Best of Week: Story Fragments

What a free and abstract assignment this was. Perhaps this was what made it so easy and fun for me. Writing this year has been such a difficult process for me, and i'm not exactly sure why that is. Not long ago, i was a very smooth and efficient writer who could whip out paragraph after paragraph in some of the best written word. I don't know what happened to that version of me. Perhaps it got bogged down in a series of difficult writing assignments and edits.

But in any case, to make a long story short, whatever happened turned me into a writing perfectionist- the kind who often spends hours on the first simple introductory paragraph. It's almost like I can't write without inspiration. A single paper may take up an entire day.

So perhaps this assignment freed my mind, in a sense. My instructions were to "go crazy" with writing and not to worry about the revisions. Revisions would come later.

And so i completed my story fragment with my own personal tale from the heart- and it only took me 1 hour to complete it. I wrote whatever popped into my head, and despite how awful it sounded when i read it, this method of writing seemed a hundred times more efficient than revising along the way.

I just can't believe that I actually write like THAT sometimes. It's common knowledge that you're not supposed to actually revise while you're still coming up with the rough draft of an essay. It messes with the writer's train of thought, wastes time, induces writer's block, and the paper usually has to be revised again anyway.

So perhaps i should try to write freely more often. I need to organize my ideas, puke them out onto paper, and THEN revise them. I must develop a new writing process. Writing the story fragment helped me see how effective this new process really is. I'll definitely try to do it this way from now on.