My Writing Process

As a child, I wanted to write about anything and everything.  My writing process was simple, spend all day dreaming about a universe crammed full of unicorns, robots, world peace, space, time traveling, and anything else I could imagine.  Writing was the biggest all-you-can-eat ice cream cone that you had the power to create any time of the day and never run out of.  My current writing process, procrastination, tends to force choosing between that ice cream cone and an A+ essay.

lunamarina "Girl Eating Ice Cream with Dirty Face"

My perspective on writing still has hints of that overwhelming enthusiasm for imagination, but I often had to leave it aside in order to get the grade and on time.  One can't write a fictional tale about women superheros saving puppies and the world when you have an hour to write about whether or not the US decision to become involved in the Congo was beneficial to the country's stability.  

Timed essay writing brought a lost sense of purpose that diluted my great love of writing and transferred into procrastination.  I progressively started writing papers that were just good enough.  The first draft was the only draft and guaranteed that draft was written in that allotted time period or at 3AM the day before it was due.

Like most procrastinators if I'm devoted and passionate about a topic, I spend a significantly higher time on planning, drafting, revising, and rewriting.  I am a sequential composer at heart, but I tend to thwart myself through the art of running myself to the ground by committing to an overwhelming amount projects and passions.  I've been known for wanting to accomplish far more than is physically possible for a human.  I was that kid who wanted to be president of the universe, discover the new clean energy, achieve world peace, and be an ice cream maker on the side.

When I accomplish laying out my commitments in a feasible manner, I can spend any where from a solid couple of hours to a few days developing just the right subject matter, finding the exact order to present the information, and drafting powerful sentences or quotes to focus on.  I love experimenting to try to find that perfect outline for an essay and form the perfect argument.  It's my personal goal to find that happy medium of being able to time manage an essay to the point where I have time to bring out that imaginative toddler version of myself.

I believe that choosing the sequential composer writing style is most definitely the beneficial path to follow for at least my college writing life.  I can't say the procrastination will be totally eliminated - as it was a solid 4 to 5 years in the making - but for the purpose of becoming a better writer it is important to proactively stop procrastinating.

2015-2016 Writer Improvement Outline:

I.  What type of writer do you consider yourself to be?

      - I am a current procrastinator who consistently wrote papers in the shortest possible amount of time after drafting an outline such as this and spent little time on revisions.

      - I am also a sequential composer who loves spending an equal amount of time on formatting structure, ideas, and revising.

II. Is your writing process similar to the listed approaches?

Procrastination:

- I wait until the night/morning before to write or finish writing a paper, which only continues the cycle of lack of sleep.

- I only created one draft with minimal time left for revision.

Sequential:

- I spend an equal amount of time on all on forming ideas and executing them.  I also require having everything I want to write written down to control how much my thoughts wander.  If I do not have enough time or am unable to plan an essay, I tend to try to incorporate all of ideas and risk quality of my argument.

III. Strength and weaknesses?

      - I often did not remember what exactly I wrote in the previous paragraphs as I had to speed write the following next 5 paragraphs.

      - My writing did not develop past the AP writing style.

      + I always managed to complete essays in record times, with about a 20% rate of good essays.

      + I did become adept at breaking down an article or question quickly and establishing an argument, as it was necessary to be fast when a paper is due in a few hours.

IV. Conclusion

      - Procrastination effects sleeping, eating, and in general functioning as an actual living breathing comprehensible human.

      + Writing as fast as possible has little to no benefits while planning and actually enjoying writing is proven to lead to sleep, great essays, and allowing for a little imagination.

      + Planning your writing can lead to tasteful witty and punny writing, which is always a positive.

      + I did my time being stressed and creatively wrung out, changing my writing to more of a sequential writer will only benefit me.


Reflection:

Upon reading Landon and Michael's posts I gained two different perspectives.  My procrastination is not uncommon but it is also possible to be confident in your writing process while still being human and having a degree of procrastination.  I will never be able to eliminate procrastination from my life, but it is important for me to have a solidified writing process so I can improve and adapt.  I will make plenty of mistakes, but if I have a solid plan to improve, I am more likely to become a better writer.