Blog 14

To define a writing process by dictionary standards is simple it is “the specific steps used in writing; choosing ideas, pre-writing, drafting, revising and editing, proofreading, and publishing the final version.” Yet to define it in the terms of a working thing that one uses in their own literary pursuits is much harder. A simple superficial definition will not suffice. As it would leave out crucial things that make it possible to understand what it is that truly makes up a writing process. My writing process for things that I find interesting such as my books is complex and a mixture of emotion and logic. While my process for things that do not interest me like academic essays is a simple logic based method.

Logic plays a part in both of my writing processes but the part it plays is very different. In my academic writing process it is the main part of each step because it has to be. All the guide lines are given to you and logic is what makes it possible to fulfill those. In my Psychology paper I wrote last semester I was given the topic sheet and criteria outline. The only way to complete the paper was to use logic I had to demonstrate my knowledge on the topic given and fit that demonstration to the criteria to receive a passing grade. Logic allowed me to look at the assignment and complete it to the fullest because I carefully chose what information to put in and what to leave out. While in my creative writing I only use it in a few steps when I need to be detached from my writing so I can pick out what needs to stay or go. Logic is only present when I edit because this is the crucial stage in writing that can make or break a piece. If you leave in something that should have been taken out simply because you liked it could make a piece fail. Where if you look at the situation logically you can easily drop scenes that serve no purpose.

In order to get to the point where I can pick what stays and goes I need ideas first. How I get ideas for my creative writing can be any number of things. Sometimes it can be something a friend says or does. Sometimes it can be a song. Many times in my books I write a whole scene that is inspired by a song. There is a scene in my novel based off the song ‘Your Heart is an Empty Room’ by Death Cab for Cutie. The main character, Luna, is talking to her new ally Lady Hope and their whole conversation centers around the fact that Luna does not love because she has nothing in her heart. Ideas also come for friends and things they do. These ideas from friends often inspire characters and the behaviors that make them unique. One of the main characters in my series, Lucas Cameron of Vayger, is based off my friend Luke. They both act the same in situations and some of the bonds Lucas shares with another character, Jamie, are the same ones he and I share. I find why I put parts of my friends into the characters I write it not only makes them easier to write but to the readers it makes them real. I think to have real feeling characters is the best thing that any book can have because the reader can relate and feel as if they know the characters.

A step that I have sort of made up and branched off of the actual writing is one that I use only in my creative writing. When I get ideas for scenes I often write them out. Many times these scenes are chapters or even books away but I write them anyways so I can foreshadow the events or link it in smoothly. Another part of this step is also writing out extra material such as facts and character profiles that make it easy to keep track of things. The reason that I think this is lacking in my academic process is because when I write my essays I sit down and write it start to finish with little to no interruptions. With the Literacy Narrative once I got the idea I sat down and wrote out the whole easy in an hour and a half without any breaks. It is just easier to sit and write essays start to finish because you have a set of rules that need to be followed and you cannot stop to think about what you can add to make it better because that would deviate from the criteria.
We all start writing young. But I do not acknowledge the beginning of my writing till the summer I started to write my book series. Because that summer was when I really started to develop a solid writing process. Before then writing was simply putting words on a page for a grade. But that summer I started to truly write. Now I have been writing for almost six years and my process has changed quite a lot from my early days. The part that has changed the most is my editing. When I first started I wrote in notebooks so I tried to edit as I went along and I was convinced that it would be enough. As I wrote more though I realized that editing while writing was a bad idea. It left too many holes in my work. The true editing revolution did not start till I began to type things. When I traded paper in for pixels I started to see how fantastic editing was. So my editing process is just about as extensive , if not more so then my gathering ideas and writing. As for my other writing the process has changed as well, but not in a good way. Somewhere along the way I started putting in less effort and found that I still got the same grades so I now put the minimal amount of effort to get the grade as opposed to actually outlining a school essay before I wrote it.

Trying to really figure out which part of my process works and which does not is a little hard to do. I can try to analyze how I use it but the fact is I use every step every time. It has become a habit to use each step so I do which makes it hard for me to pick out which one works the nest or what does not work. Perhaps I am looking at this the wrong way. If I look at each step to see which one perfects my work the most I think I would find which one works and which does not.