Let’s Get this Paper Started

            Starting off a paper is always the hardest part of writing for me.  Even now, as I finally have a topic in mind, I find it difficult to find the right wording to get my paper started.  I need something grabbing that will hook my readers into my paper; I need a hook.  Why do I need a hook for my paper?  I never thought about hooks before in high school so all my papers then had boring and uninteresting beginning sentences that I am sure gave my teachers a yawn.  I started thinking about hooks my sophomore year of college, through my education classes.  In education, we have to write a ton of lesson plans and what we usually have to do in the beginning is use a hook in order to interest the students into the lesson.  Usually the hook would be some fun game or activity that either introduced what the lesson was that day or reviewed their previous knowledge.  This is just a way to interest or “hook” the students into the lesson and concepts they would be learning.  So after hearing about this hook for my lesson plans, I started focusing it more into my papers.

            To me a hook in a paper is just what it sounds like; just imagine a big hook that reaches out and grabs the reader, pulling the reader into my paper.  That is what I need to start off my papers, but how do I find this?  How can I find a sentence that will intrigue all, no the majority of my readers so they will want to read my paper?  When I start trying to write a hook, I give up on trying to appease all my readers because I know their opinions will differ on liking or disliking my hook.  A normal writer, in my mind, would be able to pull out an interesting sentence out of thin air and start off their paper in a wink, but that never seems to happen to me.  I usually just spend a long time just staring at my blank Microsoft Word page waiting for the light bulb to click on in my head, surrounding it in a halo of light and ideas.  Unfortunately for me, it takes a long time for this to happen, so I just stare, stare, and stare some more at my laptop until I finally wring some interesting hook from my mind.         

            After all this time is spent on finding a somewhat decent hook, I have to finish the introduction paragraph of my paper.  Getting this introduction finished is always the hardest part of writing the paper for me.  I know a lot of people struggle with the beginning of their paper, but they usually skip that and work on the body paragraphs before going back to the introduction at the end.  This is something that I cannot do.  I need to write my introduction; I need to start with it.  I need to be able to write the introduction first because it is my guidelines for the rest of my paper.  The introduction tells me my final thesis and organizes my paper into the main points of my argument, which I need in order to know what to write for the body of my paper.  Maybe if I found time to outline my paper beforehand, I would be able to skip the introduction paragraph when I start struggling with it and go straight to the body.  Although, I usually do not outline my paper because I procrastinate writing it until the last minute where there is no time to create an outline.

            I wish starting off papers came easily to me, but sometimes my lack of confidence in my writing ability freezes up my fingers.  When I know other people, like in my creative writing classes, will be reading my papers my mind becomes blank.  My nerves are a little on edge, even right now, because I know the entire class will be reading this paper.  I know my peers just critique my work and they are never mean about what they thought needed change in the paper; I know.  I have had plenty of writing workshop experience.  Although every time I start writing, I get nervous about being judged or having my paper criticized.  I worry that my paper will never be up to par with all the other English majors or talented writers in the classroom.  Whenever I listen to others read aloud their papers or in-class writings, I glance at my writing and deflate.  Everyone else’s papers usually sound so much better than mine.  They are so detailed and sometimes abstract, just so creative.  Then I look at mine and wince at my word choice and worry if my sentences are descriptive enough, because usually I write straightforward and simple.  My nerves hold me back on starting my paper because I want to find the right word choice to start off my paper and when I cannot find those words, I freeze up.

            Even though I love to write, my lack of confidence really does hold me back.  I cannot even pick out specific topics for my papers because I am afraid that it will not be a good topic and no one would like it.  For this paper, I could not figure out what I wanted to write about because the topic of our “writing process” is so broad that it took me a while to figure it out.  I could not think of a good topic that I could write a lot about that my peers would like to read.  After a while of waiting and thinking with no or little results, I was prodded by a friend to try freewriting and see where my ideas took me.  I decided to give it a try, even though I do not freewrite that much because Elbow recommends freewriting so highly.  Elbow said that freewriting was a way to get all your ideas out of your head.  I wanted to try to get all my ideas about my writing process out of my head and onto my paper.  I mean, why not try it?  I could not think of a topic at all, so I decided to try this freewriting thing.

            My topic for the freewriting was very broad, “What about my writing process do I want to write about in my paper?”  I wrote two times for about five or so minutes each, or until I decided I needed to stop.  It was definitely a little difficult to write because I had to keep thinking of ideas to write and I could not stop writing.  There were a few times where I wrote in my freewrite, “What should I write?  What should I write?” because my mind was blank at the moment.  I did get a lot of ideas out of my head and onto my paper, which made me think that freewriting was helping in considering topics for my papers.  I was able to look back at what I wrote and I found a lot of different ideas I could write about.  Many of my ideas were about what I needed improvement on in my writing process, like I procrastinate a lot or I need to use more details in my writings, but I thought this idea about having trouble finding a topic and starting out my paper stuck out the most throughout the freewriting.

            I thought freewriting worked well for figuring out a topic for my paper.  I do not think it would help me actually start out a paper unless I was talking about my ramblings or in freewriting itself.  This means I would not just complete a freewrite and then stick it in my paper.  I would need to edit it.  Take out the bits of information that are important for my paper, that give it the meaty substance, and cut away the fat pieces that are not useful in my paper.  I did use freewriting in my paper to expand my ideas because when I did the freewrite, my mind thought of every possible idea it had about my writing process and I was able to make connections to different points.  I knew I wanted to focus on having trouble starting off my paper, but then I also realized - during my freewrite - that not being able to think of a topic is also part of my original topic.  I was able to connect these points and expand on my main point as well.

            Freewriting has helped me a little with this paper and I hope this class can help me work on these problem areas I have in my writing process.  I know fixing a lot of these problems fall on myself, like building confidence in my writing so I do not worry about the class reading my paper and so I will not freeze up when writing a paper out of fear of what my peers will think of it.  We have already learned how to freewrite and I believe that it will be beneficial to me with finding a good topic.  I plan on using freewriting more on a daily basis, just to get my thoughts down in a journal and practice it.  Hopefully I will learn more writing techniques that would help me come up with topics for my papers and find ways to help me get my paper started.

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