Writing is the best way to communicate your thoughts, feelings and intentions to the world. I learned this at an early age after witnessing the power yielded by “Will you go out with me?” written inside an expertly folded piece of notebook paper. Suddenly, all of the things that I was too afraid or too self-conscious to say out loud could be expressed with words.
My writing skills became fine-tuned at Allegheny College in Meadville, PA. There, I explored aspects of pace, tone and crisp content as I studied fiction, poetry and journalism. Having my writing graded a week later or critiqued by my classmates in a workshop was incredibly beneficial but lacked a sense of urgency and immediacy that makes good writers better. This task was left to my secondary education at Allegheny: the world of instant messaging. In this realm, a typo, misplaced word, delayed response or error in tone could lead to undesirable results and reactions from my girlfriend. She later became my wife so I must respond well to feedback.
After finishing my graduate degree in counseling psychology, my communication turned away from the written word and moved to the spoken. Being a psychotherapist allows me the rare opportunity of communicating the same idea to different people during the course of a day. I have options. I can be the broken record repeating and regurgitating the same concepts in the same way 7 times a day, or I can take anther route. My path involves me teaching the same technique or psychological principle in an improvised way based on the person in my office. Turns out I’m still learning new ways to say “Depression’s bad” 10 years later. My work teaches me to know my audience and that the finest communication relays complex concepts in concise simplicity.
Simply put, writing permits me the privilege of transforming thoughts into something tangible and constructing ideas into something others can experience. As a writer, I write for me as I write for you.
To let me write for you, contact me at elpatterson14@gmail.com.
