Describe My Writing Process

My writing process has always been a frustrating one. I like writing, but I don't think I'm very good at it. When I was younger, I loved letting my creative side shine by writing silly stories and pretending I was Stephen King, using words that I didn't even understand. My dad read me Shel Silverstein's books of poems and and drawings. Those books inspired me so much to write and to draw and be creative on a blank sheet of paper. I also loved writing in elementary school when there were no requirements. I could write about anything I wanted, and I got a good grade just for trying. However, now that I’m writing important papers for my classes that really matter now, the innocence of my childish writing doesn’t cut it anymore. Now there’s problems with my sentences and words, this paragraph needs to be longer, and I’m not allowed to put a comma here or
there. I am forced to write about things I don’t understand or care about and I think that’s when my writing died. I no longer feel creative or like I am thinking like I should be. Instead of being honest and writing from my heart, I feel the need to edit my work excessively and how I think in order to get a good grade. I’m just worried about being correct, like a robot. I lost my sense with words and sometimes I crave putting them down on a piece of paper but I feel like I no longer know how. I have so many thoughts in my head but the words are never there. I try sometimes but get so frustrated and give up. So when the time comes to write a paper, I usually can write out a few ideas on the assigned topic and do some brainstorming exercises, but I always end up staring at my blank computer screen after a few sentences. I recently learned to free write, which I think helped me get my initial ideas onto the paper, even if in an unorganized manor. Howard writes that free writing is “the first thing that enters your head and then continuing to write nonstop for ten to fifteen minutes or for a set summer of pages.” She then goes on to say that to be useful, it must be “fast and spontaneous” (20). I enjoy that fast pace and nonstop, rapid thinking that goes along with it. It gives me a quick burst of creativity and confidence. Freewriting only gets me so far though. Once I have to clean it up and start developing my paper, I start to question myself after every word I write. Then I seem to push it off until the last day and stay up all night stressing myself out because I don’t know how to write the paper. I go through many steps of frustration and writing down a lot of sentences, then deleting a lot of sentences, and doing that over and over again. It is a very unpleasant experience. It’s not unpleasant just because I waited until the last two days, but because I am probably being forced to write about something I am not passionate about. I once wrote a 5 page paper about the differences in subject matter between Baroque art and Modern art in just a few hours, but only because art is what I am passionate about.
I knew what I was talking about, and I could just spill the information onto the paper. However, if I am writing about pretty much anything else, I feel like everything I am writing is not good enough. I get stuck after every sentence, kind of like I am right now. It’s hard for me to have a lot of opinions and things to say when I don’t know much about the subject. It’s hard for me to write about my writing process when I don’t really even know what my writing process is. I’m not confident in my writing so I am always questioning myself. It’s so frustrating thinking about getting a grade back on a paper I have recently written only to see a very mediocre grade. For the most part, I put my all into that paper and of course it’s not the best thing ever written, but I tried my best. It’s so discouraging and makes it even harder to write another paper, especially when all I can think about is that I’m probably going to get a bad grade on
it. Being a perfectionist, I don’t like doing things unless I can do them right, and I think that’s why I struggle with writing the most. If I’m not the best, I usually quit. I would like to think that my work isn’t as terrible as I’m making it out to be, but to me, it might as well be. I feel that most other people my age feel this way and share the same attitude when it comes to writing. After talking to my peers about writing, they seem just about as frustrated as I do. For the most part, almost all the people my age don’t feel confident with writing, and question ourselves constantly when having to write for an assignment. Once I finally have enough to meet the minimum requirements, I am usually so tired that I barely have the will to proofread. I reread sentences over and over again, trying to think of how I can make them better, but to no avail. I will read over it usually once to make sure my grammar is understandable and I have the correct punctuation, etc. and then I hesitate, but am forced, to turn it in. I always feel relieved whenever I turn a paper in, but probably only because I am finally done with the stress brought on by the paper, and it is no longer in my hands. Now, my writing process has ended. Yet, the dissatisfaction repeatedly carries onto the next assignment. Reliving the same frustration that cumulates from paper to paper, building up time after time, I become more and more frustrated. I one day hope to end this cycle of frustration, hard work, and disappointment. I would love to learn to write great papers while avoiding all the trials that constantly seems to relate to my writing process.