In the essay “Getting Started” by Anne Lamott. The author reaches out to her students and other fellow writers who struggle to overcome the infamous writer’s block. Thought out her paper she gives us hints and tips to train and prep us for our future papers. Her tips range from training you mind to prepare for a long and often strenuous essay, learning to take information in slowly to not overwork your brain and the last one always tell the truth in your essay. She threads through her essay that writing may be hard and seems like there is no silver lining but it’s not impossible to do. When done reading this essay I widely agree with Lamott’s writing ideas and tips they can be helpful for many struggling students. As one myself I found …show more content…
This is how you train your unconscienced to kick in creatively.” (Lamott 96) This is overall good advice for most. Some or all of us get distracted by many things chores, life, kids, work, cat that won’t stop meowing even a simple list that Lammot states is “Nurse Ratchet like listing of things that must be done right this moment” (96). The author says that we need to ignore all distractions no matter how much our brain may scream at us to get the other work done or something bad will happen we must persevere to finish or at least start the paper. Or else it will never get done and you will be putting together a Frankenstein like paper at two in the morning. The last the point is that good writing stems from telling the truth. Lamott makes a very good point in this paper the best I think in this essay besides comparing writing a paper to bathing a cat. For this she quotes the American poet Flannery O’ Connor’s poem “Anyone who survived childhood as enough material to write for the rest of his or her life.” (95) She says even if your childhood was one that was terrible you can still use that material. She says that childhood memories are some of the easiest and yet hardest things to elaborate on without lying or just talk about in
...e does not discuss what she is writing, while she is writing it. She is afraid that if she speaks of it, it will wear out her idea. She says, “If you want to be a writer, I have two pieces of advice. One is to be a reader. I think that's one of the most important parts of learning to write. The other piece of advice is: Just do it! Don't think about it, don't agonize, sit down and write”.
The author clearly shows how his childhood effected his adulthood, making in a living example of what he is writing about allowing the audience to more easily trust what he is writing about. Instead of using factually evidence from other dysfunctional family incidences, the author decides to make it more personal, by using his own life and comparing family ideas of the past to the present.
Thomas Osborne opens the narrative with a description of himself up very late at night trying to write a paper. Sadly, he’s been at it for four days, and unfortunately he seems to have writer’s block. Osborne’s personal experience with a first draft that he deems “failed” due to the writer’s block. Also, his realization of his personal writing style and how he uses it to his advantage versus conforming to a more normal style of writing occurs later in the selection. Looking through the lens of a reflective analysis perspective, it’s easy for me to find similarities to Osborne through my writing style, personal experiences, and through analysis I better understood
Ralph Fletcher’s story in the beginning of the introduction quickly grabbed my attention. Although the story was humorous, I found there to be a lot of truth in it. In the story, the young students realize that their teacher will take anything and make them write about it. It seems to be that the teacher does this so often, that the students are afraid to take joy in the simple things. The students don’t want to assigned another writing prompt. Fletcher then says that teacher need to be sure “not to get too evangelical about teaching writing.” I agree with this statement. It is very important to teach students how to write, but as a teacher we need to know when we should take a break so the students do not get burnt out. Once students get tired
In the brief essay “Shitty First Drafts,” writer Anne Lamott describes the general writing process by use of humor and relatability. Lamott spills her own troubles and woes in a way that assures the reader they are not alone should they feel like their first attempt at a piece of writing is not topnotch material. To back herself up, Lamott gives mass examples of nameless authors she knows and how each made a success out of their shared strife. The writer herself spills what it means to feel hopeless when writing a first draft. It appears her method to success is to surround herself with positive, like-minded individuals, as well as to not take oneself too seriously when painfully jotting down the first words of an essay. In my personal life,
What Douglas Martin had to say when he came to our class is probably the most valuable advice I've heard so far this semester. Martin's reasoning is right in tune with my own thinking about writing, and probably why I'm a Creative Writing major versus an English or Lit. major.
One quote that stood out to me was “I was struggling to express increasingly complex ideas, and I couldn’t get the language straight: words, as in my second sentence on tragedy, piled up like cars in a serial wreck” (2). This reminds me of when my parents would always tell me to keep writing during my younger stages. Sometimes, through my essays I would give up because the words that are in my head wouldn’t spill out. So, I would become stuck and would consistently ask for help. I literally felt like I was stuck behind traffic, and couldn’t get out until an hour later. However, one good point brought up by Bailey was “I believe that school writing and personal writing are completely different, where school writing can be right or wrong but person writing can be anything without any consequence.” I feel like school writing can play a big role in how one may decided to use their words. If there’s a big essay due; there is a high chance that expressing high complexed ideas would be a lot more harder; than through personal writing because the ‘A’ is a lot more important than actually understanding the context. Another quote I agreed with was, “developing writes will grow… if they are able to write for people who are willing to sit with them and help them as they struggle to write about difficult things” (2). This goes along with my
Many people think that reading more can help them to think and develop before writing something. Others might think that they don’t need to read and or write that it can really help them to brainstorm things a lot quicker and to develop their own ideas immediately (right away). The author’s purpose of Stephen King’s essay, Reading to Write, is to understand the concepts, strategies and understandings of how to always read first and then start something. The importance of this essay is to understand and comprehend our reading and writing skills by brainstorming our ideas and thoughts a lot quicker. In other words, we must always try to read first before we can brainstorm some ideas and to think before we write something. There are many reasons why I chose Stephen King’s essay, Reading to Write, by many ways that reading can help you to comprehend, writing, can help you to evaluate and summarize things after reading a passage, if you read, it can help you to write things better and as you read, it can help you to think and evaluate of what to write about.
When I read “Proficiency” by Shannon Nichols I really felt for her. I understood and resonated with her story perfectly, especially when she stated “After I failed the test the first time, I began to hate writing and I started to doubt myself. I doubted my ability and the ideas I wrote about.” (83). After I failed my writing assignment I was so embarrassed and didn’t want to write again but obviously, I had to. I always doubt the things I am going to say or which order I am going to organize the essay in. I try so hard to make sure all my sentences are cohesive and all my ideas connect to each other and the main concept but sometimes it just seems that when I keep messing with one little sentence or paragraph I just makes things worse.
In “Writing to Learn: Writing across the Disciplines,” Anne J. Herrington finds different sources stating that writing is to be taken serious. Janet Emig says, "writing represents a unique mode of learning-not merely valuable, not merely special, but unique” (1) meaning that writing is far more essential than we ought to make it seem. Anne Herrington wants educators teaching in economics, history, chemistry or any other subject to guide their students into understanding why progressing their writing skills will be more helpful to them. At the end of the day, it all comes down to the educator; whether he/she wants their students to use writing as a way for students to adapt to different disciplines.
Before taking Mrs. Hawkins’ English 102 class, I used to hate writing; no, I despised it. Along with my hatred for writing, I, as many other college students, am a terrible procrastinator. In my past English classes, my procrastination had affected my grades, especially when it came to papers dealing with multiple steps and drafts, due to the fact writing takes many timely processes to
As these few tales reveal, my memories of writing are strongly connected with the intense emotions I felt as I grew up. They are filled with joy, disappointment, boredom, and pride. I believe that each of these experiences has brought me to where I am today. I can only look to the future and hope that my growth will continue, and my writing will reflect those changes within me. As a writer, I have grown immeasurably and will continue to so long as I can find some paper and a pencil.
The process of writing papers can be very frustrating. You must first get your ideas together. Getting your ideas together can be one of the hardest parts of writing because you could possibly not know what di...
I have always been an artistic person, and I saw writing as another way to express myself artistically. Many students my age hated to write but I never saw it as a burden. I carried that passion throughout high school and continue to enjoy it in college. My junior and senior English teacher, Mrs. McGhee, had the biggest impact of my writing skills. She was always a tough grader and always made sure to elaborate on our mistakes. She is the reason I became such a strong writer. She and Anne Lamott have similar personalities. Lamott states, “It’s not like you don’t have a choice, because you do- you can either type or kill yourself.” Mrs. McGhee hated excuses. She expected her students to complete the tasks that were given to them, but, of course, high school students always complained and probably rather kill themselves than write a paper. She constantly motivated her students to work hard and complete their work to the best of their abilities. I cannot thank her enough for the impact she has had on my academic
Habits of the Creative Minds is a simple textbook with a particular twist. I began reading the book thinking it was going to be a basic textbook, but the author,Richard E. Miller and Ann Jurecic, changed the tone of the book and put it into a metaphor. This metaphor was about the reader in your writing, or for anyone reading should feel like Alice in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The reader should be reading, and figuratively fall into the reading, by this the authors means the reader should not want to put that book down. They should be engulfed in the book and read from cover to cover. The attention must be maintained and the best way to do this is by making the writing unique. The authors of this book puts