Writing is like falling: falling in love, falling off a cliff, falling down. It takes a leap of faith and letting go of inhibitions. I have never been adept at either. Writing is something that has always come naturally to me; conveying my inner feelings is not. It leaves me conflicted and confused on most attempts. I would love to be able to write everything I feel and think, and while part of me wants others to know who I am inside, part of me wonders what they will think—will they like me?
In general when I write, I try to think of a theme and build the paper around it. Not a theme as in a topic sentence; but rather, an abstract idea, from which I can build concrete thoughts relating to the message or tone I wish to convey in the paper. Think metaphors…. Other times I think of song lyrics or a line from a book that especially strikes me. I have found these to be good starting points for almost any assignment.
I can recall the first of dozens of papers I have composed in the BALS program. I was so nervous as I placed it in the drop box. I was surprised that my grade was passable. My writing has grown as a result of practice, of course, but also by simply experiencing life. I was terrified my writing would be a shadow of what it was in high school (I fancied myself a gifted scribe back then). Was I ever mistaken. Recently I found a binder of some of my senior year creative writing assignments. Suffice it to say that I am a much improved writer.
While the bulk of my writing is for a grade, the writing I most enjoy is short and to the point. I love to text and take pride in the fact that my punctuation and spelling are correct and un-abbreviated. Though I have not tallied it, I must write pages per day, but my brother is the writer of the family. A professional—trained by degree and experience. He gets paid to do it, and he is good at it. It is his natural gift. I think it may be mine, too. I just haven’t opened it, yet.
“It takes a leap of faith and letting go of inhibitions.” (Johnston) Mary Jennifer Johnston has hit the nail on the head for me while exposing somewhat of a fear of mine… posting documents on a public domain. Egads, write a paper then post it on a public domain for people I don’t know to comment on? To me, that is writing without inhibitions. Though I have no issues with writing, placing a document in an open forum such as Blogspot that allows those that so choose so to provide instant feed back is somewhat scary. Have you ever seen what those people on TMZ do to unsuspecting soles that post on public domains? They take a sentence that is considered insignificant by the author and completely take it out of context since shock media sells. The next thing you know you’re standing in line at the local coffee shop, waiting to buy a cup of coffee. You look down at the local fish wrap and see “I Shot the Sheriff” (Marley) next to your photo when all you were doing was posting the title of a song you wrote, not literally. I guess that’s the part of letting go of inhibitions I have trouble with, but I may be able to over come this with this course as there are so many assingments that require blog posts.
ReplyDeleteWorks Cited
Johnston, Mary Jennifer. I Like My Paragraphs Concise and My Prepositions Before the End. Norman: Mary Jennifer Johnston, 2011.
Marley, Bob. I Shot the Sheriff. Jamaca: Bob Marley, 1973.
Wow. I think that's the first time I've ever been quoted and/or cited! Hehe
ReplyDelete"...an abstract idea, from which I can build concrete thoughts relating to the message or tone I wish to convey in the paper. Think metaphors…song lyrics or a line from a book that especially strikes me. I have found these to be good starting points for almost any assignment." I completely agree! The writing I feel best about begins from some little piece in my imagination that inspires me.
ReplyDeleteWhen I returned to graduate school, my very first course was in Literary Criticism. Our professor (Dr. Ronald Schliefer) required us to read the 2 or 3 different assignments for the class each week and then write a one-page response to them. The response asked us to choose a word or phrase from one of the assignments and then connect it to the one or two other reading assignments. This exercise has proven to be INVALUABLE to me as a writer. It required me to use my imagination and then to connect two or even three different pieces of writing with one idea that was from my own mind.
I hope that I am learning to find these imaginative ideas in ANY kind of writing I do. It's one thing to do this when you have the chance to do it from the beginning: choose your topic, choose your idea, etc. My goal is to be able to find such imaginative ideas even when I'm writing something I've been forced to. :)