Personal Reflective Essay Freewriting By Peter Elbow

Loosen Up
Perfectionism: (noun) a disposition to regard anything short of perfection as unacceptable. From a very early age, I have always needed to have everything be “perfect”. I remember for my birthday one year, I got a hot pink Lisa Frank unicorn journal. It was beautiful, with pastel pink pages and a shiny silver lock to keep my pesky brother out. I never did write in that journal, only because I never wanted to tarnish its pages with words that weren’t just right. It was everything I wanted, and I needed to find the right words for it to hold secret. Even from a young age I have had this problem of not being able to freely express all of my thoughts onto paper. I start my thinking process, try to get the right words out for how I am

It also makes writing dead.” (83) What I take this quote to mean is that if I don’t let my ideas flow, and I am always stifling my creativity with premature editing, that makes my writing become dull, boring, and loses my sense of self on the page. I have always thought of myself as a creative person, and stifling that creativity has done a number on my self-esteem and the quality of my writing. Since reading Elbow’s essay last week, I have challenged myself to keep a journal and try to write, raw and unedited, for five minutes a night. This has done wonders to make writing seem like a less daunting task and has sparked my love of writing yet

Hearing hurtful comments about my writing style and subject after I had finally gotten up the courage to push through my perfectionistic tendencies in the writing process was devastating. Letting my guard down enough to actually follow through with my plans on songwriting collaboration sounds like a daunting task, but I think I am on the right track now to achieve my new goal. Thankfully, I have come to see that “It’s an unnecessary burden to try to think of words and also worry at the same time whether they’re the right words.” (Elbow “Freewriting” 82) I look forward to where this newfound inspiration of writing will lead me to in the future. Blog postings are most likely not in the cards anymore, which is probably for the better, but I am excited to see where this songwriting path will take me. As Elbow says, “Maybe you don’t like your voice; maybe people have made fun of it. But it’s the only voice you’ve got. It’s your only source of power.” (“Freewriting”