On Writing
by Hong Ngo

To me writing is wonderful. It expresses all of my feelings. I love writing. I think writing is not always easy; I often get stuck on it, and it makes me feel angry. I love writing and to me writing is wonderful. It expresses all of my feelings; however, I often feel angry when I get stuck on my writing or I don't have enough English vocabulary to describe precisely what I feel. It's easy to write to describe a building, a car, a table, etc., but it's difficult to indicate your feelings.

I can see myself in my writing. The mirror only helps you to decorate yourself to look good, to look more beautiful, and to look more attractive. You cannot see inside when you look at yourself in the mirror.

I find that I cannot write whenever I want. I sometimes sit down almost an hour, but I cannot write anything, even a sentence or if I can write it is only an unclear and unstructured paragraph. However, I usually do my writing on the street. While driving a car, I suddenly think about something and I immediately desire to write it down; therefore, I stop the car, find the right place to park and write. I feel wonderful after arriving home and I read again what I have written.

Background Information

This story is about a man who loves to write. He uses writing to talk about his feelings, even though he says it is very hard to do this. What is your experience with writing? What do you like about writing? What do you hate? Talk about why people write.

Questions

1. How does Hong feel about writing?

2. Why do you think Hong writes even though he says it's not easy?

3. What does the word express mean?

4. Why does Hong feel angry?

5. What does it mean to describe something precisely?

6. What is a vocabulary?

7. What does Hong think it's easy to write about?

8. What does Hong say the mirror helps you do?

9. Do you agree that you can't see inside when you look in the mirror?

10. Why do you think Hong gets his ideas when he's not thinking about writing?