As a Writer

 

                                        Who am I as a writer? If you asked me at the beginning of the gateway                                         course, I probably would have laughed, actually, I did laugh, because I                                           had absolutely no idea. However, through the various projects we did,                                           through blogging and other types of new media writing, I’ve found some                                         things out about myself: I am several things, as a writer. I am a                                                   procrastinator, a firm believer in not pre-writing (except in certain                                                 circumstances). I’m not a good reviser, though this is probably a product                                         of the procrastination. I’m not a sit down and write at will kind of writer.                                         I’m inspired. I’m a little insecure about people reading my writing, and                                           most of all, I’m still discovering who I am.

 

 

I tried blogging for the first time in my freshman English class. It wasn’t anything big, and certainly nothing anyone was going to read, so I wasn’t too concerned about it. I never even considered writing something on a blog that others would actually be able to see, so when I was told that for the minor, we would be required to write on a blog, I got a bit nervous. I wrote my first blog post about how scary blogging is. Or at least, I thought it was. As it turns out, it’s not that bad. It’s true that you don’t really have a lot of time to look it over and make changes before you post it, but as I mentioned above, I was never a good reviser, so this shouldn’t have caused me too much grief. I think what really scared me was that people could see it as soon as I hit that publish button, and, also as I mentioned before, I’m a bit insecure when it comes to people reading my writing. I definitely warmed up to the whole process over the course of the course, of course (a bit of word humor), as I found out that people reading my writing could actually be more encouraging than scary, and that I wasn’t the only one with these anxieties.

 

When I write a blog post, I usually just start with a thought and let it take me where it will. This style of writing carried over in my first essay, where I just started with a sentence and let my thoughts fly from there. I did try some pre-writing, but if I’m being honest I only used it as a very loose guide for my essay. Unlike a blog post, though, I had to go back and make revisions, something I normally am not likely to do. I’m definitely glad that I did, because going back and reading my first draft now makes me wonder what I was really thinking writing it. It was so disjointed and unorganized, filled with irrelevant examples and following no real theme. After finally polishing the essay to an acceptable level, I began to really embrace the editing process in my next works.

 

Maybe I embraced it too much.

 

It seems that now, every time I write a draft of something, I hate it and just want to start over. For example, when I wrote my draft of my repurposed article, I couldn’t seem to find the voice I was looking for. Instead of trying to work with my already completed draft, I wanted to scrap it. This wasn’t what my peers told me when I brought my draft in to peer review, but despite their encouragement, I couldn’t bring myself to keep what I had. Starting over from scratch after I’d already finished a draft is something I never even would have considered before this semester. I always turned in basically my rough drafts of everything. I’ve gone from “this is good enough” to “this will never be good enough” and I’m still working to strike a balance between these two personalities.

 

It is more than frustrating to be a procrastinator and a perfectionist. There really is only time to be one, but they’re also not traits that one can change about herself. Even now, as I write this essay, I’m thinking about all of the changes I’m going to have to make when I get up in the morning. I’ve tried scrapping and starting over with pre-writing, for goodness sake. Nothing seems to help until inspiration figuratively hits me like a sledgehammer to the back of the head, which only happens once in a blue moon.

 

So, I’m still discovering who I really am as a writer. I find bits and pieces at every step of the way, things I never even thought could describe me, like perfectionist, or blogger. Hopefully I can find the rest of the pieces someday, but for now, I’m just going to call it a night.