I wonder how many times Anne Lamott wrote "Shitty First Drafts" before finally deeming it "safe" for human consumption. Likewise, how many times did she write "Perfectionism" before she decided it was "perfect", or accepted the fact that nothing is. How do you ever know when your writing can be deemed "acceptable"? I think the answer correlates directly with the deadline. As Leonardo da Vinci one stated, "art is never finished, only abandoned". My writing is definitely not art. However, I do know when it is "finished", and that is when the syllabus says it is.
As for my process, I like to bump some creative hipster tunes (Paper Kites Pandora), put two comfy chairs in the library together in order to make a makeshift bed (crib), and check all social media and emails at least three times, before starting a paper. I do this with no prior planning, or sense of organization. I just get everything on the page, slap on an attractive title (teachers love attractive titles...I think) and give it a couple days to hang out in the nucleus of my computer, with all of the other papers and homework assignments that are forgotten for a week. Then I read them a week later and am either really happy, or really sad. Most of the time, I determine the paper is complete shit and end up rewriting it late into the night before it is due. It ain't perfect, but it works. And like my grandmother always says, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". Thanks grandma!
As a side note, and conclusion, apparently Vonnegut said, "When I write, I feel like an armless legless man with a crayon in his mouth."After reading this, I am going to have a hard time not imagining Vonnegut exactly like this. Just a torso and head with a crayon in his mouth, making marks and shapes on a page of white paper that look like a four year old's art class portfolio. However, to Vonnegut, these shapes organize the mess inside his head, allowing him to decipher a book that will be analyzed by college students for a millennia.
On a side note, this is one of the funniest videos I have ever seen. Hope you all like soccer!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F9jXYOH2c0
I love the personality you put in this blog post. You are honest and funny and I really enjoyed reading it. I also think you incorporated some amazing quotes such as the one stated by Leonardo da Vinci. I liked how you brought up the idea of how do we really know when our papers are ready? When are they "perfect", if that is even possible? It is hard to have confidence in a piece when you are unsure if it is 100% "ready". Overall great piece. Loved the tone, the humor, and the honesty.
ReplyDeleteI also have a habit of using the deadline to mark when a paper is finished, though I'm starting to wonder if that results more out of laziness and procrastination than anything else. I typically put off doing the assignment until the last possible second, which means I don't have as much of a choice as to when the revision process ends. I think its possible that if I were to follow Lammott's advice and continue a process of rewriting (which would involve starting much sooner than usual) its possible that I could for once see my paper as complete days before it was time to turn in.
ReplyDeleteI think the part of your writing process to let your paper sort of marinate in the "nucleus" of your computer is a really important part of writing and is often skipped over because of the stress of time. I, for one, almost never do this though I always plan to. It really allows you to detach from the paper and read it the next time with a much better gauge of the clarity of the piece, which is arguably the most important aspect of an essay.
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