Wilton 1

Joshua Wilton
Megan Keaton
ENC 1101-26
26 September 2016
Writer Identity Second Draft
There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed. Earnest
Hemmingway
Not too long ago I stumbled across a notebook of the writing I did for very early
elementary school. It was full of, quite frankly, awful, off topic, misspelled, poorly delivered
writing. It made me think about how much Ive learned and grown since then. Back then I had no
process; the whole thing would basically be stream-of-consciousness brainstorming about
whatever I was told to write about. Now I have this whole process of several different steps, each
one crafted and guided by my numerous writing experiences and the teachers who have guided
me. I have formed complex, objective, and abstract ideas about writing as a whole, and new
perspectives on writers themselves; all of this developing over a long history of writing and
creativity. In this essay I will delve into my process for writing, the my views on and preferences
on writing I have developed, and how I developed my process and ideas.
My writing process is a series of several steps, which are to; brainstorm, make a first
draft, a second draft, have them peer reviewed, and finally, to make a final draft. These steps
have developed over a long history of writing. I have a few different ways of brainstorming;
making outlines, bubble charts, asking around for ideas, or, most often, stream of consciousness
writing. I like to use stream of consciousness writing because I have always found getting started
the most difficult part of writing an essay, and it really gets my creative juices flowing. I have
always found getting started the most difficult part of writing an essay. Just getting down
whatever comes to mind is a great way of moving yourself along, getting through writers block,
and finding new ideas and connections. Its like Chris Perkins once said, If I keep my mind and
body active at all times, I will avoid falling into a bottomless pit of despair!. When I started

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writing way back in kindergarten, basically everything I wrote was stream of consciousness
brainstorming. As I grew, I learned how to tell a better story, which leads to my next step. After I
brainstorm and get a few good ideas out, I make a first draft, which is usually pretty bad. Bad
first drafts are, like stream of consciousness writing, a good way of getting started, because they
get something out onto the page, and they get the creative juices flowing. Its much easier to fix a
bad first draft into an ok second draft than it is to just write an ok first draft. Once I get the first
draft done I fix it into an ok second draft thats quite a bit more coherent. This process usually
involves re-structuring large parts of the essay, re-writing parts that dont fit, fixing grammatical
and spelling errors, and just generally making it readable. My drafting process developed in
elementary school. When I was younger I always hated the drafting process because I felt like I
was done after one, and anything else was just somebody nitpicking my hard work. Now, as an
adult (technically) with some perspective, I make multiple drafts of almost everything I write.
From there,After I finish my second draft I like to take it to people I trust, give them as much
context as I can, and have them read and critique the essay. Having your essay peer reviewed is
an essential part of writing the essay. When someone spends a long time working on something,
whether its writing, math, coding, or even art, they tend to get tunnel vision, and it can becomes
hard to see the problems with whatever youre working on. Getting outside opinions is a great
way to see how the reader will perceive your work, and adjust it accordingly. I started using peer
review in highschool. When I started writing for purposes other than to demonstrate my
knowledge of a subject, I used peer review to see how the audience might take my point. After I
get the feedback from my peers I take what they said and use their advice to fix up my work into
a good third draft. From there, I could hypothetically repeat the last two steps infinitely, each
time changing my essay so that its better and bettera little different each time, but an important

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part of writing is to know when to stop. Sooner or later Id be spending more time than its worth
to edit my work. Once Ive gotten to the point where I have completed a third draft, I usually
turn it in, because second guessing myself will only make my writing less coherent and more
difficult to read.
Writing is not a process that ever really came naturally to me. Most of the time, it takes
serious effort to force myself to write, due to my ADHD. I went undiagnosed and un-medicated
until I was well into high school, which, as you can imagine, was a serious issue for me. Its Ive
been dealing with it a lot better now that Ive gotten the medication I need, but it can still be a
serious issue to focusfocusing can still be a difficulty. Because of this, I like to write in a quiet,
distraction free environment, like the library or my dorm room if no one else is there. The best
time for me to write would be any time between twelve oclock and six oclock PM, before my
ADHD medication wears off. I also like to get my work done before I eat, as a large break will
take me out of the flow of what Im working on. My usual routine is to get working on my
homework immediately after I finish my classes for the day;. tThis way I can keep my flow of
concentration goingand get my work done quickly. This also has an impact on my writing
process for writing. Some of the early parts of my writing process likely developed to help me
cope with my lack of an ability to focus and stay organized; things like my outlines and SoC
brainstorming really help me get a better idea of what I need to get done and what needs to be
focused on by cutting out extraneous information, possibilities, and distractions. Making a bad
first draft just to get something down keeps me from sitting in front of a blank page daydreaming
about possibilities of what to writepossible topics or ideas to write about. Fixing those bad drafts
is easier to focus on than writing a nestarting withw one thats better than the old. Stuff like this
all has elements that will help me focus on what Im doing and keep a flowAll of these
techniques compound to give me a clear goal to focus on, which helps me keep my creative flow.

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Something I started doing that really helped me with my writing is to runstart running the
popular table-top role playing game Dungeons and Dragons for my friends. For those of you
who dont know, D&D is played by having one person, called the Dungeon Master, or DM, run a
fantasy world by taking control of the enemies, non-player characters, and environment, while
usually around four other players act as characters in the DMs world. Its basically collaborative
improvisational storytelling. When one first starts running D&D for a group, it is recommended
that one starts with a pre-made campaign setting and story, but I did not do this. Instead, I created
a homebrew world for my players to adventure in. This requires me to think about stuff I never
would have otherwise, stuff like where a city gets its water and food, what kind of troubles an
average peasant faces from day to day, how much do they know about whats going on in the
world and how do they know it? Stuff like this is commonly overlooked when building a world.
This helped me with my writing by making it easier to find details Ive overlooked in my
writing. Most importantlyProbably the most important way, D&D has helped me with my
writing is to offer practice for improvisation. Since I have no idea what my players are going to
want to do, some part must remain unplanned. To help with this, I have created a system of what
I call planning in a circle, or planning the main ideas of what immediately surrounds them in
every direction to the point of where theyre going to be able to get in a single session, and
fleshing them out the details when they get there. This lets me not have to keep track of every
single little thing going on in the entire massive world Ive created, and instead focus on the big
thingsoverarching plot lines and whats going to be affecting my players, and give me enough
time to plan for the next sessinstead of getting bogged down in the details of every single part of
a massive worldion. This improvisation helps me most when it comes to coming up with new
ideas to write about. Running D&D has been really helpful with my creative writing more so

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than my academic writing, but the main techniques like using descriptive language and keeping
track of interesting ideas, still apply to both.
How I developed my views on writing, as well as on everything else, has somewhat of a
long story behind it, and. iIt starts the same way as Im sure it does for many others. I was raised
in a religious household; not extremely religious or militantly so, Christianity was just really
present when I was growing up.; I went to a Christian pre-school, went to church with my family
every Sunday, the usual stuff. Sometime around fifth or sixth grade, I think when I first started to
learn about evolution, I really started to question my beliefs. I went through a few different
stages before my journey was complete, but I started off by clinging really hard to Christian
belief, keeping a bible with me wherever I went., but However, as more and more evidence piled
up against my traditional views, I couldnt keep it up. For a long time, I looked into different
religions, trying to find one that fit with the new evidence I was being given. ; I checked
outlearned about Buddhism, Wwiccan, Zoroastrianism, and even some Nnew-Aage malarkey,
but nothing really satisfied me. What I really wanted was something that I could look at
objectively and would hold up to the world as I knew it. Eventually, as many others did, I had to
abandon the idea of religion, but e. Even then, however, I wasnt free of the deep-seated,
subconscious fear I hadfelt,, and I ended up treatinged atheism like a religion., I was very close
to becomingbecoming someone who, in this day and age, would be labeled as a fedora-wearingneck-beard. It was not a dark pleasant time in my life. It took years but I finally managed to
really start looking at my life objectively and with, most importantly, with an open mind., Once I
accepted an objective, almost scientific point of view, it started creeping into my everyday life,
and how I view and this objectivity is still how I like to think about everything in the world
around me. As one of my heroes, Adam Savage, once said, the only difference between
screwing around and science is writing it down. When it comes to writing, my ideas on it come

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from this objectivity, and an attempt to find the underlying ideas that shape what writing is, as
opposed to how we view it. Good writing has to have rules that apply to other forms of
expression and communication; there must be something linking good writing to good speaking,
or to good storytelling, or good game design, or good architecture, or good time management. A
writers ability to break writing conventions can make writing better, so it cant just be following
the rules we have that makes writing good; it has to go deeper than that. How the author
commands tone or perspective, how they communicate their point, the control they have over the
reader, these things make good writing, and they link good authors. The things that make good
academic writing must apply to good informal writing. Its not that a formal tone makes for
better academic writing and an informal tone makes better creative writing, its that a good
author can use whatever tone they need to convey emotion to their audience. In the same way
matter and energy are connected, I believe all good communication is connected. In the same
way gravity applies to all things the same way, the same rules that govern one thing must also
govern the other.
In conclusion, I view writing ais a complex, multi-faceted subject with more to talk about
than could possibly be covered in a single essay. People write their entire dissertations on the
topic. My approach to writing is a very organized and objective process built around staying
organized and focused. I have taken influence from the books Ive read, the games Ive played,
and the worlds Ive built. I would imagine that the techniques I use for writing will help me as I
write for my college classes, due to the fact that college likely seeks and rewards organized and
focused writing and writers, but in the words of the band Enya, who can say where the road
goes? Only time. Only time will tell, and I am very interested to see how my time at college
influences my writing process, views, and overall ability.