My Writing Process

*The following is a rough draft of a paper I have written for my teaching writing class. The purpose of the assignment is to reflect/describe my writing process. Thoughts and comments appreciated!*

Never the End

As we age, undoubtedly our lives see some progress. Evidenced in nearly all areas of our lives, progress takes a special meaning for me in the development of my writing process. Although many people claim rectilinear progression in the development of their writing process I claim an elliptical progression that has brought my process, not quality, near again to its origin. Most especially I claim this as truth relative to the “pre-writing” and “revision” portions of my writing process. But more than simply the process I go through to write a paper, I see writing as a process to be admired without a finish.

In the beginning is the topic. Then along comes the writer, and sometimes good things happen. As a second grade writer the “pre-writing” steps always involved charts, forms, and other nonsense to fill out in an attempt to teach “the” writing process, and how to coherently develop arguments. The authority then read and commented on the nature of these forms offering praise and guidance to the beginning writer. While well intentioned, this methodology irked me as a second grader because I felt it a waste of time. Some what ironically, my current writing process has “developed” similar patterns to those taught so long ago. Now almost without fail as I sit down to write a paper, some form of it is subjected to the “authority”, of the internet. That is my “pre-writing”, I let the people of the internet look at my paper in its most unpolished form, and amazingly, like the teacher's insights, the ideas that come from other peoples can help rework a paper to its perfection.

Then after receiving input and depending on the state of the paper, it needs active writing and some polishing. Back in the second grade almost all of the polishing comes from a draft submitted again to the authority (and occasionally your grammar centered mother). Now I print my own drafts, read them out loud (try to remember all of the grammar rules), and send another copy to the internet. Although currently more of the process is independent, than in the second grade, the crucial element of a second set of eyes has never left.

Thus the elliptical nature of my progression has returned the process to the origin of the progression, another set of eyes. Not only does the bug principle apply to the origin of the progression, but it also serves as the theme to the progress. For me the steps to this writing process does not the paper make, but rather it is that theme of letting orther people into your process and seeing it as a product in and of itself. That matters the most to me. No piece of writing is ever truly finished, every piece should start a conversation, continue a conversation, but never finish one.