502 Blog #2: Don't try this at home, kids.

(This past semester involved writing a lot of bloggy-type things for my classes. In an attempt to make this blog more than just movie squee and TV critique, I'll be reposting some of them here, for kicks. They will sometimes be edited to provide context--often I am responding to specific articles--but the overall content and tone will remain the same.

The following blog was written for Writing Lab practicum, in which we were specifically asked to talk about our own writing process.)

I would be a horrible first-year composition student.

I remember someone, sometime last year, talked about how computers are forcing us to reconsider the traditional writing process: pre-writing, drafting, revising, designing, etc. I always feel slightly guilty when students (or now, I suppose, tutees) ask for pre-writing strategies, because I never do any of the exercises textbooks advocate. I don't freewrite, I don't list things, and I don't draw bubbles or trees or Venn diagrams. I put the piece of writing (whether it's an essay, a review, or a blog) into the back of my mind and let it...percolate.

I have been known to draw weird stick figures in the margins of notes for other, unrelated things. They travel the outlines of my notebook, hopping over blue lines and morphing into arrows that suggest form.

When I'm being very diligent, I force myself to create outlines, but often this happens after I've written my introduction. Yes, I write my introduction first. Yes, this is something I tell my students they shouldn't worry about. Yes, this also is a catalyst for guilt.

After I have my introduction, I stare at my working thesis ("working" because of stylistic rather than content issues), and then start outlining. I write paragraphs when I feel like I can complete them. (I can't write sentence by sentence.) If there isn't a logical transition between paragraphs, I add "TRANSITION" in bold letters, in brackets, and when I'm unlucky in formatting, I forget to take those notes out.

I almost never move paragraphs once they've been written. I delete them, and I add them, but they're where they are because that's where they fit.

It's possible I found myself writing fiction first, before I discovered essays, and that's why I can't explain writing except in haphazard, mystic terms.

I am reluctant about letting other people read works in progress, because I don't have that rough draft to second draft to endless iterations of drafts process. It's either something that can be read by an audience, or it isn't.

When I read what I write, I can hear my voice in the back of my mind, reciting. I'm conversing with someone, maybe a couple of people, but never a group. We know each other well.

Everything I write is either the worst thing I've ever written, or the most awesome thing I've ever written.

There is no going back. Well, sometimes I go back. I usually include too many commas.


[originally posted 26 August 2010]