In this weeks blog post I will be reading and giving you a somewhat of a summary into the writing process and I will also be getting advice from three authors Don Murray as well as Mary Karr and Finally Anne Lamott and they will assist me in my knowledge and yours of the writing process by using quotes from their pieces to help explain it and to set the scene I will be doing it as having a conversation with them via twitter as there is no possible real way for me to met all three authors at the same time.
Everyday when I just want to see what’s going on in the Twitterverse or see what my friends are up to I will go on twitter to hangout and just relax on there and one day after just talking scrolling through the time line seeing the normal sports related stuff, politics and all that I see something rather interesting something I had never seen on the timeline before or even knew it existed it was a page dedicated to the writing process like for example a funny joke or a quote would pop up from some unknown authors who just write for fun but then there were the very few actual famous authors who would add their takes on the writing process and how they viewed it in their writing careers. There were three individual authors that had said something about the writing process that made me want to take a closer look into their careers and those individuals were Don Murray, Mary Karr, And Ann Lamott. So as any normal person on twitter would do I sent each of them a message because I’m just a college student trying to figure out the writing process myself so I figured I wonder if they could maybe assist me and help me understand the writing process so I can use it in upcoming pieces and who better to ask then three people who needed to understand it for a living to thrive. I start by asking Don Murray what I should do to better understand the writing process and how to use it effectively in my future pieces, I scroll through twitter some more and then I get a message back from @realDonMurray and he goes in depth to describe what the writing process means to him he told me “The writing process itself can be divided into three stages: prewriting, writing, and rewriting” so I then asked how long does this process usually take for the average writer to complete and make their work better by using these steps and he replied with “The amount of time a writer spends in each stage depends on his personality, his work habits, his maturity as a craftsman, and the challenge of what he is trying to say.” Then as I am finishing reading his points another account joined the fray @MaryKarrWriting and she suggested that Don was somewhat right in his assessments of the writing process and she shared what she has learned to be true about it as well through her years of work “I’ve heard three truths from every mouth: (1) Writing is painful—it’s “fun” only for novices, the very young, and hacks; (2) other than a few instances of luck, good work only comes through revision; (3) the best revisers often have reading habits that stretch back before the current age, which lends them a sense of history and raises their standards for quality.” I then replied back with so through all your years of writing experience you have seen this first hand and have evolved your writing using these tips. She then replied back with more advice for my writing cause sometimes when I write I’m not entirely sure where it is going so she told me this “Let your mind roam down some alleys that may land in dead ends—that’s the nature of the process.” Then out of no where the third account joins the conversation @AnneLamott so I ask her what I asked the other two authors which is how she used and understood the writing process in her writing and what to do when you write or have trouble writing or how to know if you’re going anywhere with your writing and she replied with her techniques for writing and staying calm and focused when engaged in writing “So I just sit there for a minute, breathing slowly, quietly. I let my mind wander” So basically she just relaxes and lets her mind take over and make the decisions for her about her writing. I then asked if she had any advice for being more confident in writing drafts for the piece because sometimes when I write drafts I am not entirely confident when I write my drafts I just feel like I cant do any more to it but know I should and she gave me this advice on how to approach the draft process of writing “Now, practically even better news than that of short assignments is the idea of shitty first drafts. All good writers write them. This is how they end up with good second drafts and terrific third drafts.” Now Don Murray adds something else to Anne’s point about drafts and he says “Don’t look back. Yes, the draft needs fixing. But first it needs writing.” So then Anne adds one last point into this little mini conversation about drafting your writing and assures me that it is ok to make mistakes in the drafting process and says she has seen many other famous authors do the same thing. “I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident. Not one of them writes elegant first drafts.” And also that the first draft shouldn’t be taken to seriously “The first draft is the child’s draft, where you let it all pour out and then let it romp all over the place, knowing that no one is going to see it and that you can shape it later.” Just when I’m about to leave twitter for the day Mary Karr caps off the conversation by sharing something with me that basically means you should never be satisfied you should always strive to write more and write better. “Every writer I know who’s worth a damn spends way more time “losing” than “winning”—if success means typing a polished page that lands in print as is.” I concluded the conversation by thanking them for giving me this information into the writing process and how I can make myself better and more confident in what I write. So in conclusion what I have learned for this conversation with these authors is that 1) “ Just be you and run wild with your writing its ok to make mistakes” 2) “ That I can just relax and write and not have to worry about messing up cause that’s what drafts are for, for you to mess up during the writing process and learn from it.” And 3) “To never be satisfied with your writing you can always do more or do better.”
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Patrick SullivanI will use the blog to make meaning and explore the messy process writing Archives
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