When you’re a college student, writing rarely seems like something appealing to you. During college, writing is mainly associated with tests, research papers, and essays. Yes, some students enjoy writing papers, but generally, they are in the minority. Usually, when it comes to writing, you experience anxiety and boredom. And it becomes your standard attitude toward writing.

That’s probably the main reason why students are more likely to hire an essay writer rather than write essays on their own. There’s also a lack of time, as argumentative, descriptive, and persuasive essays come on top of the already overwhelming amount of homework students have to struggle with between classes and odd jobs.

Needless to say that under such circumstances, not only you don’t have time to process the importance of ideas the essay may express, it’s impossible to understand the significance of writing per se. It’s just several hours you need to spend to write down some half-baked musings on some issue you don’t care much about and format it accordingly.

But there’s much more to writing than just that. Actually, you can use writing for your own good without giving it to anyone for grading. Sometimes, you need to analyze yourself. Process certain actions or emotions that you have. And you don’t want to share it with your friends – that’s when the writing comes in. Here’s what you can get from writing:

• Process emotions
• Analyze traumatic experience
• Pinpoint a problem in the past
• Improve your life

If you can’t figure out what to do in a particular situation, write it down. You’ll be able to sort it out. You cannot let go of your partner; your friendship falls apart; you can’t forgive your parents for something… You can easily process all that, or at least your emotional state, through writing. And there are two approaches you can use.

Diary

This approach is the most common one. A diary allows using an inner dialogue with yourself to sort things out. Regardless of whether you start it with “Dear Diary,” or go straight to the point, it actually helps to figure out your feelings right now and why you feel this way.

Write About Your Emotions Regularly

If you are in a difficult emotional situation, you can start by describing the situation per se and your original emotional response. The foundation is laid; now, you need to go through your emotions daily. Write down how you feel every day, even if it is just one word. It will help you keep track of whether you’re making any progress or not.

Then, you need to move from describing your emotions to analyzing them. And try focusing not on the external factors that are beyond your control but on inner causes. In other words, don’t focus on the situation that made you feel bad in the first place but on what makes you continue to feel this way. And try figuring out what you can do to change it.

Write About Your Memories

There’s a chance that’s not the first time you’re experiencing such emotions. Try delving into the past. Have you experienced anything like that before? For example, you’re going through a terrible breakup. But chances are, it’s not your first breakup. Try analyzing your past breakups. Compare them with your recent one.

Write down what they have in common and what divides them. Write down how you handled the past situation. Compare it to how you’re handling things now. Going through all that will help you find the way out. Maybe you will dig up some past wrongdoings that you can successfully avoid in the current situation. But, mind, it requires being absolutely fair with yourself.

Creative Writing

While writing a diary may seem like the best solution, there’s a risk that you’ll stick in limbo. You’ll go in circles analyzing your past or current emotions without finding the way out. Probably, because you don’t have enough faith in yourself or self-deprecation becomes your comfort zone. Here, creative writing comes to your rescue.

Third-Person Narrative

It’s much easier to help others and advise them than to find your own way out. Even if you opt for written correspondence with yourself. If that doesn’t work, take a creative approach to your problem. Develop a character who has your traits. Develop a character who resembles you. And use the character to figure things out.

Here, everything depends on your artistic preferences. It can be your carbon copy, or you can add some minor or major differences. Anything from changing the sex of your character to making them a superhero. However, your character must resemble you emotionally and have the same thought process as you.

Put the Character in Your Situation

The next step, after developing a character whom you’re going to use as your avatar, is to create a story in which the character can experience the emotional situation that you’re currently in. Should the story resemble your real life? Not exactly; you can create any kind of story to resolve your emotional turmoil.

“Nocturnal Animals” may not be one of the best films ever made, but, as “Tony and Susan,” the book it is adapted from, serves as a good, albeit controversial, example of how to process difficult emotions through fiction. So, pick any genre, develop any story, and tie your current situation in, to process it.

Come Up With Possible Ways Out

Every story requires a compelling end. Thus, while writing your fictional account of what you’re going through, you will inevitably come up with a potential way out. Mind that it’s no magic. It’s not like you’re going to write down “The End” today, and it will materialize tomorrow. Writing is a means to cope with your emotions and process them.

The end of your story, as well as the solution to the situation, mustn’t be rooted in reality. You can opt for any end you want or whatever end the story requires. From and they lived happily ever after to they were dead by the time the police arrived. The point is that the fictional account will give you a necessary emotional closure, which will make you feel better.

Final Thoughts

Writing is not only about writing assignments. Just like reading, it can help you cope with a lot of things. So, you can opt for keeping a diary to cope with your emotions or try your hand at fiction. And if the latter works, who knows, maybe becoming a writer is your destiny — from feeling down to a publishing deal.