The Writing Process

When I begin writing I think about the prompt or the problem I am trying to to tackle. For me, at first, this means getting it down. It does not matter how chaotic or ridiculous it may be; as long as I have words down, I am better prepared to move on. Sometimes this part even seems scary because I feel clueless until I actually force myself to right something down. I took this advice from Anne Lamont‘s book Bird by Bird. She has a title entitled “Shitty First Drafts” and this spoke to me. I wish I could use it to teach my high school students, but I think (because of the title) I am just going to have to teach it in a more round about way (maybe white out?). I would love to quote from this book, but I unfortunately have borrowed it to a friend and have not received it back; however, I do encourage all to read it. She is brilliant.

After I have gotten some words down, I will go back and pick out sentences that I feel address my problem best or are the most interesting. In an article entitled, “Cognitive Process Theory of Writing” by Flowers and Hayes, they might say that the process I have taken thus far is goal setting that is interconnected with discovery (15). They write, “And it is this sort of goal-directed search for the unexpected that we often see in writers as they attempt to explore and consolidate their knowledge. Furthermore, this search for insight leads to new, more adequate goals, which in turn guide further writing” (16). I believe my process is a “search for insight” and that by doing this I will continue to have more elaborate, sophisticated goals. It starts out as a simple goal and turns into a cyclical process of writing that, hopefully, will address my initial question.

I read from an author, Natasha Lester,  who speaks about her writing process. She is directed more toward creative writing, but I believe she has some valuable insight. Her ideas on writing are not far from mine. The main point is to start with an idea. Goals (as Flowers and Hayes suggest) will build onto each other. Experienced writers are able to adapt and balance goals to create a cohesive, understandable piece of literature. However, I do believe that writing for online purposes is different. I believe that online writing is much simpler and may be less cyclical than writing a story or an academic essay. I think that with online writing, ideas are the body, we may look at it and revise wording or sentence structure, but then we hit “publish” or “tweet” and we don’t necessarily come back to it. I think that online writing (such as blogging) is a way to get out valuable ideas that Lester suggests are so important.