Reflection About My Writing Process

My writing process has never been a straight road. There have always been a lot of twists and turns and a couple roadblocks thrown in along the way. The one constant is that I always start out with the brainstorming then a first draft. Senior year of high school, my English teacher stressed that there is no set formula stating what our writing should look like. This statement helped me greatly as I tried to improve my writing. We never had to follow a funnel method or a strict five paragraph rule. We were able to do whatever we deemed necessary. This new freedom to structure my writing based on my ideas broke down a barrier for me. I learned how to write for me and not just to meet someone’s confining standards or to follow a rubric.

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My English teacher senior year also taught me this. She taught what makes the great writing different than the rest. She taught us the different literary techniques to use to make our writing more sophisticated. My problem is that whenever I try to incorporate similes, metaphors, anaphora, or any other rhetorical or literary devices, my writing becomes choppy and disjointed. Nothing seems to flow from my thoughts onto the paper. No matter how hard I try or how much rearranging I attempt, the final product never sounds as good as it did in my head. As I have proofread my writing in the past, I have noticed that I understand what I am trying to say, but my audience usually cannot. Just look at my first draft of this paper. My ideas usually are not cohesive in my work which tends to lead away from fulfilling the purpose of my piece. A goal of writing is something that I do have going for me. When I sit down to write a piece, I always know what I am trying to accomplish. I never write just to see where my mind will wander. There is always a goal and the majority of the time I reach that goal. If the paper is meant to be more persuasive, I can come up with solid arguments for my case. If the paper is meant to present research, I could always present my findings in a clear and concise manner. While the path I take to reach these goals might stray slightly from the trodden path, in the