Journal #6
(Image: fall leaves in range of colors, green, yellow, red)
Change is inevitable in life and writing is no different, however, it’s important to note that change is something that we all fear at one time or another. While these new writing techniques are exciting to implement they can also be concerning at times. Changing the way one does something can be a fearful thing to do. What makes me more nervous is that the new changes will cause me to adapt and within that adaptation fail to achieve a better writer status and improve. I fear that my relationship with writing will go from strong to weak. The process is not as labor-intensive as I thought, I have always been one to draft multiple times in my writing to make sure it is perfect or at least as close as one can get perfect. Of course, writing as a pursuit, by nature, is always labor-intensive when done correctly. For example, I always like to think that a writing assignment will take me days not hours because multiple days mean multiple mindsets allowing for you to reflect on the work you have done. This allows me to see my work again as I edit and revise my draft. Yes, it takes a while but I was always taught if you do a job do it right.
If I was taking this course and thought my writing was perfect then why take the course at all? Having an open mind to criticism of your work and especially the process in which it is done is key to becoming a better writer. Without an open mind courses like these become superfluous to becoming a better writer. Writing takes time no matter how you cut it. If there is a process that is presented in this course that takes more time then I will gladly do it because it’s better to do something right and take more time than to rush and get it wrong.
Planning and revising have their place in writing but there are times where these steps can be overlooked. For example, freewriting on a piece of paper for ideas or for expression doesn’t really require much planning or revision. However, this doesn’t mean that planning and revising are not critical to the writing process. I would advocate that a large majority of writing requires planning and revision for the sake of virtuous writing. For example, I’m sure if I wrote my first writing assignment in this course without any revision or planning it would be a disaster juxtaposed to writing an assignment with planning and revision. In writing, there is a time for everything, a time to be creative, constructive, and critical. The key to writing is having the ability to see the process and execute it properly, even if that means it takes longer than you thought it would.