Struggle between the Reader and Writer
My identity as a writer has always escaped my hands before I could lay my finger on it. Maybe I am confused about my identity as a writer because I consider my identity as a reader. Let me explain why I consider myself a reader. I have a passion for books. I started reading at a young age and devoured all the books I read. I read a lot of fantasy books and was absolutely enthralled at the creativity in these novels. The authors were able to create characters and settings in such great detail out from the corner of their mind. Reading these novels made me want to write exactly like those authors. Reading was what made me want to become a writer, since I wanted to try and write just like those authors. That is why reading is above writing in my mind and identity.
That was an early stage of my life, when I still associated the reader and the writer as the same person. Everyone has a reader and a writer inside of them; I mean I am a reader and a writer. I usually thought that since everyone has the ability to be a reader and writer, these two mental concepts were combined as one. I now know that even though everyone has the capability to be a reader and writer, they have to be a reader and writer separately, not at the same time. There is a separation between the reader and writer, which I did not realize before. Maybe that is why every time I tried to write short stories, in imitation of the authors I red, I would not be able to finish them after I reread what I wrote. After reading my creative fiction, I would mentally compare it to the novels I have read. The comparisons were never good for the stories I wrote; my stories just never matched up to the creative genius of my favorite authors.
Peter Elbow mentions the difference between the reader and the writer in his article “Being a Writer v. Being an Academic.” The way Elbow describes the reader versus the writer makes it seem like a boxing match. Elbow explains that the reader and writer struggle with each other to gain control over the text. So you might be wondering why this struggle. What does it mean? The reader and writer try to control the text through the meaning in the text. The writer is the person who places the meaning and voice into the text, which gives the author power over the text they just wrote. What makes elbow upset is when the reader comes into the picture and has to take meaning out of the text. This is where the reader has beaten down the writer in the boxing match and stripped all the power from the writer. The reader has the ability to determine whether or not there is voice in the paper and they get to choose what meaning they take out from the paper, whether the author intended it or not.
Even though I respect Elbow as an academic and writer, I think he goes a little far when saying the reader’s intention is to kill of the author. I do see a power struggle between the reader and writer because there is always a struggle about the meaning of the text. What I do not see is the extreme struggle of the reader trying to get rid of the writer’s meaning completely. My own personal struggle as a reader is trying to figure out the meaning from an article - trust me, we’ve all had those experiences, when the author’s message just flies over our heads. All I’m doing is trying to find the meaning in what I read. If I can grasp the message the writer is trying to convey then I will be more than willing to accept that message. Although, when I hit that struggle with finding that message, I have to grasp whatever meaning I can get from the text. Even when I find my own meaning in the text, I still respect and understand what the writer’s intent was in writing the article.
I believe that readers can take their own meanings from the text, but I do not like how Elbow says the reader takes the meaning from the text without respecting or giving thought to the writer’s voice and the writer’s intended meaning. I am sure there are some readers that do not care about what the writer intended to say, but not all readers are like that. Many readers respect writers and take what they are given from the writer. These readers also respect writers when they can get a reaction from the reader about a character or the plot, whether it is a positive or negative reaction. If the writer can make the readers feel something over the character or message, then they are a really writer good and readers should recognize this and respect them as a writer. I have read many books where I have absolutely hated or loved the book depending on how I felt about the characters or plot. If a writer is able to make me feel so much about one simple character, I would say they are a very good writer.
Now looking upon this issue from my writer’s identity, I do understand how a writer could be upset if their meaning is taken into the wrong context. I understand that feeling when writing a creative fiction story, and I get nervous as others read what I had written because I wonder if they are going to take the same meaning from it that I place in my paper. Unfortunately, I need to face the facts that some people will view it differently from my point of view, but others will understand what I wrote. All writers should realize this risk because all readers will get a different message from the paper. No one thinks the same or pull out the same message from the paper, which depends on their mood and environmental setting. It is something writers need to be ready for when they write a paper or publish an article or book. As long as the readers get something from the text, then the writer has done their job. They may not have passed on the message they were hoping readers to see, but I believe it is fine if the readers are able to take some meaning from the text and connect it with the article. The whole point of writing a paper is to have the reader delve into the paper and come back out with a message from the writer and if the writer is able to accomplish this, then they are a good writer.
Elbow further the separation between the reader and the writer by placing them into different categories. The writers are placed in the “creative writing” and are known as “writers,” while the readers are placed in “academic writing” and are known as “academics.” A writer is someone who loves to write in order to discover meaning, expel their emotions, or communicate through their writing. I think anyone can be a writer as long as they can get their feelings, emotions, and ideas out of their head and onto paper. An academic loves to read and get information from books and figure out the answer to tough questions. Elbow explains he wants his students to be a balanced writer and academic, but that is hard for students to attain.
Not many students can feel like writers and academics because it is very unattainable. Where does that place you and me, as academics or writers? I consider myself to be more of an academic, no matter how much I hate the sound of that. I would like to think I am a writer because they are creative and have a passion for writing, and I do not think I have a love for getting information from books or answering tough problems. I do not feel that kind of passion for writing, like I do for reading. That is why I place myself in the academic group, because I love to read. Reading is my passion and I have not transferred that passion over to writing yet. I like to write, I just do not have a passion for it yet. Being placed as an academic might be why I have a reading identity and struggle with my writer’s identity. I believe most students would place themselves with the academics because it is what we know, what we were taught throughout school.
Throughout school, I was taught how to be an “academic.” We had to write our papers with strict format and were told not to use “I” in our paper. Putting in “I” would make our papers personal, so we had to lean how to hide our voice. I wanted to place my voice in my paper because it was my opinions, but I had to keep it hidden, like a subliminal message, since you could not see it but know it was there. My teachers did not want us to show our voices or use our opinions because we are supposed to argue a point in our paper, and use other sources and academics to back up our argument.
Although, David Bartholomae would object to this definition of academic writing, because he believes that academic papers should not discuss topics we already heard from. Bartholomae wants new topics that have not been covered before by other academics. That is nearly impossible because almost every topic has been covered before. As academic writers, we use other academics to support our argument and disprove the arguments of others. Academic writing, no matter what subject it is on, is prevalent throughout the schools and overrun the creative writing classes in school. Look at all the literature classes there are to take and the few creative writing classes that are available. The sudden change from academic writing into creative writing can be difficult for a lot of people.
The change from academic to creative writing was difficult for me. I do like creative writing, but after being taught and drilled to use academic writing, it can be hard to find my own voice, and my struggling identity as a writer. That is why I have a hard time finding my identity as a writer because I have not been given the freedom to write how I please in papers. I cannot write the way I want to write, but the way academic discourse tells me to write. Being controlled by those restrictions makes it harder for me to write about limitless broad topics. I like knowing what my topic is, and having to pick a topic from a broad category can be challenging for me and others as well. I am usually more comfortable using academic discourse since it is what I have learned the longest and been influenced with the most.
If possible, students should try to combine their creative, personal writing with academic discourse. Students should find a way to express their voice in their academic papers because that will make their paper stronger. This is a strong hurtle to overcome, but finding a way to place your opinion in a paper will make it a very interesting paper. Academics are good at finding information to back up their argument, but writers are good at stating their opinions about the argument. A good paper will show the writer’s argument and their opinions about the topic and research that can back up that argument.
The separation between readers and writers is growing, especially since scholars like and including Elbow has placed them under two separate categories. If it is possible, students should try to find their identity as a writer and reader because both are important. I know they are in separate categories, but they depend on each other; you cannot have one without the other.
Filed under Final Papers | Comment (1)Poetry as Expression
As I trudge through a little over two decades of memories cluttered throughout my mind, I wonder which one of these memories include something significant that happened to my writing process. Questions flutter in my head: “What part of my writing process has been affected, the actual writing process or the thoughts that go behind the writing? What is affecting my writing process?” While examining these questions with my memories, I came to the decision that poetry has had a significant impact on my thoughts and ideas about writing.
Why poetry? I love to write, I really do! Creative writing has always been my favorite to write, but poetry has never been on that list. When I was younger, I used to read a lot and through reading I began to write creatively. I read a lot of fantasy books and was consumed by the creative ideas and details the authors use in their texts. I was so excited by this creativity that I wanted to create my own stories to show my own creativity. I started to write a lot of short stories, but they were usually only one or two pages that I could never finish. I just did not like the way the stories were going and when I compared my work to the author’s that I read I lost some self confidence in my pieces. They were nowhere near as creative as those books.
I still want to express myself creatively, but I wonder how I can express myself through my writing if I feel self conscious with my fiction writing. How about poetry? But what do I know about poetry? It is so different from regular fiction and I do not have much experience with writing poetry. I guess the reason I don’t know much about poetry is because we do not learn or write much poetry in school and I am personally intimidated by poetry. I know that might sound silly. Why be intimidated by some short lines that rhyme? Well poetry to me is more than that. When I think of poetry, I think of something abstract that has so many layers of meaning that I can never figure out what the poem actually means. I guess with my straightforward writing style, I just feel like I can’t write that abstract or layer my poem with meanings. Even though I have not had a lot of experience with poetry, I have had experiences that shape my views on poetry.
I rack my brain, trying to think of one of my first experiences with poetry. Images flash through my thoughts: star, yellow, pigtails, song. It’s a picture of me when I was about 3 or 4 years old and I was the North Star of the Nativity Scene in a Christmas play held in Monterey, California. I was wearing yellow footy pajamas, a big star on my back, and my hair was in pigtails. I’ll be honest; I looked absolutely adorable in that picture. This picture was the base of a poem I wrote as a junior in high school. I started writing my poem about me being a star, the Christmas Star that is.
I was only three and already a star
Of a Christmas play in Monterey, not far.
And when I say star I say it literally;
I was the cutest star that ever could be!
That is a part of my poem that I wrote. I was so proud of it when I wrote it. It took a while to start it, as it always does for whatever I write. The words began to pour out of my pen and onto my paper, only hesitating when I was trying to find a rhyming word. That’s why I was so proud of my poem, I found good rhyming words for it and it was such a cute poem! It was one of the few poems I have ever written and I was really happy with it.
Looking back at this poem and others, I realized that I liked to rhyme my poems. I know they did not have to rhyme, but back then, they were not considered poems to me if they did not rhyme. I also realize I wrote very literally I my poems, but as I said before that is my writing style. I cannot just change it to make it “abstract” just to write a poem. That changes my writing style and hides my voice from the readers. I guess I also just assume that writing poetry in a literal voice shows my attempt at writing poetry, compared to the professional poets who are able to write abstract poetry.
This viewpoint of “abstraction” in poetry I had was changed as I took an Intro to Creative Writing class. This class is split up into two different sections (which I did not realize as first) into creative fiction and creative poetry. I was fine with writing fiction because it is what I am used to, but the poetry part scared the crap out of me. One, I do not write much poetry and was not expecting to take a class on creating poems. Two, I did not want other people in the class to read my poetry. And three, I thought everyone would be able to write good abstract poetry and mine would look bad next to theirs.
When I first stepped into the poetry class, I remember one of the first things my professor told us. He said “Poetry is not abstract.” What? That was completely the opposite of what I had always thought of poetry. What does that mean poetry is not abstract. Well, he explained to us that if poetry is abstract, then the reader gets confused because there are no concrete details. Poems need details just like fiction (which I now notice as true, but then did not realize). I was surprised about this information because my mind was still molded around the idea that poetry was abstract. I was happy because I am better at writing descriptions instead of being abstract because that was not my forte. I was not as scared about writing poetry after that lecture because I can be descriptive, just like writing a fiction story but in a poetic form. Now this would be the time to put up an example of part of my poems, but unfortunately I do not have any of the poems. They were on my old computer’s hard drive, but after that computer crashed on me, it took with it a lot of writings I composed for my college classes. This class helped me realize that I can write poetry and gave me confidence that I can write good poetry as long as it is detailed.
I was able to use some poetry as a way of expressing myself through prompts in these classes and I was able to use whatever style of poetry I wanted, which was usually a poem with lines of different lengths that rhymed in couplets (aabb) or every other line (abab). I just needed to write detailed poetry about the prompts I was given. Even though I thought I understood everything about poetry then, I had an eye opening experience with poetry when I took my poetry seminar class last semester. Ironic how the class I only took because I needed a seminar would be significant for my comprehension of poetry.
To tell you the truth, I don’t know if I would have taken this class if I realized what it was really about. I just assumed that it was another creative writing poetry class where we just wrote poetry and shared it with everyone. In a way it was; we did have prompts and got to write poems and share them with the class, but we had to write the poems in strict form. I have never written a poem in strict form. That means we had to focus on the meter of the lines and each line had a specific length and stress pattern and either rhymed in a certain way or not. This class made me extremely nervous! At that time I wasn’t even sure what meter was! The only poems I had ever written were without form, so this was very different and pushed me out of my comfort zone.
The wind blows softly, leaving cold remains
Of loneliness which lingers on my cheeks.
The creaking wooden swing is rocking back
And forth. Companionship is what it needs
In order to find its happiness. Leaves
Fall, dance, and play with loving friends down on
The playground. Twirling leaves from up the trees
Lay memories in my mind.
Swinging high,
This was part of our first poem. That had to have been one of the hardest poems I have ever written, well this poem along with the rest of the poems I had to write for this class. This prompt has us write a blank verse poem. I did not know what blank verse was, but I found out it was a poem that was written in iambic pentameter (line with 10 syllables and is unstressed then stressed) and does not rhyme. The poem was different for me because I had to focus on the actual length of the lines and find the stresses, and also because it did not rhyme. No one usually does well at something they are uncomfortable with the first time. What my professor had us do first before we wrote the actual poem in order to help us out with the poem was to write it in prose first before we wrote it in poetic form. That way we could get out ideas out and understand what we were going to write our paper about, so we don’t have to worry about our ideas and can focus on the form.
I had an extremely hard time writing this poem, especially since I had not written a poem in strict form before. I liked how it did not need to rhyme because after you start focusing on iambic pentameter you don’t want to focus on anything else, including rhyming. That made it a little easier for me when writing this poem. What I really had difficulty with was trying to decide what syllables were stressed or unstressed. I know the stressed depend on how the person reads the words/sentences, but some of the words I just could not tell if they were stressed or unstressed. I cannot even begin to tell you how many times I was saying words out loud trying to hear the stresses. My friends made fun of me a little bit every time I did that. I guess it is pretty funny, but it was the only way I could somehow hear the stresses. That was what I was worried about after I turned in my paper. I was afraid I had placed the stresses in the wrong places, but luckily when I got my poem back my professor said I did pretty well with the iambic pentameter, which made me happy and boosted up my confidence in that class.
Rapunzel torn from earthen home, my eyes
are they deceiving? Some intruder not nice
is stealing from me. Thief I curse your first
innocent child to me, so you hurt
forever. Crying, after one year along,
has reached my ears; a baby girl is born.
When looking at this section of my poem, you probably think this is a blank verse poem. Does it look like the last words in the lines rhyme? If I was reading this poem before taking this class, I would have said it did not rhyme, but now I know that they do in fact rhyme. They are slant rhymes. When my professor explained slant rhymes to me, I just did not understand what she was talking about. I had no idea what a slant rhyme was or how I would use it in a poem. I finally ended up rhyming the vowel sounds together. So in these first few couplets, I rhymed together “eyes” and “nice,” “first” and “hurt,” and “alone” and “born.” With each one of these slant rhymes I found the vowel sounds and then found a rhyme. Even though it took a while (it always takes a while but even more now that I had to do slant rhyming) I was complimented by my professor on my use of slant rhyme. She liked most of my slant rhymes, which feels really good because I had never tried it before. I actually enjoyed slant rhyme more than regular rhymes because there are more words that can be slant rhymes than regular.
Even though this class was a lot harder than I expected, I began to understand the concepts behind poetry and learned the strict and unstrict form of poetry. All the classes I have taken in writing have been turning points for me. They all influenced me in some way with my poetry. I know that my poetry is detailed poetry that can rhyme, slightly rhyme, or not rhyme at all, and may or may not use strict form. Poetry is now another option I have of expressing myself through my writing and showing the creativeness of my mind.
Filed under Final Papers | Comment (0)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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