"Anonymous" by Rachel K

I don’t write often, but when I do it’s usually for a grade and usually the only people who
read my work are my closest friends and my teacher. I practically begged Mrs. Cogswell to let
me submit my blog entry under a pen name or as “Anonymous,” but my plead was only as
effective as eating soup with a fork (which doesn’t actually work well in real life unless you’re a
sorcerer, Bill Nye, or some other type of superior being). Mrs. Cogswell said publishing my
entry as “Rachel K.” (as opposed to “Rachel Kroll”) would even help maintain anonymity, but
c’mon…..c’mmmonnn………c’mmmooooonnnnnn…..How many other people named “Rachel
K.” do y’all actually know at Etiwanda? Exactly, the answer is zero. Now, before I ramble for
too long about my failed attempts with Mrs. Cogswell, I should probably make it clear that this
blog entry is not a descriptive rampage about how Mrs. Cogswell said, “No” to me that one time
last week. As you read on, you’ll find that it’s actually about how much I detest allowing people
to read my writing.

It’s not so much the content of my writing that I’m uncomfortable sharing with people,
but rather the way I write. I’m not exactly super confident in my verb tenses. I know my sentence
structure is consistently drab, robotic, and repetitive. Putting in punctuation where it’s supposed
to be is definitely not my strong suit. And, I don’t know a lot of impressive vocabulary words
(between all 120ish of us, I had to look up the word “detest” in the Dictionary to make sure I
was using it correctly). Anyway, a lot of my nervousness as a writer stems from my own
insecurities. Insecurity, to me, means hiding things that you don’t want other people to notice or
know about you. I figure if I can’t be the best writer out there, then why should other people
have to know that I’m not the best writer out there? I’m utterly content with keeping my writing
to myself. The way I feel about displaying my writing is similar to how everyone feels about
displaying their zits. I’m sure you would all rather just cover up that zit than approach your
friends and say, “Hey, dude, look at this new zit I just got. Isn’t it so awesomely infected,
impressively bulbous, and ravishingly red???”

I already feel like my submission is being judged and ridiculed and I haven’t even
reached the conclusion of my piece yet. But, more importantly, where did this paragraph even
come from? To me, it feels like I pulled this paragraph from the depths of a donkey’s buttocks
because I completely forgot to utilize my transition words, again. As a writer, I struggle
constantly when trying to end ideas or introduce new ones because I always forget that dang
transition word. Half of the time I’m not even sure which transition word I should be using.
Using incorrect transition words, or none at all, makes my writing seem unorganized to other
people. Hence, my writing reveals way too much about the way I think. My writing is jumbled
and cluttered, and likewise, my mind is equally as jumbled and even more cluttered. I don’t want
everyone knowing how messy and random the thoughts inside my head are because I find it
embarrassing. It’s also an invasion of privacy, like when the TSA makes you take your shoes off
at the airport. Straight up disrespectful.

So, really, the heavy hitter reason why I don’t like letting other people read my writing is
because I promise you that I’m an introvert—even if some of my actions sometimes suggest
otherwise. Writing is just another form of communication, and communication is like Brussels
sprouts. Brussels sprouts are unnecessary, they leave a bad taste on the tongue, and they’re only
good when prepared by certain people. Some of us just weren’t born to communicate so
flawlessly and eloquently as our extroverted counterparts, so for the sake of my anxieties, I like
to leave all the talking to my talkative friends. People who order the food for me at restaurants or
ask the teacher questions for me in class are awesome, and there’s a special place for people like
them; it’s called Disneyland.

And, ah yes, we’ve reached the end of my blog entry: the dreaded conclusion. The thing I
never really want to write when I write. The conclusion is always really hard for me because it’s
where all the thoughts get tied together into a cohesive “Eureka!” moment. It’s where you have
to really know what you’re talking about because you essentially have to summarize everything
you just wrote. It’s the final impression that people have of your paper. And it’s awful every
time. I do not simply “cohesively tie my thoughts together.” That just doesn’t happen for me; it’s
the clutterymind thing. Bye now.