Today's blog will be quotes taking from three authors processes of writing. I also added my own quotes of my process of reading. All of the quotes are written in a scene as if we are were having a conversation. Setting by myself waiting for my boyfriend to get off from work. "Miss can I get you something," the bartender asked me. I told him I have a Margarita with a sugar rim. While I waited for my drink I looked to my right and saw three people, one man and two women engaged in a deep conversation. I listened to them talk waiting for the right time to jump into their conversation.
The man said to the women, “Prewriting usually takes about 85 percent of the writer’s time. It includes the awareness of his world from which his subject is born. In prewriting, the writer focuses on that subject, spots an audience, chooses a form which may carry his subject to his audience. Prewriting may include research and daydreaming, note-making and outlining, title-writing and lead-writing”, (Don Murray). I took that as my cue to jump in and I said “ when I get ready to write I envision a scene and write it down.” then I introduce myself and ask them why were they talking about writing. “We are coaches, encouragers, developers, creators of environments in which our students can experience the writing process for themselves,” (Don Murray). Oh o.k, so how do you write a perfect paper with no experience? “For me, the last 20 percent of a book’s improvement takes 95 percent of the effort—all in the editing. I can honestly say not one page I’ve ever published appears anywhere close to how it came out in first draft. A poem might take sixty versions. I am not much of a writer, but I am a stubborn little bulldog of a reviser,” (Mary Karr). “Say to yourself in the kindest possible way, look ,honey, all we’re going to do for now is to write a description of the river at sunrise, or the young child swimming in the pool at the club, or the first time the man sees the woman he will marry. That is all we going to do for now. We are just going to take this bird by bird. But we are going to finish this one short assignment,” (Anne Lamott). “The writing process itself can be divided into three stages: prewriting, writing, and rewriting. The amount of time a writer spends in each stage depends on his personality, his work habits, his maturity as a craftsman, and the challenge of what he is trying to say. It is not a rigid lock-step process, but most writers most of the time pass through these three stages,” (Don Murray). Karr, what made you fall in love with writing? “Since I was always interested in how to be a writer, I also gobbled up literary biographies—Walter Jackson Bate on Keats and Coleridge; Enid Starkie on Baudelaire and Rimbaud; Diane Middlebrook on Anne Sexton; Ian Hamilton on Robert Lowell; Paul Mariani on William Carlos Williams. Getting a sense of the person’s time in history often helped me to understand their styles in that context—what literary pressures and fashions and values of the day were forging their pages.” And, what makes you a writer? “Just picking up a pen makes you part of a tradition of writers that dates thousands of years back and includes Homer and Toni Morrison and cave artists sketching buffalo. It’s a corny attitude to revere writers in this celebrity age, when even academics cry the author is dead. Go to any book award ceremony, and we’re like America’s Homeliest Video. We are the inward-looking goofballs who spill on our blouses and look befuddled in our selfies.” Lamott, you do I start a story I’m trying to tell? “There are probably a number of ways to tell your story right, and someone else may be able to tell you whether or not you’ve found one of these ways. The right words and sentences just do not come pouring out like ticker tape most of the time.” I normally, open your mind to a place where you can relate to the topic, this helps me to get started. I also look at writing as if it was a long road trip to somewhere you never been. You know you have to get to your destination, but don’t know how to get there. So, you let your GPS guild you. A few minutes later I saw my boyfriend coming. I thank them for keeping me occupied and all the information. I excused myself and meet up with my boyfriend.
1 Comment
|
AUTHOR:
|