The Writing Process

Uh, honestly, I hate the blog. HATE IT.  Not because I hate writing anything in it, but I hate having to deal with the actual program.  I can’t tell you how long it took me to work out the whole not-having-one-giant-paragraph thing, even when I would copy/paste from Word.  My illiteracy in computers made it particular annoying for me.  Uggghhh, SO annoying. 

Now that I’ve gotten that out of my system….I have mixed feelings about the blog.  While on the one hand I really enjoyed that we had a space to react and create, I felt that some of the blog assignments weren’t very fun.  Because we also have reading responses in class, I really would have liked to see blog responses have a bit more creativity or depth to them.  After the first post about race and writing, I was excited that the blog seemed to be a place where we could exchange opinions, but after that, the posts were a lot duller (with the exception of the narcissism article – LOVE LOVE LOVED that.)  

As much as I hate myself for saying this, I think we should have had a few more requirements with the blog, particularly in terms of commenting on others.  I am really peeved at myself for not reading everyone’s blogs earlier, as I think it would have made class a bit more interesting.  But being a senior with 1000 things to do, I just never took the time to explore.  If I had been required to blog like every week or twice a week and at the same time had to respond just as often to everyone else’s blogs, then I think I could have gained a lot more from the blog experience.  And assignments could still be short, 3-minute freewrites, but perhaps on more conceptual ideas (like the race/writing discussion) as opposed to responses to scholarly articles.  

Initially I was very intimidated by having my writing out in the open for everyone in the class to read.  But I think the blog was beneficial in that it forced us all to get over that fear.  I have way fewer anxieties now about people reading my writing because I know that 20 people had access to my writing for a three month period and hey, I didn’t die!  In fact, not only did I not die, but I feel pretty good.  I have felt only encouragement from my fellow students, and in turn, I feel ready and willing to encourage them.

 The blogging experience sort of introduced me to a new kind of relationship one person can have with another.  I was thinking about how strange it is that I can share with 20 people in a writing class a story about my parents getting divorced and its impact it had on my life, but that I have had friendships in college, or even “unserious” romantic relationships that did not delve that deep.  And I have found that I really enjoy that place.  I enjoy the fact that I could learn about Kelley or Caitlin, empathize with their experiences, respond to them, and then just go about my day.  It’s like we’re all part of some secret club that we don’t talk about but we all just know.  It’s oddly freeing for me.  A friend of mine who took this class last year was telling me how he really enjoyed it and that now when he sees people from the class on campus or around town, they say hello or at least nod to one another – and that’s exactly how I feel.  I don’t know if everyone will nod to me or say hello, but I think there’s sort of a connection there that they understand.