Author: Erica Mirabitur

I was talking to a professor last week on writing and word choice, in particular when to use really dynamic verbs. “There are moments when those verbs are required,” he said, suggesting that there are moments when they are not.  How do we distinguish a non-moment from a moment?

This semester has been writing-heavy for me, which means I am always mildly displeased with my work; there are so many opportunities to fail. I have been thinking a lot of what constitutes good writing and good sentences. A question is this: What are practical things one can do throughout the writing process to write quality work?

Sometimes I will read a draft of my work and write a list of the verbs I used to see if there are ones on which I rely too frequently and to see what the general sense of action is. I also read works I like from other authors; how dynamic is their prose?

What techniques do you use when working on drafts of writing, especially if you feel stuck or uninspired?

On Tuesday, journalist Masha Gessen is receiving the 2015 Wallenberg Medal at Rackham. Her work focuses on Putin’s Russia and human-rights abuses. Here is her Longform podcast in which she discusses writing in Russia and her book about the Tsarnaev brothers.

My best friend, Calypso, is an alum of both Michigan and the writing minor. She lives in Salt Lake City now. She came to visit me in September, and we had what we call “the critical moment” in a bathroom stall of Mash. The critical moment was serious and hilarious and this: I found myself encumbered, daunted by my course work but mostly by the capstone class. She writes essays like I do; it’s a long, monopolizing trudge, so she understands my apprehension.

What am I to do? And how am I to do it? Are we being set up for failure with the drafts and documents and multimodal requirements and the project?

Those were the questions.

Now I am in Salt Lake City. It is very still here, and I am thinking about a new set of questions:

What if we just complete the tasks assigned to us? What if we don’t allow them to encumber us? What if overthinking it wasn’t a part of the process? What if how we treat the writing process was a reflection of reality: A perfect clause will not save the world so it’s unwise to put pen to paper thinking that it will.

As the evolution essay requires us to reflect on our work and find something compelling to say about the pieces in the aggregate, I would like to share with you my favorite podcast; it is from longform.org, and it is called the Longform Podcast. Each Wednesday an interview with a longform writer is posted. I love many of the interviews because they shed light into how each writer works, what they love, what they hate, the trajectory of their career, etc. It is very interesting.

There are (at least) two moments of explicit contradiction in my evolution essay. The first is this: “I was simultaneously looking for and loathing purity.” I can’t find words to tease that out; it was what it was. I don’t feel compelled to dwell on that in this essay. Another moment is at the very end. I say something about knowing that I did it (undergrad) right. The next paragraph says that I am very bad at undergrad-ing. I think both are true…but mostly the latter (ha!).

Regarding challenges, I am finding it difficult to connect each section of the essay. But I am tempted to let that appear evident; I’m tempted to leave the space between the sections be choppy because anything else feels like an engineered attempt to smooth edges that weren’t smooth when I experienced them. Also, I fear that much of the essay (in particular, the beginning) is abstract.  In other words, I am wondering if the essay makes sense to anyone besides me.

“The student has to appropriate (or be appropriated by) a specialized discourse, and he has to do this as though he were easily and comfortably one with his audience, as though he were a member of the academy or an historian or an anthropologist or an economist; he has to invent the university.” -David Bartholomae, “Inventing the University” (1986)

I read this in English 425, and I have been intrigued by this ever since, this notion that we must mimic a genre before we can master it. But what is genre, anyway? Before, I found the predetermined infrastructure of a genre limiting and trite, but I have since realized its utility. Genre tells us where to look for content and where to place our own. But it’s also a signal; adherence to conventions indicates insider status in a discipline.

I am thinking that the capstone project is some sort of test on this front, assessing our ability to see which conventions of our discipline(s) enhance the inquiry of our subject and which conventions only hinder this inquiry. In short, I think we will be assessed on our ability to deviate artfully.