Writing reflections

In tasked to write a critical piece on myself as a writer that addressed how I got into writing and whether or not I am a good writer the following below had been extracted from a paper written sometime ago on such a subject.

First creating written works just for the joy of doing so beginning as a teenager through dream journals and jotting down random thoughts about life, work and school.

As a "super-freshman" that first semester ever of college, unprepared for academia but ready to take it all in stride I found joy when the partaking in the freshman composition class we were expected to start keeping journals.
With this journal everyday thoughts, musings, heartaches, and exuberance put into words on a computer file that has grown to several hundred pages. Using the journal more as a personal record than anything else, I keep writing in it. The written work in all forms to quirky to be of much interest, does provide a forum for practicing that crucial skill of revision and the always valuable practice of writing.

Inspirations for writing come from looking at the world around me and putting into words what the site of a mountain, a tree or a feline friend mean to me. The world of the mind, the creation of alternate realities we visit momentarily through dreaming serves as inspirations for future written works.

I'll never call myself a “good-writer” though confident in my capabilities writing a variety of decent pieces, such as paper articles, occasional pieces of poetry and short stories, fiction and non-fiction I have attempted to write it all. Much of my writing has been geared to the academic environment that emphasizes more neatly put together works on a given subject using formulas for doing so. And over the years, having attended three different colleges in almost six-years and writing musings of my own for the last eight or nine, my writing just through sheer effort, practice, much revision and having others comment on my writings strengths and weaknesses naturally has lead to improvement, not because I write more and allow my writing to get criticized, but because of deliberate efforts to actually become a better writer.
In reading the last passage, the idea that just writing over and over will improve your abilities, is a bit to simplified, after all continuing writing the same way for a long time does not lead to better writing. Improving as writer is more than just practice it is review, revision and criticism that improves one's writing talents.

As someone with a personality disinclined to continue doing repetitive tasks, which may include writing if the motivation for writing is not there. Once you know how to write for a class, an A for a paper will make you think that, you do not challenge yourself to improve your writing except in areas you may get comments on from an instructor saying what needs to be better done. For myself, and many other writers I imagine, my major holdup has always been, and certainly be for sometime that inability to only occasionally write passionate discourses on a subject, properly edited for grammar and punctuation. Yes, I know and I am conscious of the rules. Arguing that it is easy enough to judge other people’s work is one thing, and once I can look at my own more objectively, it can be criticized more effectively, helping myself as a writer, as well as my fellow writers.

Devastated as a freshman when commentary that my writing lacked passion became clear to me. Unfortunately than and now overall I only infrequently wrote with much passion on a given subject, as many do not inspire me much as they were options for the class. Though doing my best, sometimes scoring extremely well, almost never do I think about those written works with much pride other than thinking about the grades I had gotten. Except one: a short story I had written based on a dream some years ago, I thought would be a great basis for a story, so I wrote a 5+ page paper, turned it in, hoping for the best. Pleasantly surprised it got an A+ with several positive comments written on the paper once I got it back, including “great story!”.

In writing classes, I always sat anxious on workshop days to see whose pieces would be discussed that day.
I'll always feel that workshops have been and always are valuable way to help people improve their writing, as they get a chance to hear people’s thoughts, biased or not, and not just read the professor’s comments on the papers. When getting feedback on my writing, actual critical feedback beyond “oh great piece, later dude” as some peers remarked, inspires me to revise my pieces. The peer review process plays a positive role complementing work-shopping and formal criticism, as it gives writers an opportunity to show that good writing evolves from better reading skills. The two go hand in hand, as you work to show how well you read the paper, and have to show, through effort on your part in writing a tight, to the point peer review. Writing peer reviews, aside from being useful ways to help other writers iron out shortcomings in their own works also serves as valuable practice for the peer reviewer themselves to improve their own writing.

As to the art and craft of writing. All works need some efforts for revision, as no work spilled from the writer's mind is in a pure, readable state. However, every class with a writing component where your writing is up for criticism, and not just grades, always served me well in trying to improve upon my writing skills. Getting assignments to write outside my comfort zones, such as a paper on solitude a subject that pushes my writing abilities outside my comfort zone, creating a challenge to show through writing how much I can discuss on the subject with a level of clarity and focus that has been built up through years of writing, feedback, and revision.

Writings on a Lee and Lawrence play.

Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee most famous for their 1955 play Inherit The Wind, a dramatic retelling of the Scopes monkey trial of the 1920s.

The Wikipedia entry is weak, but a link will be included anyway
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_Thoreau_Spent_in_Jail

The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail of 1970 dramatizes reflections on life Thoreau could have shared with a fictitious cellmate the night in 1846 he spent in jail after refusing to pay poll taxes over the last 6-years. The same incident would prompt him to write the essay “Civil Disobedience” later an inspiration to Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and others who used and encouraged non-violent protest to inspire others to work towards social reform.

Throughout the play, events in Thoreau’s life, portrayed as flashbacks as he talks to his cellmate known as 'Bailey', an illiterate man finding inspiration in much of what Thoreau has to tell him. The familiar aspects of Thoreau’s life and the moral convictions that guided him in his life are portrayed including his relationship with Ralph Waldo Emerson; thoughts and writings on transcendentalism; simple living; the building of his shack on Walden pond; his role in the abolitionist movement; and finally his opposition to the Mexican-American war. When the play premiered in 1970, Lawrence and Lee saw historical parallels with Thoreau’s time. Just as Thoreau questioned material progress in his time, people in the ‘70s questioned whether material, new plastics, and technological progress, better automobiles, computers and such, actually advanced human society. In the introduction, “The Now Thoreau” Lawrence and Lee write about 'Emerson’s handy man' how he foresaw how technology and progress are not synonymous:

“To create a better world, we need to make things bigger, faster, stronger and cheaper. But materialism is not the way. THOREAU KNEW THAT.

He smelled the smog before we saw it.

It smarted his soul before it smarted our eyes.” (Lawrence vii)

The Mexican-American war of the 1840s, well remembered because of an American victory and the acquisition of territories becoming much of the Southwest U.S. faced much opposition during Thoreau's time, over not just the legality and morality, but because it also expanded the power of slave-holding states. Thoreau, an ardent abolitionist became a vocal opponent of the war, thus in 1846 as an act of retaliation, and seeing that powerful people only speak in financial terms, he refused to pay poll taxes that could be used to support the war. Sam Staples, the Concord MA constable, jails him for refusing to pay. This historic scene is illustrated in the play when Staples implores Thoreau to just pay the tax, but Thoreau, in the middle of downtown Concord, adamant in his refusal to pay creates a scene, and is thus arrested. (Lawrence)

Serving as a conductor on the Underground Railroad, Thoreau let runaway slaves stay at his parent’s house on their trek to freedom. (Harding 3) An experience with a runaway slave is recounted in Act Two. Williams, the runaway slave meets Thoreau at his cabin in the woods, at first afraid of Thoreau, but calming down after Thoreau just talks to him as a human of no lesser or higher status than his own and offers to share his cabin and the little bit of food he has with Williams. (Lawrence 80-86) A beautiful scene, it is not Thoreau, the transcendentalist, the non-violent agitator for social reform, it is just Thoreau the man as he puts his beliefs into practice, without ideology or hidden agenda.

A dramatic nightmare sequence showing the horrors that is war, Emerson, his long time friend and unbiased critic, plays President Polk, as he both justifies his war with Mexico, while making others fight it for him. While this happens, Thoreau’s calls for peace and simplicity go unheard, as people march to “HATE TWO THREE FOUR” over and over. He talks to an Illinois congressman who opposed the war:

“I doubt if the people of Illinois will re-elect you, but I shall remember who you are, Congressman Lincoln” (Lawrence 92-97)

The power of The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail is how it portrays, be it fictitiously Henry David Thoreau's life yet does justice to Thoreau's beliefs, speaking well of the everlasting power simplicity holds and that any man, or woman, if they hold true to their deepest moral convictions must be prepared to not only live the lifestyles they promote, but also never forget that they may have to suffer for them, either through jail time, or the criticism and ridicule of those who do not see life the way you do, whether they be blind or just cynical about it. The play dramatizes events in Thoreau’s life, but it is written so more modern audiences can appreciate the beliefs Thoreau, and those who would be inspired by him hold dear.

Works cited:

Lawrence Jerome, and Lee, Robert E. “The Now Thoreau” The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail 1970

Meyerson, Joel ed. “Thoreau’s Reputation” Cambridge Companion to Thoreau. Cambridge

University Press 1995