A passion for writing is what I wish I had. I have often been discouraged that I do not write. Often I feel that I am not good at writing. Despite this, I have always wanted to write well and to bring stories and experiences to life through words. Yet I cannot find an effective way to bring this desire to life. Maybe I have not tried hard enough because throughout high school I was haunted with restricting rules when it came to writing. I never considered that these rules could be broken, but this is exactly what Donald Murray suggests.
“There is one right way” (Write to Learn, p. 16) is one of the rules that Murray especially likes to break. He quotes James Thurber, “Don’t get it right, get it written”. I am not a rule breaker, but perhaps these years of discouragement could have been years of practice if I had broken this rule. For each sentence I write, I proofread the grammar and sentence structure (I am doing this even now). I realize how restricting this is as it interrupts the flow of my thoughts and often my thoughts become lost. I am experiencing lost thoughts even as I write this, which makes me believe that perhaps this concept of rule breaking will be harder to practice than it seems.
I need to allow my thoughts to flow free, no matter what shape and form, grammar or prose they end up as on paper. Therefore, with this new hope that I can learn to write well, I will practice breaking some conventional rules that for so long restricted my writing process. It's time to become a rebellious writer!
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I can definitely relate to what you're going through in the passion department. I've always wanted a passion for writing. I've considered writing as a profession before, but how could I ever be successful if I wasn't extremely passionate about it? Great writers always give the same advice to budding authors: write, write, and write some more. It is always stressed that the key to becoming good at writing is to just write all the time. I get discouraged when I realize that I don't write near enough as I should. I seem to lack the passion for it... Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy writing certain things (not essays unfortunately), but I just have trouble getting my thoughts down. I've got plenty of ideas in my head, I just don't write. I don't know if it's because of the restrictions that have been placed on me or what, but I can relate to what you said there as well.
ReplyDeleteOnly recently have I been able to overcome the "Intro/3 Body Paragraphs/Conclusion" style of writing essays. I still have a hard time breaking from that format even though I wrote multiple essays last semester that did not follow those guidelines. It's freeing to not have to follow a specific format when you're writing. I still don't feel as free as I could though - I really dislike the idea of word counts. I feel that a particular piece of writing should have a purpose, and if that purpose is served, I don't understand why there needs to be a certain number of words involved. If I cover everything I need to in an essay, but I'm 500 words short of the word count, then I'm going to need to add fluff. It's a restriction that has always annoyed me.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this, folks. I think Murray's approach is potentially misleading. He's not arguing for the end of structure, he's just arguing it's not built into the nature of the universe. We'll talk more about this in class.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with what you said Heidi, but i think we should just be a confident writer instead of a rebellious writer. I think he wants us to forget about the rules so that we don't get scared by them, but we shouldn't break the rules just to break them.
ReplyDeleteI think that rebellious writing works in a creative setting. Yet I also think that in many fields therules are still important.
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