Tres

Personally I think I have a problem with the whole idea of a rough draft. There’s nothing wrong with rough drafts in my opinion they just bother me because it’s terribly sloppy. I know that the first time you write something it isn’t going to be perfect and by all means it shouldn’t be unless you’re some sort of writing prodigy but I still have an issue with the concept of writing down nonsense that will never be incorporated into the actual piece that you’re writing. I tend to have a nasty habit of editing my work as I’m writing instead of simply getting all of my thoughts down and then going back and fixing things up. It gets the same results but oftentimes I tend to get off track and get lost in the editing that I forget where I was planning on going to next. I think that anyone who writes anything can say they’ve had the feeling where they’ve just sat down and known they’ve had to write and yet nothing comes to mind to write about. Sometimes I’ve been stuck in such a situation and I’ve been able to get myself unstuck by re-reading what I’ve already written or simply writing through the writer’s block by writing nonsense until an idea hits me or the writing juices simply start flowing again. In my own writing I’ve told myself to just start writing. ‘It’s only a rough draft,’ I’ll say to myself, ‘It’s supposed to be rough.’ And it actually does help to get all my ideas down onto the paper because then I can go off of that already written idea and write something that is even better. I think for this paper I might just write down all the elements that actually happened in the story and cut out the parts later that I don’t want. It would be like making a movie because the director doesn’t use all the footage that he films. He has bloopers and cut-scenes that no one ever sees because he didn’t want to put them into the movie. For some reason, that metaphor makes the idea of a rough draft make sense to me.

I assume that for informational or persuasive pieces this process might not be as valuable of a tool for a writer to use because those works tend to be more focused on facts and a pre-planned structure. It still is valuable to write a rough draft but writing rough drafts in the way that Lamott writes them seems to me to be more of a tool for creative writers to use to just get all their ideas down so they can be expounded upon later. For informational pieces the author would make an outline so that he/she knows which facts would go where and so the creative process of simply just writing would take a back seat to the already structuralized backbone of the essay that is the outline.

In her essay Lamott said that she trusted the system, more or less which kind of makes sense because in her mind she knows that it’s all going to work out in the end but being a writer she probably doesn’t like just writing down crap and then re-reading said crap and thinking, Jeez, this is crap. No writer likes that feeling that what they’re writing is not very good. So when trusting the rough draft system, she is trusting that whatever she writes will help her out when she comes back to it but doing it begrudgingly so because she knows that she’ll write substandard material in the present. At least that’s my take on it.

Two

The main subject of the memoir My Addicted Son is the author’s addicted son who is addicted to methamphetamines. The story follow’s the son’s progress through his drug addicted story from the father’s perspective as his son repeatedly tries, fails and tries again to get clean and away from the drug filled life style. This story is particularly relevant nowadays because many teenagers and adults are struggling with drug addictions and family members who care deeply about them are dragged through the torment and agony of watching their loved ones hover in the balance between success and failure. Although the story was about the son’s progress to getting clean what the memoir really captured was the emotional turmoil the drug addicted person puts on their family and/or people who care about them. Coming from the father’s perspective was extremely emotionally trying because the hopelessness that he felt seeped through his words and made the reader see where he was coming from.

I think that the author would have wanted other parents who are going through the same difficulties to read this story to realize that sitting by and doing nothing while your child “experiments” could lead to far worse things. He seems to almost have a regretful tone when he recalls the conversations he had with people where they told him to just let nature run its course and he would stop and although he never actually says it, I think he regrets not interfering more sternly than he had. Although it may not have been his fault he blames himself for what has happened to his son. His story could serve as a warning for other parents to step in and stop drug abuse before it gets too late like it had with his son.

One of the most powerful rhetorical devices that the author used in my opinion was his emotional response to what was going on in his life. The way the author wrote it I could feel every emotional valley and crest that he went through and the progression of how his emotions degraded into a degree of apathy over time. It was somewhat traumatizing watching the proud father of a bright kid diminish in stature until he was no longer thinking along the lines of, “my kid will snap out of it” but instead, “At least he’s alive.” It goes to show how far a parent would be willing to go for their kid but also how much it costs them as well.

Ethos was a major factor in this piece and the author does a good job of sucking the reader in and taking them for a ride on his emotional roller coaster which I think was just what this piece called for.

- Sheff, David. "My Addicted Son," The New York Times Magazine. February 6, 2005.

One

I’ve always felt odd because for some bizarre reason I love to write. People around me would be dreading the big paper coming up but I would get excited. Some aspects of writing I like more than others but overall it’s a good time in my book. One of the things I think I’m great at when it comes to writing is description. I like to put a reader into a room and describe everything that their senses would be able to tell them such as their smell, taste, looks, sounds, anything really that immerses them into the story. Another strength that I think I have is being able to tell what the connotations of words are and how to properly use them in a sentence to get the desired effect. Using screeched instead of yelled may not seem like a major difference but the words themselves have a different effect to them. Whereas both of the words have an insinuation of anger, screeching may also indicate something else such as indignation or fear.

One of the main problems I have when I write is I don’t take the time to plan out what I’m writing like I should. I like to just jump into the writing and eventually I come to a point where I get stuck and I’m not sure where to continue from there. I know how to write outlines and plan out my writing I just have a habit of looking over those planning steps to get to the fun part, writing. The other bad thing about my writing is that I sometimes obsess over what I’m writing and take far too long thinking about how my words will have an effect on the reader. I think that this is both a good thing and a bad thing because it helps me write very good sentences but on the downside, it takes a while for me to write anything that I’m content with anyone else seeing. Not because it’s necessarily bad, it’s just that I think it is. I think what I want to improve is to actually take the time and plan out what I’m going to write as well as going a bit faster when I write so I don’t obsess so much. It’s called a rough draft for a reason and I shouldn’t need to get it perfect the first time.

One of the big authors who inspires me to write is Cinda Williams Chima (http://www.cindachima.com/) just because she’s amazing at making relatable characters, describing everything in vivid detail and also writing action sequences so that I can picture every motion going on in my head. Sometimes I try and make my writing like hers just because she’s so good at what she does. I am also inspired by Claude Monet in my writing, as well as other impressionists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impressionism) because occasionally I try to do what they do, just with a different medium. I try to take a single moment in time and capture it as best as I can before it fleetingly flies away.

Overall, I think that this course will help me become a better writer by showing me what level I’m expected to be writing on in college and show me the steps to get to that level. I already think that I’m a decent writer but there are always new things to be learned and improvements to be made.