I really like the idea of writing being a social process like a conversation. The idea that we need to learn current ideas and topics on a given subject before we can speak on it or make an argument for it seems to be true for any subject, especially writing. I personally connected with the reading about the idea that once you join a conversation, you slowly start to feel this motivation to speak out building up inside, but only after you have learned enough to know you have something special to say.
I found myself nodding my head in agreement with most of what was written but that was the main thing I took away from these five pages. The phrase on page 18 "Expectations weigh heavily on motivations," really stood out to me. I sometimes think the deadline is my friend when I'm writing a paper. A deadline is like the biggest motivating factor I can think of, so this idea of short daily writing and taking my time to slow down is quite foreign to me. I can see only benefits really, as most papers I have written may have gotten good grades, but most likely, I couldn't identify my own papers after the introduction. I sort of explode with creativity all at once, an eruption of thoughts and words. Maybe if I do take daily writing seriously, I'll be less of a violent eruption or more of a river of words flowing constantly and consistently.
I totally agree with you on that last paragraph! I am a complete binge writer and, like you, it has always worked out really well for me but when I go back and read what I wrote, sometimes it doesn't quite sound like me or I forget what I wrote all together...
ReplyDeleteI am going to really make an effort to try out this daily writing and see where that gets me!
This is going to age me, but I'll say it any way :)
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in undergrad, I did a lot of the binge writing that both you and Alex describe--I wrote and wrote the night before an assignment was due, and what was written was usually pretty good and got me a fairly good grade. This absolutely worked for me, and I didn't notice too many negative effects.
However, I found that when I got to grad school and my master's program, the papers were too long to write in one night. They required 20-40 sources, original research, and complex, structured arguments. I tried the binge writing thing, and I completely failed. So, I sought out some new techniques: read an article a day, annotate it, and keep reading for a few months. Then do some outlining and brainstorming. Then write one section of the outline every couple days. Etc.
Spreading out the writing process made so much more sense when it was a longer project, but it took a while for me to learn this.
I don't know if you're planning to go to grad school, but if you do, or if you have to do some longer, more sustained writing in the future, I hope that learning these techniques for spreading out the process will help you!