How I Write

Since this blog is supposed to be about how I write, I think it's fair that I include a sentence or two about where I write, so I will let you know right now that I do not like to write in our computer labs at school. There's something about sitting in the sickly, grayish-yellow glow of the florescent lights, sliding around on those germy, blue chairs, and trying to get a thought transferred from mind to screen while listening to the obnoxious and distracting sound of 50 other hands tip-tapping away on keyboards (keyboards that often have reduced-sized backspace keys!) that really does NOT float my writing boat. For this reason, it took me about fifteen minutes to actually start this blog at school, leaving me about five minutes to type this paragraph out. There goes the bell. . .

I'm at home now and quite comfortable in my dimly-lit, often over-heated office. In this environment I am pretty set to jump into any writing assignment, which, honestly, is exactly what I do. I generally don't do outlines for formal writing if I don't have to. I feel like they slow me down. I understand that it's smart to organize your thoughts before hand, but why not save yourself the trouble later and put them into complete sentences? And why not slap 'em into a Word document while you're at it? It's so much easier for me to type out everything I can think of in a way I may actually feel comfortable turning in and go back to fill in the gaps later than it is for me to make an outline chock-full of gaps. It's worked for me so far, so you can't blame me for sticking to it; it's human nature to do what's worked best in the past.

Not only do I just plunge into writing, I'm also very likely to be writing based off of what I would call a Kohler faucet idea. Stay with me now--it's not so strange (well, maybe it is). You know those commercials where the husband and wife go to a fancy-pants architect and the woman says,"Design a house around this," and whips out a Kohler faucet? My brain does the same thing with ideas. I whip out a sentence or even just a set of words and tell myself, "Ali, design a paragraph around this." If it's a good enough idea, things usually just flow out after that. (Ha! Unintentional faucet joke!)

Sometimes, when that sentence or set of words is not school-related, I don't need to design the paragraph. All I need is to get that one thought out, and I'm usually willing to do that regardless of where I am or what I was just doing. If there's a napkin close by, a receipt in my bag, or room left on my hand, I'm going to write on it. It's the best way for me to deal with having something to say and no one to say it to. I've got a box in my room full of these must-document ideas and a journal too for the more serious, doesn't-quite-fit-on-a-gum-wrapper thoughts that also regularly assail my unsuspecting mind.

I suppose these habits of mine sort of align with Romano's idea of gushing--essentially hurdling anything and everything you can think of onto the page. However, I felt that I could relate more to Dr. Romano's advice when he gave it in regards to revising. Romano writes,"Read aloud. Feel the words in your mouth. Listen. Your sense of how language should sound is a great ally. You'll hear when words make music; you'll hear when they're discordant." This is exactly how I think about this revision technique (spot on, Tom!), though I sometimes take his words in the literal sense by attempting to actually turn my writing into music by "singing" it out loud as opposed to reading. Not only does this keep me engaged with my work (and anyone in earshot very entertained), it also helps me notice when the things I've written don't flow nicely. If I can't get through it with some kind of rhythm, there's a good chance that someone is going to have trouble reading it (especially considering the high probability that I keep terrible rhythm :) ).

Other than the fact that I struggle writing conclusions (often resulting in work that ends abruptly), I think that's it.