I have been drawn to blogging before in hopes of reaching a wider audience with my thoughts.  A part of me definitely likes having the possibility that I’ve got loads of readers.  My previous blogs ended up mostly just being visited by my friends, in a few cases with disastrous results.  I have, therefore, become paranoid about policing what I actually put on such things, and feel like I often censor myself more than I’d like in blogs particularly.

Overall, however, I like having some of my writing accessible to readers who seek it out, and I definitely like the idea of having class blogs.  With my personal blogs, occasionally someone I didn’t know would stray onto the blog and post a comment, and that was always oddly gratifying.  The fact that a class blog means that I have a class worth of readers (if only now that we have to review the class blogs) appeals to me greatly.  I wish it had happened earlier, just as I wish, as noted in my post on the class blog, that I had been a better reader over the course of the last semester.

That said, this blog succumbed to my usual problem with blogging much more quickly than any personal blog I have ever kept: laziness.  Yep, there you have it.  I get to the point that I just don’t post because it takes up my precious time.  There were definitely comments I wanted to add to class discussion that I thought about putting up here, and then just never did.  I still have a few posts’ worth of material rolling around in my brain, but I’m still not gonna put it up, because I’d rather go play video games.

The other problem with me and blogging is that I often look at it as kind of a dumping ground.  I have no problem with electronic media for writing, I just guess I have a low opinion of blogs in general because of their massive proliferation.  I often don’t put a great deal of effort into blogging; any thoughts I have are generally just spilled out into the editor, stream-of-consciousness style, and then get posted.  I just kind of let the posts go and roam where they please.

Nonetheless, I like what this part of the class could lead to someday.  I like the idea of extending writing beyond the class and beyond the papers.  I would like to see more interaction between the blogs, certainly, and perhaps a bit more focus on them.  I think there is a lot of potential to create something great, but it isn’t going to happen spontaneously.

I don’t feel very attached to my blog personally, perhaps because, looking back at the posts, very few of them really had much of me in them.  Part of that comes from the fact that they are mostly reading responses, and I wasn’t especially passionate about most of the topics on which we had to do reading responses.  Most of those posts just feel, to me, like me answering a question, by rote, and that’s just not something in which I can feel invested.  It takes a little bit of the personal factor (and the personality) away from the blog.  Perhaps weekly posts would be a better way to go.  Some could certainly be reading responses if something struck the writer’s fancy.  I know that probably would’ve suited me better, and likely just would’ve produced a blog which I can be proud of for more than just the completion of another assignment.

At this point I feel like I’m droning on, trying to extend this final post.  I just don’t have much to say about this blog, and, like with many of the posts on it, I am mostly just responding to the prompt as I go.  I am now ready to shove this blog out of the nest and let it learn how to fly (or not) all on its own.  I am destined for other places.

Yet, in my mind and on this page, the end of this class signals the end of something far more treasured than high school ever was.  When I had to make a speech then, I didn’t want to (though, I admit, my reasons were far more petty than Kelley’s); I finally buckled under parental pressure and did something I was still relatively happy with, but from the beginning my heart wasn’t in it.  I was ready to be out.  Now, though, despite the fact that this post isn’t even supposed to be a send-off for the class, I find that my main concern is finding a way to do the experience justice.  You’d think that making that happen for four years of my life would be more difficult than for four months, but there it is.

In exploring everyone’s blogs more thoroughly than I had before, I was left with many impressions.  The first - the strongest right now - is a sense of regret that I didn’t pay the blogs more attention before this.  Certainly, I did what was assigned, and tried to do those assignments well, but when there was no assignment, the blogs were out of sight, out of mind.  Now, though, I see my error.  I am struck by the diversity of voices in this class, in and out of the classroom.  I wish I had heard more of them before, and wish even more that I could continue hearing from them.  I was amazed at the number of times I was compelled to stop and read (I mean, I was doing that already, of course, good student that I am, but I mean really read) something posted on a blog.  I found new versions of papers which I had workshopped, and the changes - I almost said improvements, but that often wouldn’t give the originals enough credit - were staggering.  I found papers which I hadn’t read at all because of the way the groups were arranged, and wished that, somehow, I could’ve read them before.

To offer my experiences:

I marveled at Ashley G’s progression, from shy, reserved student-who-sometimes-had-to-write-stuff to a sincere and endearing writer;

I admired the bluntness and intelligence with which Ashley M presented her opinions, and wish that I could be so forward;

I appreciated Claire’s ability to relate class discussion with reality, and to show us all that the writer is not some mystical, unknowable power, but something we can find everywhere;

I found the insights of writers like Dave and Kristen refreshing, for coming from such different writers than myself and for being so undeniably valid;

I relished the opportunity to discover pieces I had missed during workshops, most notably Jocelyn and Kelley’s memoirs, which were both wonderful;

and I was stunned by the beauty of Stephanie’s words, which painted pictures both lavish, deep, and alive.

I wish I could put into words everything else; you all deserve my praise and thanks.  I am glad that I didn’t miss this opportunity, for it has changed me as a writer, seeing so many different perspectives, both from other writers and from readers (who happen to be writers), and I hope that the experience has been as beneficial for everyone else.  But that’s straying into the domain of my other final post, I suppose.

Like has happened so often in this class, I have reached a point where I know what I want to say, but not how to say it.  Fortunately, I found someone else who had more success articulating the sentiment, and so I direct you to Ashley M’s post on the class blog.  She said it better than I could.  (I wonder if it’s ironic or fitting that I’m citing someone else’s blog in my reflection on the class blogs…)

Thank you everyone for the fine and constructive comments which you have given me over the course of this…uh…course.

Thanks for the words.

One final paper - one more foray into the world of composition theory - did not seem like too much to ask.  I had a topic all picked out; several, in fact, in case my first choice - the relationship between the writer, the reader, and the text, and who decides what that text means - didn’t pan out.  I had - still have - plenty to say on the topic.  However, as I sat down to write the paper, I found myself staring at the page before me, unsure of where to begin.

Except I was sure!  I knew what I wanted to say!  So…why wouldn’t the words appear?  Why could I not will them into being like in the past?

I worked myself up into quite a funk over this, but the paper had to be done, so I couldn’t look away, as if I were witness to someone kicking a puppy; it was something so horrible that I hated to look upon it, but that same horror demanded my attention.  Looking back, as this class has gone on, I have found each successive writing assignment - by no fault of its own - a greater labor, a more extreme effort than the last.  The first paper flowed onto the page as if by magic, easier than most of the papers I have written in my years at Mary Washington.  The second paper and my article presentation were tremendous efforts to produce.  This paper, true to that pattern, very nearly did me in.  I didn’t, as I’ve said, lack ideas or ability or time; I lacked something else.  It’s as if there existed a barrier between me and the page, something that kept me from being able to put words on it.  My thoughts allowed themselves to emerge verbally, fully-formed (which is my euphemistic way of saying I was talking to myself), yet staunchly refused to congeal into anything coherent in writing.  In essence, I couldn’t find the words.

By that point I could practically hear Peter Elbow screaming, “Freewrite!  Freewrite!”  That is, in fact, precisely what I did on the first paper, to fairly good effect, if I do say so myself (and I do say so).  And in an almost Pavlovian fashion, I tried freewriting, but couldn’t go for more than a few minutes.  Freewriting, it seems, is not the answer to all of the writer’s problems.

This, then, is where I must diverge from Elbow.  Much as I appreciate the idea of voice, I simply cannot agree with the freewriting philosophy.  For me, writing doesn’t work that way.  I cannot make myself write with great efficiency (I can, however, make myself complain on paper with at least moderate efficiency).  Writing - especially “voiced” writing - seems to be one of those things that must be seized when it raises its head above the grass.  We’ve got no other recourse besides lying in wait for it, setting clever little traps or just outright stalking it, until we see our moment to strike.  That perfect, sublime moment, when the writer knows he’s got something.  The words, however, are an elusive quarry; they either fall directly into the trap, or deftly escape unscathed.  There is little middle ground.

This process is reminiscent of Richard Graves’s extensive efforts to get the writing just right.  To extend the hunting metaphor (I’m using a lot of predatory metaphors of late; I wonder what that says about me), Elbow, with his freewriting, his active pursuit of The Words, enjoys the thrill of the chase; Graves is more meticulous, with his fine-grained editing and re-editing, a stalker who examines his prey, learns its strengths and weaknesses, and finally strikes with terrible efficiency when he knows, for sure, that nothing can go wrong with his plan; and I, for example, am much more seat-of-the-pants, darting after what I can get, what I stumble upon, but sometimes deciding that Elbowian pursuit or Gravesian planning simply aren’t worth it.

Peter Elbow explains writing as something that must be worked on and developed as a skill; he’s a writer who resembles, in this, an Olympic athlete, training day in and day out with little exercises that may not resemble the end result much at all, but ultimately serve to improve that result.  This is a great idea in principle, but how many people have time to actually make the effort so often?  I wish I did, but I don’t, and if I did I sadly admit that it probably wouldn’t be used writing.  Elbow’s detractors point to his idea that “anyone” can be a “writer,” even if that writing is as simple as a grocery list or notes in a daily planner.  But his own methodology requires some real commitment; it’s not get-rich-quick scheme, nor does Elbow really push it as such.  Elbow couples his relative optimism about the identity of the writer - yes, even you can be one! - with the dismal prospect of churning out complete junk for it’s own sake.  This is self-help for writers, but the very nature of self-help implies that the patient - the writer - exists in a vacuum, alone.  This notion I cannot accept.

Meanwhile, Graves strikes a better chord with me.  He likens writing to dancing, and I know a few steps myself (certainly more in the writing realm than on an actual dance floor!).  His process is more focused on a single objective, or at least that’s what I gather.  However, he more deeply explores that objective, that topic, with his multiple rewritings, than I feel like I could ever stomach.  I am easily distracted by the Next Idea; if The Words to the old one are hiding from me well enough, I’ll move on and lament the missed opportunity later.  The problem here, of course, is that Graves, like Elbow, requires the writer to work the dance floor constantly, like a pro (or like someone trying to be a pro), while waiting for the next partner.  Does this not create a result similar to Elbow’s ideas?  Where Elbow assumes that the writer must be a loner, Graves must assume that the writer simply can’t get a date.  Otherwise, he wouldn’t have to sit around and wait for the next dance; he could just suggest it at will.

I know of no two writers who do their hunting in the same fashion, and maybe that, in the end, is why Elbow and Graves and, I would guess, others assume a solitary process.  This works fine, certainly, if you’re at the top of the proverbial food chain, or if you employ the right strategies; Edward Corbett, for example, through his emphasis on imitative writing, inhabits our writing savanna as a scavenger, nipping at the heels of the masters of the land and picking at the scraps.  Of course, Corbett believes that this is how things should be done, and wouldn’t have a writer try to take down the next prey; he insists upon following the lions without really caring to become one.

This does, to me, beg the question: what point is a writing class?  Certainly, a class like ours can be interesting and useful, but this is because of its more survey-like nature; we’ve covered enough different scholars that we’ve hit several angles on writing, and everyone is bound to take something from this class - be it freewriting, voice, or a general detestation for everything composition.  Beyond that, however - and this is a reason I’ve regularly dodged creative writing classes - what can a writing class do?  What are the odds that a single class could serve multiple writers in any profound fashion?  After all, if you stick some lions, a few tigers, maybe a wolf, a pack of hyenas, three vultures, seventeen alligators, and a rattlesnake in a room, there will be more than a few carcasses left over at the end.

Assuming that “conventional” classrooms aren’t especially fit for writing instruction (much less storage of live animals), we can move to our scholars again for some direction.  Peter Elbow offers the most tantalizing option: the teacherless writing class, in the aptly-named Writing Without Teachers.  Elbow spends a significant portion of the book explaining such a class and how it would work.  The idea is based upon the theory that a group of writers can teach each other better than a teacher can teach a group of students to write.  More precisely, by creating a collaborative environment where everyone participates in regular workshopping, the teacherless writing class helps writers see how their work is received and then teach themselves how to change it, through trial and error.  This is, perhaps, closer to the right direction - working with other writers always feels most correct to me, and I know from experience that I cannot do anything as long term as Graves (for example) without someone(s) else to fuel me with their comments along the way.  Without that input, I lose steam.

Problematically, however, Elbow’s teacherless writing class violates Graves general plan of striking while the iron is hot; the class requires writing for every session, and though it can be anything, this still creates a deadline.  Deadlines, I think, are deadly to a writer.  They are a fact of life for many professional writers, a necessary evil, but in my mind they are restrictive and damaging to the process.  I believe that writing is a singular event, an experience, which cannot be rushed or forced; traditional classes certainly cross the line, and the teacherless writing class would at least skirt it.

Instead, I posit that writing is best entertained not through a class, but through (and I’ll bring back the predator metaphor now; I was starting to miss it) a sort of “pack mentality.”  Rather than writing in isolation, writing alongside other writers produces the best results.  This gives each writer an audience as well as a colleague, a companion, a brother-in-arms.  This camaraderie, forged from the shared experience of pursuing and battling for The Words, allows a learning community to arise, even if it is only a community of two.  A community of more is probably better, of course.  This model works, I believe, because writing is never in true isolation.  The writer must always be aware of a reader at the very least, even if that reader is himself.  Ignoring this fact is like ignoring that treacherous, pen-wielding leopard-writer over there who happens to be eying the same idea/gazelle-thing as you.  Blink and you might miss it.

This “pack” should be a diverse bunch - too many writers of the same breed will only crowd each other and encourage repetition and homogeny.  Yes, this means what you think: a writing class is almost certainly an excellent example of such a community.  With the pack thus formed, it needs a leader, the proverbial “alpha” (though such a position certainly doesn’t have to be held by a male in the “writing pack”).  Luckily, writing classes tend to have professors in them (yes, those things I so scathingly labeled “faux-Muses” way back in the first paragraph).  This is starting to look like a regular writing class again, isn’t it?

Obviously, then, I don’t propose to do away with writing classes.  However, I think that talking about how to teach writing, beyond the technical level, is an exercise in futility; the writer must run off of a mix of instinct and self-discovery.  As with most anything, this process is eased by having companions for the journey, packmates who can help set up skillful ambushes for The Words which can be so difficult to catch.  Writing education should not, therefore, be a hierarchy, with a teacher and students; it should instead be a community of equals, for even the most experienced of us can stand to learn something.  We should not be wondering about the techniques of the professor, but the role of the professor: a director, a guide, but also, and most importantly, a comrade, who has just as powerful a need to eat as the rest.  End this classical masquerade and join the hunt!

Miller understands a self that is created by the text, rather than the more common idea (in my experience) of the self creating the text.  This runs interestingly counter (though not necessarily “against,” if “counter” can exist without “against”) to Bazerman’s ideas of the influences that go into a text.  Bazerman builds on the idea of the vast body of experience crafting the author, and thus the text.  This smacks of a self-to-text relationship.  Miller, however, goes after the text-to-self relationship, that one’s self is amorphous and created by the text which they themselves are “writing” at the moment, whether that text is truly written or not (it can also be spoken, or one of many other communicative verbs).  This self does not necessarily reflect the “real” self in any obvious fashion - comparing Miller’s example of writing like a student from a frequently college-bound family despite her more humble beginnings to what Bazerman would expect from her as a writer is a good example of this relationship.

What this makes me consider is that Elbow’s ideas about voice may be too universal to be accurate.   I still like the idea of voice, but voice can only go so far in making some text matter to a reader.  I think this goes back to the discussion we had last week about the importance of the author versus the importance of the reader; certainly, when it comes to how much a reader likes a piece of writing, the reader is more important.  Most readers have certain topics - probably a long list, in fact - which they simply can’t stomach, no matter how good the writing.  Likewise, other topics will get the benefit of the doubt more readily and more often.  What voice will do is separate the stuff a reader likes from the stuff a reader loves.

            I hate spiders.  I haven’t always; it’s something that developed, quite spontaneously and without provocation, during high school.  Writing this paper made my skin crawl.  In my mind, they are mindless, grotesque, prey-seeking creatures, and their existence bothers me.  Yet, strangely, spiders are intimately related, by no fault of their own, to my writing.

I learned to write in the second grade.  We - my classmates and I - had spent the previous two years preparing for that event, though we didn’t know it.  In kindergarten we labored over the alphabet, slavishly learning the names and sounds and shapes of all the letters, and then we were employed as court scribes for the first grade teachers, churning out sheet after triple-lined sheet of scribbled, cheap imitations of their much neater, chalkboard-bound script.  Now we had survived our servitude, and we were ready.

During second grade we were introduced to paragraphs.  They seemed to be marvelous inventions, paragraphs.  When my first one was completed - all four sentences of it - I felt like I knew what it was like to write a book.  There was nothing you could say in a whole book that you couldn’t say in four sentences.  At the time I apparently had a horribly skewed sense of scale.

These significant four sentences were about a spider.

Jumping spiders live in many different places throughout the world.  There are more kinds of jumping spiders in the world than any other spider.  They hunt for prey during the day and jump on their prey when they find it.  Jumping spiders have eight eyes, and the two front eyes are very large so that they can see to hunt.

Mrs. Kendrick was my second grade teacher.  I always thought that was the perfect name for her, with the hard consonants because she was strict, but with a letter or two that hinted at something else; she was a great motivator, and encouraged her students to reach for their potential.  I remember her being an incredibly tall woman, even as adults went when I was that age.  Tall, thin, and imposing, with a sharp intellect and a perpetually-knowing look of curiosity on her face which never yielded to what someone would quite call a smile.

Mrs. Kendrick had an odd fixation with spiders.  They were present in all things in her class; several spiders lived in old wooden tanks in the corner of the room.  I remember watching the jumping spider for a long while, waiting to see him leap.  He never did, of course; there was nothing to leap at.  These spiders sometimes served as the basis for our paragraphs.  We would have to write a paragraph about the behavior of the jumping spider, or the appearance of the tarantula.  Obviously, some of our paragraphs were about the more interesting spiders - tarantulas, black widows, and so forth - which did not grace us with their presence in the classroom.

Mrs. Kendrick was the teacher who encouraged me to excel.  I attribute most of my academic success to her initial nudges in that direction.  She taught me to investigate and wonder, and to look for ways to challenge myself.  This extended to writing; there was one assignment in particular, a letter to the fictional character Amelia Bedelia, that lovable, literal housekeeper, which she used to encourage me.  After I turned it in, Mrs. Kendrick approached me and complemented, in her subdued way, the quality and creativity behind my letter.  She asked if she could show it to some people at a meeting; I’m sure she told me what the meeting was about, and who it was with, but I’ve long since forgotten.  This was not the first piece of writing I ever turned in - there were some paragraphs first - but it was the first time that I received the gratification of an appreciative audience.  The feeling was euphoric, and from that point on for many years, I was eager to impress with everything - but I always gave special attention to my writing.  We did a lot of other little creative exercises in addition to our paragraphs, and I tried to make them special.

But the paragraphs were always about spiders.

Trapdoor spiders do not build webs like normal spiders.  They dig holes and cover them with a lid.  When prey gets close to the lid, the trapdoor spider comes out and attacks it.  Then the trapdoor spider goes back into its burrow to hide until it has another opportunity to catch food.

Mrs. Kendrick was out of my mind by the time I hit sixth grade, temporarily discarded during one of several annual transitions from one grade to another.  Despite her absence, I still maintained my interest in displaying my writing skill.  I tried to push boundaries whenever I had the opportunity, just as Mrs. Kendrick had taught me.

Sixth grade found me my most enthusiastic audience since Mrs. Kendrick.  This time it was my English teacher.  From the beginning, it was apparent that I was one of her favorites; when we read a play version of The Hobbit out of our literature book, she chose me to be Gandalf, which seems to me to be definitive evidence.  Once, we had an assignment which involved writing a brief story using fifteen of our twenty spelling words for the week.  A simple enough assignment: it didn’t have to make sense, and it certainly didn’t have to be good.  Of course, I tried to make both happen.  I don’t remember my teacher being overly excited, though I’m sure I got a good grade; the person who got really excited was my father.

By then, I was fairly independent academically.  This was also Mrs. Kendrick’s fault, as she always espoused being able to solve problems ourselves.  I didn’t often get my parents to proofread papers, but for some reason, that time, I did.  My father was really impressed with my silly little tale, which involved an alien who, no doubt because of his advanced intellect (and my need to use the word “vacuum” somewhere in there; it was on the list), had landed at a shopping mall.  The alien, as I recall, also shared his name with his home planet, which shared its name with its native galaxy.  Even then, I thought it was a little foolish - but only a little.

Long story short, I found that I hated the constant attention.  My dad spared no chance to remind me of how much he liked my writing.  The real breaking point was when I got a call from my grandfather, who lives in Richmond; he had received a copy of the story via e-mail and wanted to talk about it.  I felt like all eyes were on me and hated it.  I hated being reminded of my competence so regularly.  I hated even the thought that my grandfather, who was a ravenous reader and often sent me novels, had spared some time to read my assignment.  I knew I was inferior to those real authors who I was so fond of reading, and I felt embarrassed.

To this day I can’t quite understand why I reacted how I did.  The feelings, however, have persisted.  I appreciate - nay, thrive on - praise teachers and peers, but I hate to think about receiving praise from my parents.  If I knew why I’d say so; if you know why, then you have me at a disadvantage.  That was the last time my parents read anything I wrote, a state which persists even to this day.

I closed the trapdoor on my burrow and remained, safely cloistered in my private darkness for years.

Granddaddy longlegs have several names, including cellar spiders because they build webs in corners like you might find in cellars.  There is a myth that these spiders have very strong venom, but this isn’t true.  In fact, this myth is because they invade the webs of dangerous spiders like black widows and eat the web’s owner.  Because of this behavior, some people think that they are more poisonous than the poisonous spiders they eat.

I didn’t really write again for several years.  I kept up with assignments and did very well at them, but I no longer tried to stand out quite so much.  I certainly never showed anything I wrote to my parents.

Finally I was flushed out of hiding.  My high school had a writer-in-residence.  She lived in the area and had published a couple of books and some plays, and so would sometimes come speak to classes about fiction writing.  When I was a freshman she came to my English class several times, and often read a chapter from her first and most popular book.  The book was at least semi-autobiographical, and her chapter of choice was about her first encounter with the works of some guy named William Shakespeare, thanks to an old reclusive lady across the street from her childhood home.  I liked it the first time.

She was a grandmotherly sort of woman.  She had a very down-to-earth sense of things, and obviously reveled in life’s small miracles.  She organized a ten-session workshop for students from my class and a few others, and my English teacher recommended that I join.  I was, understandably, reluctant; I remembered, less than fondly, what had happened the last time my writing had escaped the eyes of my teacher, and I didn’t consider the WIR a teacher.  Worse, there was always the possibility I’d have to share with my classmates.  The horror!

Grudgingly I accepted, though I think that was mostly to avoid disappointing my teacher.  We met in an unused classroom and began the arduous process of building characters.  I had long since parted company with spiders as subjects, and progressed through snakes, aliens, and all sorts of sundry creatures.  This time I actually went with a person.  The problem, in the WIR’s view, was that I chose to place that person in a non-contemporary setting.  It was apparent that she didn’t appreciate the science fiction genre.  Her silent, confused ridicule wore thin quickly, compounded by the fact that it happened, sure enough, in front of the entire class.  I left after a few sessions, but the damage was done; I very nearly resigned myself to never write again if it was the last thing I did.

I struggled in that web for longer than I care to admit.

After that, once again, I didn’t do much writing besides what was required.  I eventually pulled myself out of this state - though not without some help - and decided that, despite the bumps along the way, I wanted to write.  In writing I found a glimpse of what I wanted from life.

Yet I can’t find a story in that revival.  It just happened.  Nor can I find a story, really, in any one moment leading up to it.  Rather, these events form, in my mind, a complex but delicate web, which comes apart when I try to remove any event from it.  This web shows me the path my writing has taken, and I begin to understand the lesson I should take from this.  For this pivotal period in my writing life, lengthy though it was, I was on the prowl, hunting for prey.  I fed on what I caught - teachers mostly - and used the energy acquired to pick a new target and adapt my methods.  Spiders build different kinds of webs for different kinds of prey; I write different kinds of papers.

There is a very interesting thing that spiders can do with their silk, if they’re light enough, called ballooning.  The spider spins a few strands of its silk into a simple flying apparatus, letting them take to the air.  When writing this memoir, I was reminded of the first time I saw this, at the end of the animated version of Charlotte’s Web, when Charlotte’s offspring take to the winds.

At risk of overloading the metaphor, writing for others is like spinning a web.  The web can be effective, but it can also be a hazard; the spider’s natural enemies know how to use its own web to lure it into a trap.  Instead - and I have only recently really come to this realization - I should spin my silk - my words - for myself, and let it take me places I could not go otherwise.  This is a process I have not yet truly undergone.  I struggle with the change.  Sometimes I can’t help but wonder if I’m one of those spiders who are simply too large to balloon, who will never know flight.  Or maybe I just need to be lighter.

            Pinning down my writing process, such as it is, was not all that difficult; deciding on exactly how to approach that process for this paper turned out to be exactly the opposite.  I’m just doing what I always do: I’m in front of my laptop - my writing utensil of choice - staring at a half-written document incredulously, like I’m not really sure what to make of it, an alien but not wholly unexpected presence.  But dealing with writing in this way - sitting down and just seeing what happens - is, without a doubt, extremely hit-and-miss, and unfortunately it proves to be the latter all too often.

Peter Elbow talks about a process very similar to mine in Writing Without Teachers.  I don’t exactly state this with pride (though, on occasion, I can be proud of this sort of anonymous infamy); Elbow practically outlines my process, to some of the most minor details, when he prepares to set out on his discussion of growing.  He talks about the writer who sits down to write, straight through, one draft with an edit or three.  He talks about how this process goes and sometimes is okay, especially in a time crunch, but other times the writer just gets stuck - and inevitably he will get stuck.  I’m the poster child for this example, of what one might do…and, through implication, do “wrong.”  (Granted, Elbow doesn’t claim to know the answers, so “wrong” is probably not quite right - perhaps “inefficiently” would fit better.)

I’m a classic proponent of “writing backwards” (as Elbow calls it), usually without any messy notes or outlines to start with.  I just go; I may or may not have an idea what I’m going to write (short of whatever assignment sheet I might have), but that’s not usually something I consider a problem.  At the very worst, it’s a bridge to cross when I reach it, and cross with some part daring and a (much larger) part luck.  And, as Elbow admits, sometimes this methodology works like a charm.  Sometimes it doesn’t.  Often I get into a staring contest with my computer monitor, and I’m always the one who blinks.

But there’s a contradiction here: I’m not concerned with being unprepared when I start writing, and yet it is - quite regularly - an obstacle somewhere in the process.  Now that I think about it, though, that might not be so much a contradiction as a peculiar relationship; perhaps that’s just a risk that comes with my method, a risk I’ve learned to accept.  I’ve never consciously considered it that way, but maybe somewhere along the line I decided that the danger of becoming stuck was worth some benefit of writing without any sort of preparation.  But what benefit could be worth the effort?

That’s about all that my backwards process has produced on the subject so far.  My mind is wandering because I’m finding the writing less and less engaging.  What is left to say?  I could draw this paper out, I’m sure of it; I could hit that thousandth word without much trouble, if I were counting quantity alone.  Technically, the quality would be fairly good as well: grammatical, spelled correctly, varied diction, all that.  But I don’t need Peter Elbow to tell me that the technical aspects of writing are only one part of writing well, and the less important part besides.

What I will let Elbow tell me - or at least suggest to me - is how to get this paper moving.  I place this paper from here on in his proverbial hands.  With my copy of Writing Without Teachers close by, I’ll take the leap; I’ll dare the Elbow Experience.

I begin with a freewrite.  Continuing from the part of Writing Without Teachers where he talks about “my” writing process, Elbow demonstrates a freewriting-based method for finding out what you really want to say.  After about half an hour (I know, Elbow says to write for forty-five minutes; I’m cheating) I’ve got a couple of pages of stuff about my own writing process.  A lot of it I’ve already said, in shorter terms, in this paper.  Then I follow Elbow’s instructions and look it over, looking for something resembling a center of gravity.  I entertain a dialogue with my freewrite as it glares at me harshly from my computer screen.

“I think about the idea until I’m ready…” says the freewrite, and I wonder if this is my center of gravity.  No, no, not quite; that happens, but it certainly doesn’t always happen.

My freewrite was, however, determined, and tried again: “I would argue that I was freewriting…albeit freewriting with self-editing, but freewriting nonetheless.”  Well…kind of.  I don’t really think that’s right, either; I’ve never really done much “freewriting” as Elbow describes it.  But it’s the best I’m going to get for now, so I shall concede this point to my first freewrite, which will, no doubt, be overjoyed at its unprecedented success.

My center of gravity from this freewrite (to reword the above into something which, I think, is more accurate) is spontaneity.  Impulsiveness.  The haphazard quality of my writing process.  When I write, the process is very seat-of-the-pants (this paper is a prime example).  I write without a specific plan.  I research (and use that research) as and when I realize it would be a good idea (as I did just a moment ago, when I invoked Elbow; I stopped writing to dive into Writing Without Teachers, in search of that passage because I remembered it and figured it would fit).  I self-edit as I go, bouncing between writing new text and modifying old text when the mood strikes me.  And somehow, this has gotten me this far, and relatively effectively.

So now I can make a more complex exploration of my writing process.  Not a lot more complex, but there are definitely things there I didn’t really notice before.  This doesn’t arm me with a lot more real material for this paper, but Elbow doesn’t expect just the one freewrite to do that; he suggests more freewrites, to further refine your ideas.  It can’t hurt.

Another half-hour (cheating again) freewrite later, and I’ve got something more and something much more interesting.  I focused this freewrite on why I write spontaneously, rather than planning meticulously before I begin.  What I found was something I hadn’t really realized until now.  My freewrite led me to begin by stating the case against writing spontaneously, and since I think it’s good background, here’s an excerpt which, to my mind, describes why this spontaneity is in some ways very perplexing to me:

“Spontaneity isn’t me…I am simply not a spontaneous, “out there” person.  I do things, in life, in measured, anticipated steps and doses.  I keep schedules, if only unofficial ones.  I’m not a list-maker or organizer, but I like to have a sense of control, even if I keep it all in my head…” 

            Needless to say, the methods which Elbow calls “backwards” also seem quite backwards - perhaps more so - when compared to the way I do everything else in my life.  Elbow believes that finding what I want to say should come before writing the final draft, or what will be the final draft, and that’s just not how I usually work.  It’s an illogical approach from a mind which usually works on logic (at least as I understand it).

So this begged the obvious question: why do I write like that if it makes so little sense?  I moved on to the case for writing spontaneously, and quickly found my answer.  Another excerpt:

“Maybe I don’t like to know where I’m going.  That is, the mystery of it is a benefit.  The fact that I can just go and hope for the best and be as surprised by the end as my future reader, that’s wonderful, and it’s some kind of special magic…”

I like writing blind.  I realize this in more ways than I did before I began this paper.  It’s mildly safe, but also somewhat adventurous.  Knowing where the writing is going might sound like a good idea, the smarter idea, but…simply put, I don’t want to know.  I’d rather learn as I go.  I like to see a piece grow, organically, and that is far more rewarding when I don’t know what it’s going to look like from the beginning.

This thought prompted some reflection.  As I was freewriting, I thought back to things I’ve written before, which I had stopped (or never quite started) writing.  Some of these things just didn’t get off the ground - I couldn’t quite make my ideas work, or I realized an idea wasn’t quite complete yet.  But many of them suffered from too much planning - usually, because I discovered how they would end.  And once I did, if I hadn’t started writing it already, I was much less motivated to begin; why should I?  I know the story.  It’s over already, as far as I’m concerned, if only in my mind.

Conversely, the things I’ve had the most fun writing - and, perhaps by the same token, the things I think of as the best of my writing - have all been pieces for which I began with only some vague idea of where to begin and where to go next, and little else.  I’ve tried to phrase it in a way I like as much as I did in my freewrite, and I haven’t been successful, so here’s another excerpt:

“But these are all pieces of a puzzle, and far from a complete puzzle; it’s like I set out to solve a puzzle which was missing pieces and the handy picture on the front of the box to boot: I was sure there were things that I didn’t have, but I didn’t know what, nor did I know how to use those few things I did have.”  (Incidentally, I believe my first freewrite may be a little envious of its younger, smarter sibling.)

So what can I say, finally, about my writing process?  A lot more than when I began, that’s for certain.  And maybe that’s the best point I could find in this paper: that my writing process works for me, but that there is always room to grow.  The freewrites that went into this paper were an experiment, and a successful one at that; I am pleased to discover this.  Not only in what I write, but in how I write, I don’t yet know the end.

Muckelbauer supports his claim primarily by invoking the long and arguably successful history of the imitative method.  Only in the last century or two have the “Romantic conceptions” entered the writing arena at large, but we certainly find great thinkers and writers and speakers before that time.  Muckelbauer resides largely in Greece and Rome, dealing with Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Quintillian, amongst others; Demosthenes is mentioned as a primary example of someone who used the imitative strategy for some reason or another (though he isn’t especially explicit as to why Demosthenes copied Thucydides so copiously; perhaps we don’t know).   Further, Muckelbauer puts forth three models of imitation, two of which imply some originality and individuality, especially the last of the three, “inspiration.”  Thus, it seems, Muckelbauer is almost attempting to argue that Romantic conception is probably imitation in one form or another, even if we don’t like to admit it (and we don’t).

That said, though, I also just really agree with the findings here.  I think that this is a side-effect of our society these days: we are very achievement-driven, for one, so we’re encouraged to look as awesome as we can, because it could be the difference between getting into that school, or getting hired for that job, or even just getting the professor’s good graces in class so that maybe, just maybe, she’ll curve your grade a little because, hey, you deserve it.

That was a repulsively long sentence.

Anyway, that’s what we’re taught.  We’re told we’re special from day one.  And that’s where some of it comes from, too.  We have an interesting contradiction in our culture: we are raised to be the best we can be, to achieve, and yet we are also raised in the belief that everyone is equal.  This is simply not true.  I am number one; all others are number two, or lower (a cookie for whoever can tell me what move that’s paraphrased from).

Joking aside, we are constantly bombarded with this contradictory signals, and it wreaks havoc with us.  Complete.  Havoc.  Because we aren’t sure what we’re actually supposed to be doing.  We know innately, I think, that it is a good thing to help each other, to give each other a hand now and again and to sometimes be selfless.  If we don’t have a sense of it anyway, our parents or grandparents probably get that somewhere in our upbringing, too.  But we’re supposed to just screw everyone else over regularly?  Look out for number one?  Because yeah, that’s gotten us really far to date.

For me this article hit close to home, not just because I consider myself a egomaniac-by-night, but because I am also intimately familiar with the other side which the article implies but doesn’t really discuss: that whole “miserable” side of the equation.  Now, to be sure, “miserable” is a strong word - perhaps too strong for me.  But suffice to say, I was always told that I was pretty awesome, and along the way I started actually believing it.  Then, at some point, I was proven wrong…again, and again, and again.  And now, every little setback I experience seems like this enormous failing.  I hate that I can’t really make mistakes without feeling like I’ve fallen by the wayside and will never amount to anything because, whoops, I missed that comma splice, when I was editing my paper.

We shouldn’t busy ourselves celebrating how great we are, because a lot of the time we’re really not (except for me), especially when we’re tooting our own horn.  There’s so much more I could say about the topic; it’s been on my mind for years.  But I’ll spare you the experience.  My point is this: we should be concerned with who we are, not how good we are at stuff, not how many people pay attention to us.  We should take the small victories that come every day and be secure in the fact that we have fulfilled a great purpose to someone, somewhere; secure in the knowledge that our being has made a difference to someone (probably even someones).

Being as I’m a Trekkie, and I’ve already used one movie quote in this post, I’ll use another (from, as the beginning of the sentence foreshadowed, a Star Trek movie): “Don’t try to be a great man, just be a man, and let history make its own judgments.”  That’s what we don’t get.  We’re too wrapped up in being great people.  But why, in the end, does it matter?

And why can’t we just escape it?

Corbett’s opinion is that imitation will allow you, as a writer, to pick up certain aspects of the imitated writer’s style, which presumably is a good thing; it would be rather foolish to imitate a writer whose work you don’t respect or revere.  Thus, by imitating successful writers, you, too, may be able to become successful by assimilating aspects of their writing styles into your own.  This is running on the assumption that what has worked in the past will work again…although, I suppose, that isn’t a bad assumption most of the time.

However, Corbett warns that imitating one writer too much can and will result in that writer’s voice superseding your own; instead of taking style and diction from the writer, you will take much more and sound like what you are: an imitation.  I can easily see that as a danger; try too much to be like someone else, and you will achieve it, at the cost of what made you different from that person.  Writing is no exception to this rule.  Why would it be?

For my part, though, I don’t really advocate such blatant tactics as Corbett suggests.  Copying a particular stylistic element does not make it yours.  And really, I’m not sure why you would want someone else’s style in your own writing intentionally; don’t we get enough imitation these days without recycling our authors, too?