Reading Responses

What part of the writing process do you think is most misunderstood?

When talking about "the writing process", I feel like we teach it in a very odd way in schools. It's taught as if there is one, rigid way to write when in reality what's most optimal for any given person is going to vary in a rather extreme way. Even in "academic" writing, you'll be hard pressed to find two people that have the exact same planning, work schedule, writing style, etc. etc. Even before the advent of the national downtick of literacy and ChatGPT, I've noticed a certain "soullessness" in a number of writing assignments that I've had to review over the years. I wonder if writing was taught less rigidly, and students were allowed to explore different writing styles and techniques/perspectives, how much better would the overall quality of those assignments be?

When you’re drafting, do you tend to stop and edit frequently, or do you prefer to write freely and revise later? Why do you think that is?

Is both an answer? Most of the writing I do, I sit down and churn out the entire document in one sitting. But at the same time, I'm constantly editing and rephrasing what I'm writing. I couldn't tell you exactly how much editing I do in the moment; I don't even think about it anymore. My particular strategy has been honed by a combination of internalizing the idea that writing should flow as conversation would, as well as the "all or nothing" strategy my untreated adhd developed as a result of needing a sense of urgency to get any work done, and comleting it all at the last minute. A habit I have definitely kicked by noowww, haha... ha...

Trying a New Writing Strategy

Identifying your writing habits or environment

If it wasn't obvious from the background image, I've been struggling a bit with this class for the past few weeks. I've been agonizing over doing work, dealing with being unable to do things until the last minute, and generally just resenting my gen-eds. Taking a step back was a necessity at this point for me to retain my sanity. I thought it might be a good idea while I was doing this to indulge in some introspection to maybe see if I can help myself out here. Largely this just involved identifying when I was most productive and what led to that, as well as when I was least productive, and if I could've prevented it.

For my more productive streaks, they largely happen when I'm either experiencing hypomania from a mood disorder I suffer from, or when I've taken adderal and it actually works. Adderal seems to be sort of a 50/50 proposition, as half (or potentially more) of the time, I fail to correctly focus the energy it gives me, and end up bedlocked focused on a game instead of my work. The entire time, I will be thinking of how I should be doing my work and just be unable to, so "force of will" isn't a super vaild method. Frankly the hypomania seems more "controllable" but my psychiatrist has told me it can result in "LoNg TeRm bRaIn DaMaGe", so inducing that is out of the question. I think it's possible that if I'm already working on the project when the meds kick in, I might be more likely to focus on the task at hand.

Less performant days generally look like not making it to my non-manditory class, and often some of my attendance taking ones. You can imagine that these days are the ones I get the least work done in general, let alone on projects my brain is fighting me on on a good day. In general, these are caused by a lack of sleep the night before, usually brought on by either the afforementioned hypomania, or the failure of the medication I now rely on to sleep to actually make me sleepy. I may look into an additional sleep aide.

Self-Talk Capture

Every damn time I write my brain goes blank and like the same part of a song plays on loop in my brain. That stupid rotating fish I put in the background of my proposal features heavily. (also listen to Clouddrop by Jaime Paige). When I have actual thoughts about the writing, it's almost always "This could flow better" or "I could rephrase this". Do people really self-aggrandize during their writing?