It was a hot summer day and I was getting ready to head out west for the week. I was so excited to bring my journal with me so I can write about my journey out west. Planning this for awhile and I can’t wait to see where my writing will take me. I arrived in Arizona late and I started to head to the Grand Canyon to spend the week. Getting off the plane was a very hot one, there was no humidity but it was over 100 degrees when I arrived.
The next day I started walking around the canyon trying to find a spot to look out at the Canyon and just start writing. When I started walking the path towards the Canyon and I came across three authors on the path; Mary Karr, Don Murray , and Ann Lamott. I had no idea I was going to run into these three awesome people at the Grand Canyon. The four of us continued to walk up the path and just started introducing one another and got to know one another. I found a rock and I sat down, I started asking about their writing process and what they did to begin writing. Mary Karr said “Just picking up a pen makes you part of a tradition of writers that dates thousands of years back.” I was in all when she said that. I didn’t know picking up a pen would have history behind it. Mary was speaking about what writing means to her and what her writing process was. The other thing Mary said was “writing is painful.” When she said this she was stating that writing is a difficult task. It is hard to find a topic to write about, the best thing to do is to just start writing and see where it takes you. The last thing Mary said to me was “ Rewriting on the page is safer than revision in, say, painting, where you can paint past a good place and wreck a canvas.” I do believe in what she means by this because nothing is easy just like painting and writing. While I was writing my notes from my talk with Mary Karr. I began to talk to Don Murray. Don was asking me about my writing process and what I did to start my writing pieces. I told him my process and he asked me about prewriting. He said that “Prewriting is everything that takes place before the first draft. Prewriting usually takes about 85 percent of the writer’s time.” To me, prewriting is the most important part of my process. Don was sitting next to me and was looking over my shoulder at my journal. He looked at what I was doing then he looked up at me for a moment. His face was shocked on what I was able to do. I was writing about the scene that was in front of me and the one thing he said to me was to remember the stages of writing in which he said “ The writing process itself can be divided into three stages: prewriting, writing, and rewriting.” I have noticed that Don is focused on making sure I know the three stages and was asking me if I do follow these steps. We have had a great talk while looking out at the beautiful Grand Canyon. After finishing up my conversation with Don , I started talking to Ann Lamott. Ann was very happy to talk to me about my writing. She had a cold water in her hand and was very happy. Ann and I first talked about what she calls shitty first drafts. She told me something that I think was very meaningful, this is what she said to me “Now, practically even better news than that of short assignments is the idea of shitty first drafts. All good writers write them.” I believe that I should always have a bad draft because when I write , I write what is going on in my head. Ann then was asking me what I did to get started on my writing and I told her I just turn to a clean page and just start writing. After talking to these three wonderful authors, I now feel like I know more about my writing process and what I can do better make my writing stronger. Don , Mary and Ann all had something unique to say about the writing process which is cool because I got to hear their point of view on how they go about their process.
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Alyssa BoppellOpen the book and begin to read the unknown chapters you may not of known before. Life is one big adventure. Please read about my adventures and achievements I have done so far n my life. Remember this is only the beginning. Enjoy ! Archives
December 2019
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