Reflection Paper

My philosophy on writing is that writers can’t be generalized; every writer is different in what they write and how they write. They have different thought process, different ways of jotting down their big idea, different critique, and different audience. There are writers whom can finish their first draft within few hours at some café. Meanwhile there are writers whom can take days or even months to piece together their first draft. Some even go to extreme measurements to write their stories as mentioned in Kent Haruf’s,  “To See Your Story Clearly, Start by Pulling the Wool Over Your Own Eyes.” Some writers are just good at writing romance novel like Nicholas Sparks and some writers are just good at breaking the rules of writing, for example, Tim O’Brien. O’Brien in his short story, “Things They Carried,” breaks the rule of writing by just basically listing what soldiers carried in his story. Personally, I work better under pressure and I write better when my story is about teenage dreams as suppose to something with actions.

I agree with Walter Mosley’s essay, “For Authors, Fragile ideas Need Loving Every Day.” Like Mosley I believe everybody has a story to tell but they just don’t know how to start writing. Mosley’s solution to getting our story out is by writing everyday. He writes, “It doesn’t matter what time of day you work, but you have to work everyday because creation, like life, is always slipping away form you” (Pg. 163). It’s inevitable that we as human beings are going to forget out our thoughts from the past.  But the only way to prevent that is by doing what Mosley suggests, writing in your journal everyday. By doing so everyday, we are going back to those thoughts, dreams, or events from the past everyday. Everyday we are reviving our memories and save it from vanishing forever. Additionally, if we need ideas for stories, we can always look back in our journals as a source of ideas with details. I think the concept of writing in a journal everyday is very beneficial and awesome because it can serve as a source of ideas while saving our memories outside of our brains.

I agree with Alice Hoffman’s Sustained by Fiction While Facing Life’s Facts,” because I also believe that writing is a way of escaping our crazy everyday life. She was a writer before she was diagnosed with cancer and she continued to write because what she was looking for, “…during ten months of chemotherapy and radiation was a way to make sense of sorrow and loss” (Pg. 98). It’s understandable why people would want to write for multiple reasons. Andy from the short story, “Big Me,” created his own imaginary world because he wanted to escape the tightly knitted suburban life. I like the idea of writing to escape the real world because my writing is where I can pour out my heart. In my imaginary world I have the power to do whatever I please. I can be whatever I want, change anything I want, be anywhere I want, eat whatever I want, possess any talent I want, there is no limit to I can do.

I agree with two of Hilma Wolitzer’s, “Embarking Together on Solidarity Journeys,” because I also believe that you are not alone when writing a story and that constructive criticism is the best part of writing. I started believing that writing is a solidarity work when she wrote, “The writer’s head is mobbed with characters, images and language…” (Pg. 263). It’s true, if you think about it, you have these characters in you head acting their role, which contributes to how your story is structured. We have our conscience and the conscience of the characters guiding us, telling us what doesn’t make sense and how we should fix our mistakes. Similarly with constructive criticisms, we get feedback on how we should better our stories. The reason why constructive criticism is important to her is because, “Everyone must be aware of a fellow human being behind the work being discussed, and criticism has to be useful, not just derogatory or laudatory.” We can’t be offended when someone doesn’t like our story, because we have to be open-minded when writing otherwise we might as well just end up being something regular, like doctors and lawyers. I believe being dogmatic doesn’t get us far in life especially in writing, because if we are too suborn to accept anybody’s opinion than our writing piece is not good enough to be published or deserve A.

However, I strongly disagree with her last paragraph in which she states that, “…talent is a prerequisite for the future professional,” (Pg. 268). I don’t think talent is necessary for future writers anymore because in the twenty-first century, anyone can make the New York’s best selling author’s list. Apparently as all the Disney channel show’s protagonists can sing, similarly anyone can sell books. Lately, celebrities have been publishing their memoirs and it’s not by chance that they get a book deal because they have so much talent to show the world, but because they are famous. Therefore, I conclude that talent is not a prerequisite for future writers because the world we live in today is very different from the world it used to be fifty years ago.

My goal for next semester is to find my writing position. I want to see how and where I can work to my best ability. I want to experiment writing in different places such as B2, under my staircase, in my backyard, in the train, etc. I think once I find my writing my position, I can work much more efficient because usually for me piecing together my first draft has always been a big traffic jammer. But if I find my writing position, I know I can work much faster and that would allow me to better edit my work and get my work done in shorter amount of time than before.