- Full of himself (Murray)
- Rubs me the wrong way
- "Yeah right" (skeptical)
- Depressing
- Frustrating
- Woe is me ("Life is so HARD!")
Write to Learn is an odd beast. Above, I have written a few things that came to my mind as I was reading Chapters 5-8 of Murray's book. When those words came to my mind, I stopped reading and wrote them down. I like to think that Murray would be proud. No I don't. Murray isn't leaving a very good impression, in my opinion. Going back to that "odd beast" comment, I started out liking Write To Learn. Unlike a lot of textbooks on writing, I actually found it interesting and thought that it would be somewhat helpful. Unfortunately, my reaction to this later portion of the book hasn't been as positive.
Is Murray full of himself? I'm sure he's not as pompous as he appears at points in this book, and he often says that writing is a process that is different for everyone - he encourages people to find their own way to write. That being said, there were points where it just felt like Murray considered himself the be all and end all authority on writing. Just a feeling I got. I was free writing, remember?
I believe my skeptical "Yeah right" comment came when Murray spoke of writing a draft in his dreams. I don't think I need to say anything more on that subject.
I'm going to combine depressing and "woe is me" because I'm pretty sure that both comments stemmed from the same subject matter. I understand that you had a troubled life Murray, but this isn't your autobiography - it's a book on writing. I don't really want to hear about what it was like to kill someone in World War II. It's incredibly tragic that you had to take the life of your mother, father, and daughter (or something like that), but I don't think that really belongs in this book. This may be coming off as rude or insensitive, but... I'm just saying.
This book is frustrating in the sense that I want to use some of Murray's tips and exercises to write, but I don't really feel like they apply that well to a class based around research. Maybe I'm still stuck in a certain mind-set, but I have a very hard time associating research essays with creativity. When I think of free-writing and exercises like that, I think of it within the context of writing stories or things of that nature. I feel that it's so much harder to do these types of writing exercises when you're being constricted by topics and research requirements.
I'm sure you've noticed that while reading those four chapters, everything that came into my mind was negative - was there no positive content contained within? Of course there was. There were plenty of good tips that I'd like to use, but... I dunno, maybe I'm just a negative person, but Murray really rubbed me the wrong way. I'm probably just a negative person.
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I agree with you. Murray was being quite negative about his life in general while giving us examples of how to write. Maybe the next couple of chapters he will tone down a bit.
ReplyDeleteI agree that a Murray can be a bit negative Do not worry, i understand your frustration. Maybe we would get more out of this book if Murray was more focused on sharing how to write, than his life story.
ReplyDeleteWhile I do agree with you one some areas, I think the whole world war II comments can be apart of the book and shouldn't be thrown away so easily. Murray is clearly not showing us how to write a research paper, but rather write about the things around us that affect us. Before starting this class, I found out my Opa's story about when he was fighting in WWII and I began to write about it. I think some of his suggestions are valid for this type of writing. I know some people may not want to read about these things, but for others, they were affected by it, directly or indirectly, which influence life around them. I think his whole point there was to show us that we can find inspiration in the seemingly common or ordinary things in our lives.
ReplyDeleteOtherwise, I do tend to agree with you on the rest.
I agree with you for the most part. I was a bit annoyed with hearing about Murray's childhood. I mean, it's supposed to be a book about writing and, like you said, not his autobiography.
ReplyDeleteFor me, I feel that Murray telling us a bit about himself gives him more credibility. With him opening up and not just constantly writing about writing I am able to get a break and see where he is coming from. The negativity does get me a bit too though.
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