Writing, like any other creative process, is something that requires structure, order, and practice. While some might argue that writing is merely a matter of talent or innate ability, my experiences in this class have taught me that this is far from the case. Over the years, I have dabbled in writing but found myself held back by bad habits. I used to suffer from periods of supposed “writer’s block” and if I did not have a deadline for a piece, it would never get done. The blogging assignment, however, has completely changed my perspective. This assignment forced me to develop a more efficient creative process in order to complete this assignment and develop my skills as a writer. I believe that the structural framework that I developed benefited me by forcing myself to break bad habits and find healthier ways around my problems. I found that as I overcame these problems, both my writing and my engagement improved significantly.
My first blog post was an assignment entitled Unzipping the Suspicious Pants. I do not think the post was a failure, but there was something missing. In Unzipping, I tried to address the discussion from the first day of class about the connections between Percival Everett and “The Suspicious Pants”. The only problem was that I had not read much of Everett’s work at that point and had difficulty understanding him. This made for difficulties in my work, something echoed in lines like, “While Everett appears to present his ideas in an up-front, matter-of-fact style, his ideas go beyond quips… The sharp-edged sarcasm disguises high-level concepts that readers are free to extrapolate from.” I was writing a post about the depth of Everett’s ideas and concepts, only I could not even explain them myself. I was reaching for something that was not necessarily there and hoping that it would work within the context of my blog post. The structure of this post was tense, awkward and essay-like, failing to use the strengths of the blog format. Many of my failings were a direct result of not having a method to develop ideas. Unzipping is the weakest post I produced and it would not be until my second post that I started to understand what I was doing.
My second post, entitled Fesmerization and the Illusion of Power was a step away from my previous one. While Unzipping the Suspicious Pants was vague and unclear, Fesmerization provides specific examples and concrete evidence to support my claims. I defended my argument that Fesmerization only provides the illusion of power by using a quote from I am Not Sidney Poitier. In this passage, the titular Not Sidney refers to the process of Fesmerization as a “psychological Swiss army knife” where he could never know what he was opening, which ties directly into my argument. I also spent a paragraph describing the life of Franz Anton Mesmer in order to give context into the ideas I introduced throughout my post. Fesmerization also marked a change in my writing structure. I ditched the rigid essay-like style, in favor of a looser, more fluid structure that better suited a blog. By the time I completed Fesmerization, I felt significantly more efficient and productive. From there, I decided to use this piece as a template for future assignments and also planned out when and where I would write and submit my blog posts. The ideas in this post might have been a little too similar to my group blogging assignment, Fesmerization: Understanding the Absurd, but the content ended up being less important than the things I learned while writing. Giving myself a strong, but flexible schedule gave me the framework I needed to explore ideas that I wanted to.
Fesmerization marked a change in my work. It helped me set a standard that pushed me to come up with more inventive and engaging topics. I believe that the post that best reflects my increased engagement in my writing is The Jim Crow Museum and Original Sin. In this post, I discuss The Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia and how it relates to the concept of original sin presented in The Once and Future King by T.H. White. In this document, I wrote, “Racism in the United States of America is a form of original sin. It is the byproduct of centuries of violence, cruelty, and oppression that cannot be erased by saying it does not exist.” This post, while not perfect, was one of my proudest. The Once and Future King is my favorite book of all time and relating it to the things we have discussed in class was deeply satisfying. Creating this post taught me how I could apply some of the things I love the most in this world to this assignment, which made me even more enthusiastic and dedicated to writing my posts. It also inspired me to explore issues of race a bit deeper, like in my post Who is it For? , as well as topics that I am passionate about, like in The Strangeness of Meaning. Completing these posts showed me that this assignment could be a platform to explore concepts that I was personally passionate about, as well as the ones I was learning in class.
My final post, entitled Meaning in Strange Places was the culmination of all the skills and techniques that I developed throughout the blog assignment. In this post, I explored the concept of meaning and how talent is inconsequential in creating things of value. After this, I went on to apply said concepts to the blogging process itself, stating, “This assignment taught me that my ideas were worth writing about. They might not be the most groundbreaking or important interpretations in the world, but they were still my interpretations.” One of the first ways that this post marks my evolution as a writer can be seen in the blog’s format and structure. It is dramatically longer than my first post and is nowhere near as tense and claustrophobic. Moreover, it borrows from the thematic content of my last few posts and brings them in a different direction. My other posts, including The Problem of Order, Projecting Order and Quantifying the World dealt heavily with meaning and order, as well as how human beings project such things on the world around us. Meaning in Strange Places was the culmination of this, taking a concept I had focused on in my blogs and turning it around to the blogging assignment itself. I am proud of this post and what I accomplished because it epitomizes the techniques and skills that I needed to develop in order to complete this assignment.
With all of this in mind, I would like to bring up a line from Re: f (gesture) by Percival Everett. The line is found in the poem Logic and reads, “From rags and dust a rat is formed in the cellar. It was not there before. Only rags and dust.” Despite the seemingly negative connotation of this poem, I believe writing progressed in such a way as well. To me, this passage of Logic reflects how things can be created even from the strangest circumstances. Towards the beginning of this assignment, my ideas were loosely organized and had little direction. It was not an easy process when I started to write down these ideas and give them structure. The results were often rough, sloppy and not always the things I wanted them to be. But as this assignment progressed, the posts became something that I was proud of. I am now able to look back at my old posts and see a visible arc in my writing. I might have created a rat, but the fact that a rat could exist from rags and dust is something profound in and of itself.
As I mentioned earlier, this assignment completely reshaped how I approach my writing. Although I initially lamented the absence of hard deadlines, this assignment taught me how to manage my time effectively and take pride in my writing. I can confidently say that I have developed the skills I need to succeed in future English courses at SUNY Geneseo. Prior to this assignment, I did not have any drive or motivation, which made my writing vague and fleeting. I still have areas that I need to work on, as well as issues that I still need to overcome, but I believe that I am in a much better place as a writer, thinker, and learner than I was at the beginning of the year.