Through out the year I have learned several new things about my writing. Some of these are what I can do and some of these are what I can't do. One of the things I can't do well is reflect. Which means this paper will not be easy for me.
The hardest part of this class was the interview essay. The reason I found this hard was because I am not good at interpreting what people say or asking the right questions. When I worked on the essay I couldn't figure out what it was I was writing on. When I started working on it I thought it was about what the LCM was. However, after the interview I couldn't decide whether it was about what it was or what it did. In the end I made the foolish decision to not write it. That brings me to the second hardest part. Procrastination is my hardest part of writing. If I can't figure it out I put it off till it's too late. Another reason I procrastinate is because I spend to much trying to figure out what to right. When I write I do it chronologically. If I can't figure out how to start it I won't move past that till I get the beginning written. That is my major flaw. I have been told time and time again, write what you can first then go back and add the rest later. One of the reasons I don't do this is because I know if I write the later parts first I will forget to write the beginning. Another reason is because even though I have an open mind I believe that in order for something to flow together it must start at the beginning and continue along that line.
Because of that way of thinking I have another problem, going off on tangents and not always making sense because of it. For example in the third essay I wrote “Is the old testaments right and the world and all the creatures created in seven days or did we evolve to who were are over a course of approximately four billion years and with the story of creation being a lie. Hold on a second there is another theory I left out, that the story of creation was written down almost one thousand years after Adam and Eve.” In this case I jumped to a third possibility of thinking without addressing the original question. If I had not gone with the flow of my thoughts, I could have added just one more sentence that would have allowed for better reasoning and basis for my point. In the revision of my essay I set a better flow into the Adam and Eve portion of the statement: “But if you look at the information on the original text you will find, that the story of creation was written down almost one thousand years after Adam and Eve.” By putting in that portion in I instead pointed out a fact related to both theories instead of jumping off them and seeming to go off topic. Another way I could have fixed that would have been actually going back over it and revising and editing it. That is another thing I have trouble with.
It is my belief that while I am thinking about what I write I constantly edit and revise what I am going to put in. With this line of thinking I forget to go back over my essays and revise what I see instead of what I think.
Enough about what I can't do well. There are plenty of things about writing that I can do. The strongest component I have is coming up with a topic. The topic may not always turn out well such as was the case with the 4th essay where I did not get the point of the essay and it turned into a horrible paper. Yet with my other two essays, I was able to come up with topics immediately and both of them worked out. When given the prompt of a narrative I was unsure what was wanted. Was it supposed to be a personal narrative or something other form of narrative. I knew I was best at writing down fiction but I didn't want to get the topic wrong. That was when I remembered when I had thought about some of my stories. By using that personal memory I was able to incorporate both what I was good at and what the topic that most likely fell in line with the prompt.
Another thing I can do is come up with the data I need to find to make points. When I wrote my persuasive essay I had most of the facts I needed for the paper. However there was one point that I lacked. I lacked information on the great fish. I had discussed the subject of Jonah with others several times. Every time we came back to the fact that it never said whale. It has always been assumed that it was a whale. With a little research I found that there was a creature at the time of Jonah that could have swallowed him for 3 days then spit him up.
I can also figure out when I have nothing else to write. Such as is the case now. I find it hard now to reflect and see what else I can write on. I guess I don't have many strengths unless you count rambling. Some times you just have to know when to stop.
