Allow me to introduce myself

My name is Justin Brown and I am working as a summer intern for the Greene County Daily World. At the ripe age of 18 years old, I have just recently graduated from Linton Stockton High School and plan to attend Purdue University for engineering.

Born and raised in Greene County, I have gotten the privilege of spending my most delicate and impressionable years of childhood in such an active and involved community as this one. All the opportunities provided to a much larger community in the palatable package of small-town living made for formative experiences such as participating in team sports, taking advanced and dual credit classes, enjoying the benefits of Greene County’s low cost of living, and even having a bowling alley. I truly believe there are not many places on Earth that would be better to be raised in.

If you were to ask past English teachers who had me in class, not many of them would assume I would have ever taken a job where writing is a necessity. For me, there has always been a love/hate relationship in the art of writing, as it allows the mind to create its own worlds and wander about in the creative frontier as it pleases, but writing also brings about the dreadful sense of a blank slate. Because the art allows such creative liberty, it bears a responsibility to live up to your own creative goals. I thought that the capability to write well meant a high standard and expectation of quality from all the work produced by an individual. This unattainable goal created a disdain for writing, that has only recently been overcome.

I only truly started to love writing when I started to understand what I wanted to convey through the writing. What voice and word choice to employ to progress a desired ideal. The joy of writing can now be found in the once-feared uncertainty; the uncomfortable beginning to an essay, or the blank nothingness that has the potential to turn into anything. The feeling of pressure to produce something moving or awe-inspiring is where the mind rises to the task laid before it. Writing has the ability to create something amazing, but it’s never found if the fear of creating something terrible outweighs the joy of the beginning.

Excited to be a part of the process, I hope to entertain you all in the months to come.

Justin Brown is a summer intern for the Greene County Daily World.