Undergraduate / How/When did you become interested in writing? Pratt Institute Undergrad Admiss Essay [4]

I'm having trouble with this essay. I'm mostly a poet, so this whole "tell us about yourself" auto biography narration thing is baffling me. But I forced this out this morning, and I would appreciate any and all suggestions. Thank you so much! I'm also about 50 words over the maximum for words allowed, so any suggestions on what I could cut would be great as well.

Describe when and how you became interested in art, design, writing, architecture, or the particular major to which you are applying. Describe how this interested has manifested itself in your daily life. The essay should be 250-500 words.

The only way I can describe how writing became the medium through which I define my world is by first explaining how the practice of reading defined my life.

I had begun to read before I started kindergarten, but the turning point in my reading career occured sometime during the second grade, when I became sick and missed a week of school. That first sick afternoon, my dad announced that he was going to read "To Kill A Mockingbird" out loud to me. I remember feeling apprehensive, quite skeptical at the possibility of enjoying any book by father would suggest.

But I surprised myself. I fell in love with Scout and Jem and Boo Radley, and, after my dad finished reading the book for me, I read it on my own. I can't tell you how many times I've read that book- only that the experience reading it revealed to me a grand doorway to literature, and that I ran through that door eagerly and desperately, with an ache, and, I'll admit; a slightly deranged desire to read more.

Since then, I've read an innumerable amount of books, and studied countless authors. Right now, Henry Miller has caught my attention. What a strange and beautiful and individual man, what a writer! I have been airbourne, reading Tropic of Cancer. And I mention Miller because, in reading his works, I realized that I speak of my favorite books and authors not as a fan, but as a reader in absolute and unwavering awe. Books are not books to me- books are manifestations of beauty; the beauty a writer found, realized, and created.

I want to find such beauty. I want to create it, shape it to fit or break a mold of my choosing. The world offers so much beauty, a limitless supply. With the realization of millions of spoken and unspoken languages on the earth, I am given an invitation to write. To translate each language, to describe the world in infinite ways, and to give back to the world in this way. I wish to become a sailor of knowledge and beauty, a translator of the languages of the earth.

I have spoken of how my passion for writing took flight, but I have not yet shared when exactly my passion for writing was born. Because I do not know. I don't believe that the origin of my love for writing can be traced back to a single occurence. I couldn't tell you if I wanted to write after I read my first Rilke poem, or after I was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder when I became the victim of a bus accident. I don't know if the urge to put pencil to paper happened when my brother was diagnosed with autism and I don't know if it occured when I first learned that love is not always unconditional.

My passion, my obsession, my unopposable and irrefutable love for writing... I know that it is the unconditional kind. My love for writing is renewed and has been renewed in each of my living moments. From each of the experiences that I mentioned; I learned a new language, a new emotion, a new method of communicating to all who wish to listen.