However (and it's a big, fat however), I've lost all ability. Trust me, there once was a time when I could sit and write structured essays. It was a lovely, beautiful time. Occasionally I dream about those times and wake up, a smile on my face. And it's only after then I break into the sweats because I realize that time, the time of multiple page word-vomiting, was long, long ago. It was prior to my college career, prior to my education where I was taught to write right-to-the-point, only-the-nitty-gritty, I-don't-care-about-the-fluff articles in usually a thousand words or less. When you're writing news you're not worrying too much about the analytical approach to the topic of social mixing in Austenian fiction. You're worrying about who, what, where, when, how, and who told the copy editor she could take a lunch, and since when is submitting an article in Word okay, and WHEN IS DEADLINE?! And after three years of this being ingrained in my mind the reversal process is hard, causing moments of major headaches and holding your head in your hands.
So when I sit down at my laptop, cocoa and notes in hand, and begin to write, it's frustrating when I'm hardly being able to get past two pages. Maybe three if I'm trying hard, writing rather eloquently and profoundly and using big words that take up space and require a thesaurus to understand. But if not, I hit an invisible mental breaking point at the two page mark where I can't go on. It's almost as if my fingers get a little too tired, my brain realizes there just too much text on the screen, or nothing is in AP Style, and everything shuts down.
But perhaps I should just be grateful my mistake of deciding to take an upper level English course "for fun" is almost over.
2 comments:
I like writing long papers...as long as they're about the Black Death.
Watch "Finding Forrester", then just write baby.
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