My Writing Process

We discussed our individual writing processes in class this week, so I thought I'd write about mine for my blog post. I'll start off by saying that ever since starting college, I've felt that my writing process is bad/wrong. In a lot of my English and professional writing classes, professors have repeatedly stressed that we need to begin work on papers 2 weeks or more before the due date, and we must have several drafts; if we don't do this, then we're not putting in enough work and we're not coming up with the best possible final paper. And so, I've spent most of my college career feeling guilty about my writing process, but it WORKED for me, so guilt wasn't enough to make me change.

My process goes something like this -
I generally don't even look at the assignment sheet for a paper until about a week before it's due. I have so much going on that it just stresses me out to begin the process any sooner than that. Based on what else I have due around the time of the paper, I'll start it anywhere between 1 week to 12 hours before it's due. I begin by jotting down very messy notes on the assignment sheet about what I want to talk about, a draft thesis or several, etc. If I don't jot down what I'm thinking, I'll never be able to put all my thoughts together. When I do start writing, it has to be totally quiet. I get my notes, quotes, books in front of me, and I write. I have to write it all in one day; I take breaks in the middle, but I generally have to at least get a draft down in a day. I'm more the type that revises as I write. I write a few senetences then go back over them, and I don't move on until I'm satisifed. For this reason, I don't write drafts unless I'm forced to for class. I won't move on until I'm completely happy with what I write, so when it's all done, there's little I want to change. After the whole paper is down, I HAVE TO get away from it for at least several hours. I can't judge how to make any revisions at all unless my mind has been totally cleared and I'm looking at it anew. Then I catch sentence level mistakes, occassionally take sentences out, occassionally add, and sometimes rearrange paragraphs. But for the most part, my revisions aren't incredibly extensive. I'll keep reading over it until the day it's due, when I print it out just before I leave for class.

I haven't tried too many other methods of paper-writing because I like my process, but I guess I can't say for sure whether I'd do better by making lots of drafts, starting weeks ahead of time, etc. That's just not the way I've ever done things, and I don't really see a need to change now. As long as I am happy with what I turn in, which I almost always am, why fix what's not broken? Yeah it sucks to end up staying up all night writing (which happens occassionally when I'm totally blocked) but it gets done. One time I was obsessing over a thesis for a paper (I can't start writing until I have a thesis) and nothing was coming to me. It was getting to the last minute and I was panicked. So I went to sleep, hoping for a miracle, and get this - I DREAMED UP my thesis. It was awesome. What I wanted to talk about in the paper and how I was going to talk about was my dream... never thought that could happen. I'm glad I've heard how other people write papers, and I feel a little better now that my process isn't "the wrong way." Everyone is just different.