sense of the world around me. In my twelve years attending American public school, I was taught how to write within a set of rules. I couldn’t use fragment and run-on sentences, start a sentence with “And” or “But,” use contractions, etc. In the past few years, I’ve realized these rules can be helpful, but only if you’re writing something like an email or term paper. Surprising things happened when I started to reject these rules in my personal/creative writing.

I had an English teacher last semester who told me, “if you want to be a good writer, you have to write every day.” Writing every day wasn’t easy at first—sometimes all I could come up with was what I had done that day. But after days of jotting down random thoughts or questions, I noticed how my writing started to flow like a stream of consciousness. And in those long run-on sentences, colloquial word choices, and all the rules I had gone against, was where I started to find my voice.

I’d argue that finding your voice and maintaining a consistent tone is one of the hardest things to do in writing. We often spend too much time thinking about what words to use and how long or short our sentences should be, and in doing so, our voice can easily be lost.

In every aspect of our lives, we should remember to question the things we’ve been taught before claiming them as our own.

Tip: Write like you talk. Your reader will thank you.

Photo: Little Free Library in Shaw, Washington, D.C.