Between the Drafts
Between the Drafts
Between the drafts was a very interesting read for me. In school they teach you that rough drafts and revising your essays and your research papers is so important. We've been taught this our whole lives. So it only comes natural that we do this with every single paper. We look for eras switch up words change a thought so it can be as accurate as possible according to the dictionary or the laws of English. We never sit back and think (well I've never) hey by me doing all this revision and rough drafts I'm losing the essence of how i really wanted to direct my feelings in this paper. If i have to change up sentences or change my thought process then I'm really not being true to my self or my paper. By revising my paper i further more in some aspect losing myself in my writing. This article, journal , or writing made me realize all of that. Maybe that's why i like writing poetry so much I could be as raw as id like. I never have to follow any real guideline(unless you count how your suppose to format poetry, and even then I'm kind of like screw it because ill be reciting my poetry out loud anyway). Following this lady's life ( who i originally thought was a boy) i can see her thought process and how it involved. Its' kind of ironic that a teacher would look at revision and a negative way.Even with all of that said truth be told we cant get rid of the revision stage of writing because then articles and such would be all over the place. Not everyone would know what to do with all that freedom.
I appreciate your reading of this (and I like your blog a lot -- cool video too). I don't want you to miss what Sommers is saying though. I think she wants us to revise, but not with the idea of making a piece of writing more like what others want us to say. I think she actually wants us to revise and purposefully focus on keeping (or adding) our own authority. you're right that sometimes writers, especially young writers, revise and lose that authority (if it was ever there), but there is a way to revise and keep it. So it's in "revision," that place "between the drafts," where writers can find/discover and/or keep/add their own authority in/to a piece of writing. Of course, she theorizing that this loss of authority not only happens in writing, but also in real life and the key to finding it (in life and writing) is using life experiences MIXED WITH what others say. Now I'm rambling, but good post (and poetry).
ReplyDeleteAnd if you like spoken-word poetry, check out Taylor Mali too.
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