Craft Draft

Writing about writing is the hardest part, I think, because writing is just something that I do. It’s like writing a how-to about breathing. I don’t remember learning to write and I don’t remember learning to breathe. They’re just things that I’ve always done, and I’ve never given much thought to how they happen. Before this course, I’d simply write whatever was on my mind, and once it was on paper I’d never look at it again. It seemed unnatural to go back and edit it – like when someone makes you conscious of how you’re breathing, and then you keep thinking about it and change your breathing pattern. It’s hard to stop thinking about it, then, because you’re too conscious. You become overwhelmed, oversaturated with yourself. I get that way when I edit, too. The words stop meaning anything because I’ve skimmed over them so many times. With writing, thinking about doing it doesn’t seem like an obvious, step-by-step thing that I do. It’s hard for me to write about my writing; as hard as it is for me to focus when I’m trying to edit or for me to tell you how to breathe.

I kind of liked the draft process, though, because it was different for me. I like getting constructive feedback and working off of that to make a second draft. I think that’s what I was lacking in previous writing projects. My eyes would tire of reading and re-reading the same words, so I’d call it “done” even if I wasn’t completely happy with the piece. I have sent work to friends before to have them read, but perhaps for fear of hurting my feelings, the responses were usually something like, “Great job! I really liked it.” While encouraging, this type of input was never particularly helpful, because I’d be in the same place I’d started in. Can I just take Dr. Chandler and the rest of the CNF class with me wherever I go? In this class, I've done one or more drafts for every essay and have found that it has definitely improved the quality of my writing. In the past, I thought that if I had something to say, it would just come out. Drafting made me realize how many details I forget and how many things I left out because they were so familiar to me, but wouldn't be familiar to the audience.

My focus has also been a bit of an issue in creative nonfiction. I guess I have stories that I want to tell, but find them outwardly boring or directionless. (Not boring to me, of course, but potentially boring to a stranger.) Nobody cares about what I did when I was four, I'd tell myself, while filing the beginning of what could be an excellent story in the back of my brain, in the file called "pointless anecdotes". I've found it interesting to take those stories and expand them in a way that is more approachable and can be worked into something that is meaningful to others. I do struggle with having a point, which seems like an awful thing to say about myself as a writer. Part of that, probably, is having a background in fiction where the point would generally be more obvious. In a basic story, you meet a person, something happens to them, and then the person deals with it. The last paragraph is some kind of moral, which wraps up the story into a neat little package and ties it up with string. If the story changes halfway through, you get to call it a twist and go with it. Such is not the case with nonfiction. If the story isn’t going anywhere, something either had to have happened that you can talk about instead, or you’d have to make something up. It’s wrong to lie, and even if that wasn’t a problem for me as a writer, it would be a huge issue for my readers if they found out the truth. Ethics are annoying like that.

I have a lot to work on as a writer. I want to be less direct in my approach; I am fascinated by writers of creative nonfiction who work through description without ever explicitly explaining themselves. They don’t make it easy for the audience, and I love that. I’m too blunt, too honest…to a fault. I struggle the most with writing in a way that forces the audience to follow along because they are trying to figure out what I’m describing or what I’m talking about. John McPhee is amazing, that way. I want to write better, and I think taking cues from McPhee would help to an extent. Rather than just giving the reader all of the information, he gives enough information that the reader can figure it out for themselves. I need to learn to express ideas without expressing them.

Basically, I need to take more time with my writing. The drafting process, the habit of just saying everything on my mind right away, all of it just shows that I’m in a rush to get the ideas out and not dedicated enough to my work to make it worth reading. I’ll never get published if I don’t slow down.