The first writing assignment of the class, now the feeling of panic overcomes me. I have a healthy fear of writing. I always feel like I’m doing something wrong or forgetting how it’s should be done. My writing style, I don’t have one, well unless you call chopping and dull a style. I tend to use the same words over and over. My ideas sound so good in my head but when I sit down to write it gets stuck and comes out all wrong. I never really understood English in middle/high school but I was too embarrassed to ask for help. The only thing in high school I felt I could do well was poetry. The amazing thing about poetry is you didn’t need complete sentences there was no need for paragraphs and no one would complain if you used the same word in each line. The years have passed and the troubles of a teen have long gone I don’t have enough desperation or anguish to write moving poems anymore. Now that I’m 33 I have decided that I want better than simple poems or sloppy papers, so I try a little harder and bought a few self-help grammar and writing books.
Second Person
Panic it has overcome you; you sit down to a dusty computer looking out the window to see leaves falling, school has started. You fear yourself, your writing and the drive to pass this class. Will your writing ever get better? Are you always going to second guess your writing? Will your brain ever tell your fingers what needs to be said? Forgetting high school was something you could easily do, now its time you lose the fear failure. Its time you move forward from the effortless poems to paragraphs and complete sentences.
Third Person
She was stricken by an overwhelming feeling of panic. She is looking past her computer to the fall day outside. Her shoulders slump and she knows schools here. She sits with her fingers on the keyboard thinking what to say, will it come out right? She could sit there filled with self doubt or she could take a deep breath and know her best is good enough. Then the light turned on in her head and she began typing without looking back on the cloud of regret floating away with the leaves.
You do some nice things here. Particularly impressive are the last two entries, where you describe the same feelings and situation but offer subtle differences: graf 2 is just about being 'right' and school, whereas graf 3 pushes harder and looks at the problem from the point of view of personal growth and spirit.
ReplyDeleteThat 'cloud of regret' in graf 3 is especially notable--it is poetic in a way that nails down the whole piece, all three grafs, and loops back subtly (again with the subtlety!) to the hs poet in graf 1.