In this post I am going to respond to my classmate, Taylor’s post about her writing process. She explained that her writing process is like “avocado hunting”. Essentially, this means that it can be very overwhelming at first and she might not find a tasty avocado, but eventually she will find the perfect, ripe avocado (aka finding an essay topic that she will enjoy writing about). I thought that this was a funny article, and got me thinking about what my writing style is. And so…I feel as though my writing process is similar to a blooming flower.
As you can tell from this gif, even though it is very much sped up, a flower completely blooming is a long process. Below, I have a picture of the sequence of a flower blooming, which really illustrates my point.
I tend to start writing papers with little idea of what I’m actually going to be talking about. That would be the part of the blooming process where the flower is still completely closed. Then, I finally decide what my essay topic/thesis is going to be which allows for the flower to open up a little bit more. However, it would be impossible for this flower to bloom if it was not in good soil, had no sunlight, or had no water. This directly relates to how much time I dedicate on the paper (good soil), the research I do/peer review (sunlight), and the multiple drafts (water) I write. If all of these things happen, then I will have a great paper! However, if even one of these things are missing, then my flower will wilt and die, and I will have a terrible paper.
Although my writing process might sound relatively easy, it is anything but. It usually takes me a while to get in the swing of things, so I am usually sitting around the part where the flower has just barely opened up for a long time. It is only when I am feeling truly inspired when the juices really start flowing and my flower can bloom. Once I really start writing, I am usually able to finish my paper, it’s just trying to start that is time consuming. This was especially applicable to my last writing assignment. My research paper was very time consuming, especially when looking for research, and it left me a little discouraged. However, I found this quote which really turned things around for me.
This quote made me realize that the flowers that bloom in adversity, just like papers that are hard to write and take a lot of time, are the ones that are the most beautiful (and well-written) of them all.
Image:
Image 1: http://giphy.com/gifs/flower-interestinggifs-dahlia-95xRbt5dxppWE
Image 2: http://www.personal.psu.edu/scs15/Reading/images/grow.jpg
Image 3: https://chrystalizabeth.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/mulanquote.jpg