Process Writing

For each of the pieces I wrote for this class, I did have a kind of process that I went through for writing it. Before I started writing anything, I had a relatively long period of what I’m going to call “pre-writing,” for lack of a better word.  Pre-writing doesn’t really work to describe it, though, because it wasn’t writing that I did.  What I did was think about my piece in great detail over the course of a few days.  I’d think about what I wanted to say, how I was going to say it, and all of the details that I wanted to include.  For some of the pieces, I had my piece almost completely crafted in my head before I put anything down on paper.

It usually wasn’t voluntary that I would think about the assignments like this-- it’s just a habit that I’ve fallen in to.  Whenever I have a big assignment or something I need to write, it’s always on my mind to some degree, and every once in a while my brain will tell me to pay attention to it for a moment, because it’s just thought of something. 

This was both how I planned my written assignments and how I picked my topics.  For the topics of all three of my pieces, I brainstormed on and off for several days what it was that I wanted to write about.  For some, like the perfect meal piece, I came to a decision on my menu very quickly, and had several days to perfect my meal before I begun the preparation.  For others, such as the memoir, I went through several bad topics before finally settling on one I liked. 

This process of “pre-writing” helped me work through writers blocks quite well.  I rarely found myself staring at a blank document, unsure of how to start or what to write, because I’d already overcome all of those obstacles in my head.  By the time I sat down at my computer, I was ready to write.  The only frustration I had was if I struggled with how to transfer something from my thoughts to the paper--wording, that is.  For the most part though, I found that the writing came pretty smoothly to me throughout this course.

When it came time to do revisions, I approached things differently.  I didn’t really think about what I wanted to revise beforehand.  Instead, when it came time to sit down and work on my revisions, I pulled out the notes I took during the workshop and set to work.  I would read through my piece once or twice before beginning on my workshop notes, to look for things that I could catch and fix on my own.  After that, I would make my way through each one of the notes, look for where that was in the piece, and either make the decision to follow that bit of advice, or not.  There were several times when different things people said in workshop directly contradicted each other, so I had to find out what worked best for my by myself and go with it.  Other times, I didn’t agree with something that someone said, and in this case as well I would make my own decision and change my piece accordingly.  While I took the feedback and comments that my classmates gave seriously, when it came down to it I wasn’t afraid to do disregard something in favor of what I wanted to do or say.  When I disagreed with the feedback in this way, it made me feel quite confident in my writing, because I would feel like I was giving my writing purpose and direction.

As I reflect on my writing from this class, it’s hard to believe that I’m able to narrow everything down to some sort of “process” like this, considering the great variety of things that I’ve written during the last 10 weeks.  I’ve tested my feet in unknown waters during this class, writing my first ever food review, and I was also able to fall into familiarity with the memoir.  I’m happy with all of the writing that I’ve done in this class, and I will look back on this class for years to come with a fondness.