Process Writing

When I decided to take a class where I would essentially be writing reviews about art, I was both apprehensive and excited. This was something that I cared about but also something that I was going to find out, how good I was and how much it would take to improve. I am naturally critical by nature and I’ve always felt, probably arrogantly, that I was often able to discern meanings and find themes that many other people seemed to miss and I thought that this would able to adequately help me in this class.
I soon was finding myself challenged by the 500-word limit. ‘It’s too many words to write about this, I don’t care’. ‘I have 1500 words, how do I cut this stuff out?’ These frustrations began to lessen and lessen, especially once I finished the “Velvet Goldmine” review. I began to feel that I had gotten a better handle on how to fashion a review. There can be a formula but it doesn’t have to be formulaic and you can easily bring your own personality to bear on your work. In the beginning, I didn’t know if I would be able to adequately bring my own personal stamp to bear on my essays and to engage with other people’s work myself but reading my classmate’s reviews in the workshops and re-reading my own work, I soon found out that I was wrong. I had been clearly and sometimes, obviously, showing my own personal views and that our reviews were very different and highlighted different aspects of things such as “Crazy Heart” or the Oscars, that we all reviewed.
Writing for this course helped me to gain confidence in my own authorial voice and my own writing. Before the course, I had really viewed myself as too strong of a writer but upon the completion of it, I feel that maybe I am not half bad. I’ve never been one to revise what I have written or really to sit around and brainstorm before I write. I usually just sit down and have a stream of logorrhea. This class forced me to sit down, face my work and revise and it has done wonders for my reviews. With my final project, especially, I couldn’t just churn something out but rather had to keep looking at it and going over my sentences. ‘Should I take this out?’ ‘Does this fit with my argument?’ ‘Is Morrissey important?’ This skill will follow me and perhaps I should have taken this class earlier rather than waiting for my senior year. I hope to continue this type of work in a possible career, as soon as this summer and this class might have set me on the path to success.