Elbow

My approach to writing is as follows. The first draft I write with my heart and the second with my hand. This may sound cliché but I found it’s what works for me. In the past like many others, I’m sure, I would try to write the first draft perfectly. If I couldn't I felt as if I failed. It wasn’t until much later through experience, common sense, and the help of some awesome college professors that I realized that trying to compose perfection wasn’t the way to be a successful writer. First of all I think it cramped my natural creative process, and secondly it took forever in some cases to produce the final product. I find that even though I do follow through with writing with my heart initially. Sometimes I still run into a wall. It’s hard taking my own advice sometimes. The trick here is to keep my hand moving. It doesn’t matter if the paper doesn’t make sense or if it’s out of order because that’s what revision if for much later.

I find that writing whatever comes to mind really gets my creativity flowing. And after awhile my hand can’t keep up with my thoughts. I’d say one of the worst cases of “writers block” I experienced was when I had to write one of those trite ten page research papers for U.S. History class. I sat in front of my computer screen trying to figure out how to make it somewhat interesting. But the sad conclusion I came to was that my teacher wasn’t interested in what I had to say about a topic he had probably read hundreds of papers about in the past. It was a painful experience but I eventually trudged through it with the help of books and the Internet. The other thing that helped me through it was taking breaks. There’s a difference between resting and procrastinating. Sometimes everyone needs to get up and walk away. And forget about it because everyone’s brain needs a rest.