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| Going with the following paragraph, does anyone even use the baseball diamond approach as a writer, i think not. |
We have recently finished chapter 2 in my English book. Chapter 2 has been all about writing processes and figuring out what your personal writing style is. We
have now, as a class, been challenged to put what we have learned into practice
by writing a piece evaluating ourselves as writers. Being the creative soul
that I am, when I heard we may make this project into hypertext form (and for
those like me, who do not know what that is, basically, a blog), I jumped at
it. Plus, I figured that my poor, neglected blog needed some kind of love and
attention. When I look at myself as a writer I first look at what
influences me. What causes me to want to write anything in the first place? Who
is it that I think of when I am writing? What inspires me? These are the
questions that launched me into discovering who exactly I am as a writer, and
the following is just a brief report on my findings.
I believe the techniques you use as a writer will define your work. From the start i have been pushed to always plan my writing ahead. What I have learned from my time spent blogging and journaling is that sometimes you don’t need to plan ahead; it is possible that the streaming thoughts in your head are enough planning to work with. What really needs to happen to start a good piece of writing is a draft. Like we read in the Shitty First Drafts article, your first drafts are usually horrid. However, from that, you have created a brilliant starting point. This is how, as a writer, I use pre planning. I have never been a planner, so using that method of writing never worked for me. I have found once I get all of my ideas out of my head and on paper that is where the real writing starts. I don’t need a “web” or a “baseball diamond” to plan out what I am going to say,because most of the time knowing what to say isn’t my initial problem. (by the way, REALLY? Does anyone really use the baseball diamond past age 7? NO.) I have never been a person of few words, in fact, quite the opposite, I often find myself editing sentences OUT of my paragraphs. Learning about heuristic rules has also really helped my scattered planning process. Trying to figure out what does and doesn’t fit into my papers often become stressful. Heuristic rules (introduced by Mike Rose) have shown me that not everything needs a set rule on how to write. If one thing doesn’t fit, try another sentence, and if that doesn’t fit, try something else. There can be flexibility in the rules of writing. I learned that the "rules and plans" instructed to use for effective writing do not need to be set in stone, you can make changes in the process that help fit to your style of writing. The fact that I don’t plan the way I have been drilled to while in school is okay, because it works for me, and I still can write effective pieces despite not following the typical writing path step by step.
One writer I pull a lot of my idea and styles from is J.K Rowling. Please, hold off on the eye rolling until I get my valid (and well thought out) explanation across. It would be easy for me to pin my love of writing and reading completely on her. I fell in love with her stories and characters, and the imagination she had to make them. However, that said, even if I had zero interest in Harry Potter (which would be totally weird and life changing for me! i mean, HELLO, i was Harry Potter for Halloween, it doesn't get more obsessed than that..), I would still think J.K. was a genius. Her writing is completely unique, and she has never worried about the rules and regulations that seem to be put on writing. I used to think that I was breaking so many rules and writing completely incorrectly when I was younger because I would never write my introduction first. I used to (and still do to this day) write the “main body” of my essay first, and then, using everything I have in my paper, I finish with writing the introduction. It wasn’t until a few years ago I found out that J.K. had completed the ending to the entire Harry Potter series before she was even into the 4th book.(A list of things she also has to teach found here) She knew where her book series was going, and she wrote around it. That helped me see that it is okay to write different from the rest of the world. Reassuring my unconventional writing style once more was the article in chapter 2 by Stephen King. He let me see that you can place one object in front of many people, and each person will take something different away from that one object. You can give me and a group of my friends the same topic, and each one of us will come up with our own concepts and feelings on how to write a piece on it. Writing this paper (trying to be unique with my blog form of it) I came across this link, a collision of the 2 people who helped me accept my writing. An article by Stephen about the Harry Potter series. This could possibly win over some "anti-Potter" critics.
Another article that helped me discover what kind of writer I am, and maybe even my inner personality as well, was the article by Allegra Goodman. I have never been a person to go easy on myself, whether it was a mistake i made, correcting behavior, or even editing an essay. Revision has always been hard for me. I am a person who doesn't even like to see videos of myself, because I am usually acting like a fool and I can’t stand my own voice. I'm also the girl who has the video of her speaking at her high school baccalaureate with a speech she spent weeks on. The video has been sitting on my computer for months, and I cannot even force myself to watch it, the fear of finding out I looked and sounded awful is too much for me to face! So, in complete honesty, seeing an article I had to read about “calming my inner critic” made me a little more than nervous. The first paragraph alone was enough of a slap to the face to point out that I am not the only person in the world who feels like this. The first point she made was forgetting that past. Let go of what you have already done, whether right or wrong, because you are doing something completely new, and looking back on your past failures will only hinder the great work you could be doing! “Live in possibility” she says. “Your master piece could be just around the corner. Genius could befall you at any moment." I love that. The next “crazy” concept she drilled into me was “love your material." She said that nothing scared your inner critic more than loving your work. Don’t second guess, or wonder if what you are writing is stellar, just write it, and love it. She goes on to say if you want to write something, anything, you are going to risk falling on your face. But I think the difference between writers (like Rowling and King) and I is that those writers are okay with that risk, and will accept failure sometimes, I, however, do not like the feeling of not doing well. (More funny "Inner Critic" photos HERE).
I often can fit a moment or feeling in my life into a song, for this paragraph this is the song to sum it up in a pretty 2 minutes.
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| Could you imagine chiseling all day just to end up with nothing?! frustration. Sometimes that is how i feel about revision. |
Going into this assignment, I simply thought that it was going to be talking about myself,and it was going to be a breeze and an easy “A." However, this assignment really did what it was supposed to do. I have really examined and defined myself as a writer. I have realized what personality traits I have and how they can help or hurt me as a writer. I have had to look at the places I fail when writing, and have figured out a plan of action to correct how I think about my failures and to prevent them from hindering my writing further. From this assignment I have learned that writing isn’t a separate part of me, however it is a part of who I am. The ways I go through the different parts of the writing process reflect how I handle things in my everyday life. And though I am still continuing to learn how to incorporate my personality into my writing, I feel like this project has given me a much better look into how my character traits fit into the writing process, making it my own.
xoxo
-Kins
(ps.. hopefully i wont be another 100 years, or another English project that brings me back to my blogging days) :)
