How I Write

A frequent issue of mine when it comes to writing assignments (that is the only type of writing I do nowadays) is the due date. We do not have a good relationship, the due date and I. Sometimes I will feel it approaching rapidly and begin feeling inordinate amounts of stress only to discover that I actually have another four days to complete the assignment when I thought there was only one. More often, I will be completely unaware of a looming due date and let it sneak up and shock me in a very unpleasant manner. For the most part, however, until the time my assignment is (very, very close to being) due, I usually hardly think about it, unless it involves some type of reasearch that must be done beforehand for some reason or another. When I do think about it, it is only to think that it is something I have to do and not about things I may actually write (this is not true for times when I must present on my written material, but that is not a frequent occurance).

Then the due date arrives and I have no choice but to think about what I'm going to write. I never write anything by hand if I have a choice because writing by hand is a slow process for me for whatever reason. I often leave my room because places like the study lounge and the library offer fewer distractions and therefore fewer excuses to put off writing for five, or maybe ten, more minutes. It's not that I dislike writing, it's just that in the context of classes it almost always feels like too much of a chore to enjoy.

I am held up most often at the very beginning. Starting a piece is by far the most difficult task for me, though once I get going (often after maybe four or five false starts) I generally do not get stuck again. Once I begin writing a piece, I prefer not to leave until the paper is finished, both because re-mustering the motivation to write again after stopping can be difficult and because I will sometimes lose the flow of ideas and words that keep my writing smooth and connected (at least most of the time) from beginning to end. The second most difficult part of the writing process for me is the conclusion. Many times I have struggled to write something that does not feel like a summary or a foregone conclusion. More than once I have left a paper feeling unsatisfied with the conclusion I have written but having not much idea of how to fix it. Another part of the writing process that I do not particularly care for is creating titles. It is the one area of the writing process that I will often not help my friends with and always save till the end to struggle with when writing myself. Titles are important and often personal. Though there are many occasions in school settings when convention dictates how a piece should be titled, there are many more situations in which the choice of title rests solely with the author and, in my opinion, should be considered carefully. I could probably go on longer than anyone would like about my struggles with and opinions of titles, but that is not directly relevant to this blog.

Once I have finished, there is a mild-to-overwhelming sense of relief (depending on the assignment and how many hours are left until it is due). For some classes, such as my Grammar and Style class, I may rapidly reread my paper to check for sentence-level errors, most of which result from my brain moving faster than my hands (one of my more common issues is leaving out articles or sometimes skipping other, more important words). If I have time later and am thoroughly unsatisfied with the conclusion, I may add more thoughts before turning in the paper, though any thoughts I have usually seemingly come from nowhere rather than a conscious effort to improve my conclusion. If I like a piece I have written and it will not bore her to death, I send it to my sister for a second opinion. Anything that both of us think is good is usually something I will save or store somewhere for myself as a reference of my past writing.