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What I loved about “Becoming a Writer” and “Shitty Drafts” is that Diaz and Lamott reassured me and reminded me that there is no pressure to write a perfect story in the first. Like on pg. 2 of “Shitty Drafts”, Lamott says, “Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts” and she goes on to talk about how it’s okay to not have a perfect first draft because there’s no such thing as the perfect first draft. What also stood out to me was when she said almost no author starts writing their new story and instantly writes it with perfection. With Diaz, he goes on to explain how it took him a decade to write his novel and that was really reassuring me. I have always struggled right away to write a good story no matter how wonderful the plot or the characters are in my head and I always feel pressured to write it perfect on the first try. I just need to remind myself that my story is not going to be perfect on the first draft.
ReplyDeleteWhenever I was reading “The Bath” I was really confused what I was reading about and it almost felt like I was in the Twilight Zone while reading this. I actually wasn’t sure why I was confused, but when I read “A Small Good Thing” I realized that this story had a lot more detail than “The Bath” and I instantly was piecing together what I first read to the second reading and I thought that was pretty cool.
Megan Cavazos
I appreciate the reassurance that it is normal to have a bad start when writing. Anne Lamott’s advice in “Shitty First Drafts” to just spill out everything that comes to mind and then refining later was so comforting. Hearing from a professional writer that they will turn up with what they consider a big mess as a first draft and then slowly chipping away at it, making it better and always improving it is good advice for a new writer like myself. Back when I wrote short stories and idea pitches, I would turn just empty my ideas out on a document, leave it alone, and come back and try to salvage it or get rid of things I felt were unnecessary. I was not publishing these works so I was able to take my time with it. On that note, Junot Diaz anecdote about his decade long struggle with his work helped cement that these projects take time and that it will not be easy to finish these projects. I know for a fact that I will not give up on a project but I know not to linger on it if I am burnt out or the passion is not there. With Lamott’s mentality, I would keep writing away from something on the backburner, take a break from it and do something else and maybe I will find that spark. When that spark hits and I decided to come back to an old work, I will have had improved since then since I had kept working on new ideas and not dwelling on this old project. I am very excited to start working on my writing this semester after reading these excerpts.
ReplyDelete“The Bath” and “A Small Good Thing” were very interesting interpretations on the same story. Each with their own executions lending to different tones and emotions. “The Bath” felt more cold and indifferent, the author not even referring to the characters by name outside of dialogue. It was still gripping and the ending being ambiguous leaving the story sticking with me afterwards. “A Small Good Thing” adding more meat to the story, setting, and characters, giving me a clear idea of who these people are and the situation at hand. “A Small Good Thing” with its extra details and a more conclusive, expanded ending resulting in a more bittersweet resolution but hopeful.
-Marc Fuentes
"Becoming a Writer" has this cynical and bitter tone to it that I can't help but pay attention to it. The stubbornness the author has, and the fact that this slump has been going on for years and yet still has the power to continue writing is pretty amazing to me. While I don't have any shortage of ideas boiling in my head, this passage gives me hope that even though I may not write the high quality work my inner critic demands me to do, I can still consider myself a writer. Perfect stories are not what makes the writer, which is why I also appreciate "Shitty First Drafts." It's a struggle to get the first draft since I want everything to be perfect on the first try. It's eye opening to know that even the most experienced of authors learn something new about their own works as they write their first draft. And "What Editors Want," it's rather eye opening about the job of editors. I guess I was always under the impression that everything the editors read were always different, and to extent I'm not wrong, but they always run into repetitive mistakes that can make the job seem dull. They're generally not reading to enjoy it, but to mark down the flaws of magazines or books and polish them to a nice shine. And with high quality works, editors take intensive care to iron out the details.
ReplyDelete—Airam Sandoval
In previous semesters I’ve read “shitty first drafts” it’s a good way to remind yourself that writing doesn’t have to be perfect the first time around. That’s one of the things that hinder my writing & i blame on “writer’s block”. When in actuality I just don’t have the PERFECT thing to write about so I simply don’t write anything at all. “Becoming a Writer” was a reading that i really enjoyed, there have been many things that I’ve begun to write, and seemingly abandoned...because they weren’t the perfect first draft, bu after reading this reading, I want to go back and revisit some of these stories. In the moments that i started writing them, i felt attached to them, they were like children, and I’ve slowly but surely forgotten about them. The author captures pretty well the emotions that I’ve gone through ad probably will continue to go through, throughout my career. No one said it was easy.
ReplyDeleteIn “What Editors Want” I was surprised to find out that some writers ego’s are so big that they would complain about which order they were in a literary magazine. I don’t know how often something like that would happen, but I was shocked that it does happen. I enjoyed the “last advice” from this reading also. I’ve always liked the idea of starting my own magazine. A friend of mine wanted to start on as sophomores in high school but we obviously didn't know the first thing, I’m not even totally sure where the idea was sparked from, but it sparked for a reason (: Maybe that’s an idea to go back to.
Aisha Teegarden
There were several things I liked about each of the readings because of how each was in common to what I felt was the writers personality. In chapter 13 of the book, it talks about learning how to fail better. When I read through it made complete sense to me because that is technically what we learn to do. We write a piece of work get it critiqued, then write it again, in a sense we are failing at the final draft but we are failing with better ideas that change what we initially wanted to do. The other reading I liked a lot is "Shitty First Drafts" because within the reading Lamott kind of compares writing a first draft to a child. You make a complete mess of it because you are just typing out everything you feel about this particular plot and it helps you. From this first draft you find the little odds and ends that you find interesting or the ones you find that were so surprising but you liked them because they were out of character for your writing. In the reading, "The Submitter's Dilemma" I felt like it wasn't going to pertain much to myself but after reading it had a change of heart. When Tuch lists the main steps of how to pick a magazine to submit a writing for all the steps were very similar to either how someone could write a new piece of writing or how one could choose a genre for their type of writing. All the readings were very interesting and even though I may not read them again they were pretty relatable.
ReplyDeleteNatasha Zarate
I like how “The submitter´s dilemma” teaches where to look up to be published. This is a 40 something course and as I get closer to graduation I start thinking, what am I supposed to do after? I´m not saying that my writing is worthy of publishing yet but that is good to know the options I may have. At the same time I enjoyed “Shitty first drafts,” it reminded me that there´s no perfect writer. We are all trying to learn and become better with time. I also appreciate being reminded that no matter how much experience of time have I (or anyone) been writing, to make mistakes will always be allowed. It takes time to master a skill, but sometimes some skills will take a lifetime and may never be perfect. But to not give up is important. Just as Diaz says in “Becoming a writer.” I like how he opens up and explains to the reader his struggles to show that is completely normal to not being able to keep going sometimes. Also, the emphasis he puts on not giving up is motivational that needs to be given to young writers more often since most of the time is the people that we relate with the first ones that discourage you. To be reminded that consistency is important even when you are not having immediate results gives some kind of hope and inner peace.
ReplyDeleteYazmin Sanchez Cortez
The differences between "The Bath" and "A Small Good Thing" were quite interesting to me. In "The Bath", there's a great sense of unease and uncertainty. The baker is antagonizing, the couple doesn't seem particularly close, Scotty is supposed to be fine but is clearly not in a good condition despite the doctors claims. I had to reread it a couple times to make sure I wasn't missing anything due to how vague the information is, along with an ending that makes the reader feel that nothing will go quite right. "A Small Good Thing" exands a lot on the former and gives readers the grim closure of Scotty's condition while also not making the baker appear as antagonistic. I felt it was clear in "The Bath" that he was only concerned with the transcation and was unaware of Scotty's condition, but the early line about him examining Ann's lips did not paint him in a positive light. That same line is not present in the latter story, and it's much clearer that the parents aren't considering the baker with their mind on Scotty. By the end of "A Small, Good Thing" the reader can feel for the baker as he realizes that as much as the parents don't know what goes on in his life, he does not know what just transpired in theirs.
ReplyDeleteI did enjoy the more personal anecdotes within "Shitty First Drafts" and "Becoming a Writer". Definitely give aspiring riders a bit more hope, showing that the worship and imagination of successful writers as they "take in a few deep breaths, push back their sleeves, roll their
necks a few times to get all the cricks out" as Lamott puts it, is just about never the case and that they all struggle. Compared to the information give by "Editors" and "Dilemma", which is very good advice and should not be ignored, but does come off a bit as making a list or cliche responses.
-Nathan Smith
I thoroughly enjoyed “Shitty First Drafts” because it doesn’t just show what writing really, it’s comforting to know that it’s alright to get stuck. The mere fact that someone has justified writing something absolutely perfect from the get-go is great. Also, the author wishing bad things on people who do amazing work on the first draft is the energy I love to see from a writer. In “Becoming a Writer” was also quite comforting to read especially because it’s such a raw look into what being a writer actually entails. Junot Diaz’s long struggle with writing past those initial 75 pages is very familiar to me. Except for me, it is not 75 pages, but 2 pages of a paper I did not choose to write and is a requirement for a class. I digress but moving on to write for other ideas is something that also doesn’t work out for me most times so there’s another thing I have in common with that paper. All in all, I’m just glad to have read something that validates writer’s blocks and talks trash about perfect writers. I sure am not one of them and I would not like to be one whatsoever.
ReplyDeleteMonica Olvera
Shitty First Drafts spoke to me on a personal level, in that the only way that I can ever write anything is to write whatever pops into my head first, then I’ll take my pen and scratch out anything I don’t like, and add my little notes, and I’ll repeat the process over and over again until I feel like I can’t make anymore changes. I also identify with Junot Diaz’s Becoming a Writer, because in my younger days, when I had dreams of being a fiction writer, I would also come up with these story ideas that sounded really good in theory but could never finish. I would write a few chapters, then let a friend or family member read them, and more often than not, they would tell me that they were good and that they couldn’t wait for the next installment, but I was never able to finish anything because anything after the first thought was just never good enough. I spent so much time conducting research for my stories, because I wanted authenticity, but I could never come up with an ending. This is what essentially pushed me into considering a profession in research. I loved the research aspect of my writing, and I enjoy the fact that with research, I am almost always able to reach a conclusion with my papers.
ReplyDeleteAreli Garza
I must say that I loved Junot Diaz’s memoir on becoming a writer. I loved his piece especially because I feel like every writer can identify himself with at least one of the things that he wrote about. I feel that at some point everyone feels lost. Like they’re actually meant to write something but their mind completely blocks their intentions. It happens a lot to me. I’ve had amazing ideas for stories, but then it’s so difficult to transfer those ideas into paper and turn it into an actual story. A lot of people fail to understand the difficult process behind crafting any type of story, either a short short or a full novel. I love how Lamott described shitty first drafts in her piece. I love the fact that she talked about how no great writers write an elegant first draft. They all go through a similar process as any other normal writer would, which makes me feel a lot better. Now I know that even the best writers have to go through struggles in order to get a very good draft. After all, I don’t think anyone is born with the perfect talent that enables them to craft beautiful and perfect first drafts.
ReplyDeleteIvanna Zamudio Trevino
I always liked knowing that I was not alone whenever I am writing my first draft. I have been writing the first draft of my novel for almost eight years now and sometimes I wonder if I have anything good to write at all. But when I am writing my story, it is nice to know that it is okay to just left my thoughts run wild. A lot of what I have read just reaffirmed what I have learned through writing this first novel. It is okay to have a horrible first draft and to just let all the words fly on to the page and to just let the characters do whatever the hell they want until I figure out what the hell they are supposed to do. I felt really connected to Diaz's because sometimes I feel like all my ideas are for naught that that this may be the pinnacle of my creative ability but just thinking that consistently going back to my work and workshopping it over and over and over again is what qualifies me to call myself a writer is a very comforting thought. I also really liked the Submitter's Dilemma because it gave a lot of good advice about where to get started. I think one thing that is very difficult about being a writer is that you have no place to start and there is no one there to really guide about how to break into the market so I really liked this article because it was essentially a how to guide on how to get your name out there and how to get started.
ReplyDeleteTiffany Joissin
It is globally known that everyone needs a shitty first draft to create something great. It is nothing anyone should be discouraged about. However, it can still feel mentally draining when it comes to writing a story that may not come out instantly the way you planned it. We get stuck in our head and question if what we are writing is even good or not. It can even make the writer feel lesser than and insecure about the strength in their writing. However, we all need to keep in mind that we all start with a shitty draft. It can take time to fully put one’s vision down into words.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed how in “The Bath” we were as clueless and confused as the parents were. We don’t get any real information about what is going on with Scotty. The doctors say that he is fine, but from what we can see, he is clearly worse than what the doctors and nurses are claiming. This story showcases the anxiety and uncertainty that is ruining through these parent’s head without really explaining how the parents are feeling. Which is also what is making the reader feel those type of emotions too.
Angela Milan