justyourregularstudent

[justyourregularstudent]

How did I become a better writer, (and how can you)?

an FIU student, then search no further. ENC 1101 with Professor Diana Anaya has proven to be one of the highest rated courses you can take according to the notorious website, RateMyProfessor. Here, you can find dozens upon dozens of reviews providing detailed feedback on both the materials that are covered in the class, and information on the professor herself coming from real life students who have experienced this course first-hand. Those of you who need a little bit more convincing can be assured along with the site's ratings and opinionated reviews, we will be discussing some tips and tricks the professor provided us with during this semester that house improved all writing for the better.

Below you will find the reviews posted by several of her former students:

Source: https://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=2463121

I can personally attest to the influence this course has had in my own writing and would like to add that not only students from FIU you are welcome to partake in these techniques, but writers of any kind that seek to improve their skills as well.

[justyourregularstudent]

Technical difficulties?

When it comes to writing, it is not unusual to come across what we all know as “writers block”. Whether you are a professional author with years of experience and published best-selling novels, or a 13-year-old middle schooler recently hit with the urge to release all your angst into a Wattpad fanfic, you are not unsusceptible to the obstacles that the writing process may bring.

You can spend an entire day dedicated to sitting in front of your computer free from distractions in the attempt to maintain your focus on your work, only to realize at the very end of the day that little to no progress has been made.

You’ll keep trying to add more and more to your paper, knowing well that the ideas you are forcing out of your head sound like nonsense, and is making the page less salvageable. At this point in time is when you realize, you’ve run out of ideas

Many believe that clearing yourself from any and all distractions will allow you to better concentrate on what you're writing. What they fail to realize is that in reality, you would only be hindering yourself from creative thinking.

How can we solve this?

For this reason, the professor introduced us to the famous author Allison D Carr, Adam Grant, and Anne Lamott.

[justyourregularstudent]

Part 1: “Getting out of Writer’s Block”

One of the very first sources Professor Diana Anaya provided her students with was a text written by Anne Lamott, “Shitty First Drafts”. In this text, Anne describes writing as an extremely difficult, tedious, and emotionally draining profession. She writes about how a lot of the time, writers get lost in their pieces and lose sight of their purpose. She says it greatly differs from how huskies “find themselves bounding along like huskies across the snow.”.

Anne advises aspiring writers to write down whatever they can during their first draft, whether it is legible English or not. She recommends not to worry too much about your first run-through on your piece, and to focus more on getting the main idea on paper. Once you’ve got that down, go back and make revisions on any grammatical errors, expand on your explanations, and add more details to your text. This will in turn save you time, effort, and headaches.

Anne personal technique encourages us to:

o Start with your “shitty first draft”, write whatever comes to mind on paper.

o Go back, revise/retouch that draft, make it legible English.

o Try using different mediums like colored pens to help you annotate things you would like to remove or fix.

o Then finds a place you would like your second draft to continue and repeat this process.

One idea that Lamott introduces in this narrative is how in order to really prevent yourself from writer’s block, wasting time, and overthinking your piece is to just forget proper English for the moment and get things on paper. As long as you do this, you have all your ideas in front of you when you go back to revise.

[justyourregularstudent]

Part 2: “Embrace Failure”

In Allison Carr’s book, “Bad ideas about writing”, Allison reveals what the typical writing process looks like. She provides the readers with insightful pieces of advice along with many literary techniques we can include in our text.

Accept and embrace failure.

Carr explains how although failure tends to hold a negative connotation to its name, it is imperative in any kind of work in order to spark creativity or innovative new ideas. She reveals all the endless ways failure is an empowering art that only progresses toward one's goal.

“To fail willingly in writing is to be empowered by the possibilities that emerge. It is to trust oneself and one’s ideas, a quality too rare in the age of hyper-achievement, in which the only progress that counts is progress that moves up.”

How does it work?

Allison Carr begins to describe the grueling process we all know as “writing”. Putting our thoughts on paper. We start a draft, get frustrated, sidetracked, stuck, or find out halfway through the paper we're actually interested in writing/researching something else. In the end we move to a clean sheet of paper and start again, where the process continues until we have made something cohesive, something that works.

o When one approaches an activity (especially in writing) from a trained mindset on failure, it leads to possibly one of the best writings you can set on paper.

o One can become empowered by the limitless possibilities and that emerge during the process of failure.

o There is an integral connection between failure and risk, creativity, & emotional and cognitive resilience.

o Failure leads to discovery, whether it be self or in writing.

What we may have labeled as “failure”, the act of scrapping what we have and starting over, is in fact the most productive thing we could have done with our work.

In order to make our pieces as successful as they can be, Carr proves how the embrace of failure created a perfected, ultimately better end product that would have otherwise never come to be.

[justyourregularstudent]

Part 3: “Procrastination”

If you continue having trouble with writer's block or just can't find a way to make it all cohesive, PROCRASTINATE!

Another thing I was introduced to while taking this class was a speech performed by Adam Grant named, "The Surprising Habits of Original Thinkers". During his lecture, Adam Grant explains how striving to come up with new and innovative ideas takes time and willpower. Although this is true, grant seems to put more emphasis on the notion of giving yourself time in order to come up with better ideas.

Essentially, during his speech, Grant talks about the reason why procrastinators are statistically more creative than precrastintiors. He talks about his study on both kinds of people, revealing that those who tend to procrastinate allow themselves more time to think of new ideas, and come up with new creative techniques they can later use in their work.

People who tend two work closer to the deadline, but still allow themselves room to submit their assignments are known as “Originals” (as Adam Grant likes to put it). He claims Originals are, "quick to start, but they're slow to finish”.

Why does this work?

During his lecture, I was taught that allowing myself time to fail numerous attempts, can lead to a spark of creativity that can change my entire piece. It:

o Allows you to produce more ideas

o Allows room for improvision

o Encourages unexpected breakthroughs

“Procrastination gives you time to consider divergent ideas, to think in nonlinear ways, to make unexpected leaps.”