Junior Writes New Pieces Everyday for a Year

Junior Andrew Beasley sits down to write in his journal, something he looks forward to each day. He thinks about differences: the difference between what he’s been doing compared to the work of other teenage writers. The differences among his own pieces and between what he saw today and what he saw yesterday. He wants to be able to explain this difference through writing pieces with real perspective. His own perspective.

Andrew’s goal is to write a literary piece each day for 365 days–a full year. The idea came from Laura Beachy, who taught his freshman honors English class.

“She talked about how a couple of writers did something similar to this where they would write a piece each day for a year or two,” Andrew said, “and they were very good writers.”

Writing has always been a hobby for Andrew and he decided to challenge himself. About ten days into his project, Andrew decided to take it one step further. He created eight “characters” or personalities. These sets of characters give him an idea of what he wants to continue writing about in the future.

“If you look at them long enough you will be able to see similarities in some of them to show that those are from the same character’s point of view” Andrew said. “If I am writing about a girl or trip it is through different people because they are different topics.”

Andrew wants to write literary pieces rather than just a journal entry everyday. He has been working with different types of poetry.

“Sometimes they are poems in the classic sense with the rhyming, but I think most of them fall under the category of poetry,” Andrew said. “Instead of set structures, I have written a couple of pieces that are more of a story form in third person and describe events.”

Andrew will pick a topic based off an experience he has during the day, something that he may see at school or experiences he has had already.

If not a topic, he will pick a certain style of writing. One week he did a series of nonnets, which are poems of nine lines starting with nine syllables, then eight syllables, then seven syllables, etc in decreasing order. Andrew thought that since everything had to do with the number nine, he did nine of those in a week.

“It was kind of fun to mess around with the language and figure out new ways to word things,” Andrew said.

Andrew’s freshman sister Bridgette Beasley has noticed his dedication to his goal. She will check up on him every once in a while and is surprised how he has really kept up with writing one each day. She recalls how he carried around his notebook and jot things down.

The pieces that Andrew writes are usually around 500 words. He will spend about ten minutes trying to think of what to write and twenty minutes actually writing the piece. Any editing that Andrew does is done as he types the piece. For more edits though, he posts his pieces on Facebook to get opinions from his peers and family.

“The reason I put them on Facebook is to get critiques,” Andrew said. “I am not writing them to show people, but I post them because I have gotten a lot of cool feedback.”
Andrew thinks this will allow him to improve and change his pieces based off what other people say. He is finding ways to make sure everyone gets what he is going for. Although he has received some negative feedback, there are very few times where he is gotten real negative comments.

“A lot of the time that [people do not understand my pieces] is because I have not expressed it correctly,” Andrew said. “But once I explain to them, what I was going for, it will change their minds or they will acknowledge that they get it.”

Most of Andrew’s friends are supportive and he will get good compliments from a lot of people that just glance at them on Facebook. Junior Nathan Are, a friend of Beasley, had a positive response when he heard about Andrew’s 365 project.

“I am really impressed with how he comes up the random ideas for his pieces,” Are said. “I do not think I would have the creativity to do that each day.”

Even though he has only been doing this for a couple weeks, it has already helped him improve in class.

“It helps you think of new ways to word things and new ways to use the English language to express your ideas,” Andrew said.

Andrew has a few friends that do write a lot and he respects their ideas. He is doing this 365 for an audience of people who do not necessarily read a lot so they can relate.

“I am writing it so that people who are reading them are not like, ‘Oh, this is just angsty,’” Andrew said. “I am trying to write pieces that are decent and that all my friends can understand, not just the literary ones.”

Andrew mentions how he does not want his writing to sound too depressing or too happy, but that does not mean he does not put his emotions in the pieces.

“Sometimes if I am feeling really strongly about something I will use the writing to release but I try not to make them sound depressed or really lovey-dovey,” Andrew said.

According to Andrew, he has not run out of topics and hopes that he will not because he finds inspiration in a lot of places. With all of these topics and ideas, his goal is to not only write a piece each day but to also just keep improving. He believes that he will probably start working on a long piece of writing once this project is over.

“Once I am done I think it will be cool to place them in each of those eight categories and look at them to see how they work together,” Andrew said. “I don’t really plan on making a book out of them but there is always that option if they are coherent enough.”

The ultimate goal for Andrew is to improve his hobby.

“It’s not necessarily a career I am looking at, but it would be kind of awesome to be able to [improve].”