My Essay Writing Process

I recently changed majors, from one where there were no essays required from me, to one where there are lots of essays required from me. As such, I've become very aware of the process I go through to write an essay.
Note: This is just a general format, obviously each essay is different.

Step 1: Read the prompt.
Step 2: Look at the number of pages expected from me.
Step 3: Panic.
Step 4: Read the prompt again, hoping desperately that I think of something to say on the topic.
Step 5: Go off and do other things, occasionally thinking about the essay and worrying.
Step 6: Out of nowhere, think of an argument or fact that can be used for the essay.
Step 6 1/2: Go back through my readings/do research to find facts I can use.
Step 7: Write down the fact(s) in my outline.
Repeat steps 6-7 until I have an outline that is at least half as long as my paper needs to be, because the outline is single spaced, doesn't use full sentences, and doesn't include anything regarding the introduction or conclusion.
Step 8: Go over my outline, rearranging things until I feel like there's at least some transition between main points.
Step 9: Try to start writing an introduction.
Step 10: Get annoyed because every attempt to start the paper is garbage.
Step 11: Skip straight to writing the first body paragraph because I have an outline for it so I at least have some idea of what I want to write.
Step 12: Get inspiration for my introduction in the middle of writing a body paragraph.
Step 13: Go back and write my introduction.
Step 14: Finish my body paragraphs.
Step 14 1/2: Every so often write a sentence that I just hate so much that I delete it, then rewrite it only to delete it again until I just give up and decide to let future me deal with the problem of the terrible sentence in editing.
Step 15: Try to write a conclusion.
Step 16: Get frustrated because conclusions are hard.
Step 17: Just write something as a conclusion, mostly by reiterating my main points.
Step 18: Wait 8-24 hours before rereading the essay.
Step 19: Reread the essay, expecting it to be terrible.
Step 20: Become pleasantly surprised that it isn't a steaming pile of turd after all.
Step 21: Fix the terrible sentences that annoyed me earlier, because for some reason I can now figure out how to phrase them so that they aren't terrible.
Step 22: Reread the essay, fixing spelling and grammar mistakes as I go.
Step 23: Turn the essay in.
Step 24: Panic that it's actually a horrible essay and that I should have spent more time fixing it. At no point reread the essay to reassure myself that it isn't bad.
Step 25: Listen to the person who graded the essay explain in general terms what we as a group did wrong and should improve on for the future.
Step 26: Assume that every single one of these errors applies to me, even if the part of my brain that remembers the essay knows that they can't all apply.
Step 27: Get the graded essay back.
Step 28: Congratulate myself on having tricked the TA/professor/grader into thinking I'm a good writer.
Step 29: Briefly consider that maybe, just maybe, I have unrealistically high standards for myself as a writer.
Step 30: Disregard that thought. It's clearly stupid.

Favorite Quotes

Some of my favorite quotes and why.

"Imaging the future is a kind of nostalgia...You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you'll escape it one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present." -Alaska Young Looking for Alaska pg. 54

This quote always resonated with me because I do spend a lot of time thinking about the future and imagining the life I'll have and who I'll be and who I'll be with, but I don't always spend that much time working towards it. I always assume I'll have time for it later. That's why events are always sneaking up on me. I spend so much time looking forward to events and counting down to them that it always takes me by surprise a little bit when said event actually arrives/occurs. And then it's done and I can look back on it. Nostalgia and looking ahead fill so much of my daily life that I do sometimes have to just focus on what is happening.

"The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and bad things. The good things don't always soften the bad things, but vice versa the bad things don't always spoil the good things and make them unimportant." -The Doctor Vincent and the Doctor


I love this quote so much. It's even under my face in my high school year book. I know that I can sometimes act like one bad thing has ruined my entire day, or like one good thing has made up for lots of unpleasant things and in that moment both can be true. But overall each adds to my life. Being sick one day won't suddenly mean that my whole life is terrible, and having everything go my way another day won't change the fact that I've experienced disappointments. But the sorrows give the good times perspective and the good times help to push through the bad. No one's life is just one thing.

Time to Focus

For some reason my brain thinks that reading week and finals week are the best time for me to work on independent writing projects and re-watching old TV shows.

So far this week I've written two new chapters for the book, as well as editing a few old ones. I've finished re-watching Dollhouse.

I've also, to my credit, have nearly finished my final project for my programming class. I also spent today looking over practice tests for math and determining what I need to improve on. In about half and hour I'm going to a math review session. Tomorrow is dedicated to studying for chemistry and trying to finish the programming stuff. Then Monday brings two finals, followed by more programming fun. Tuesday is for packing, studying for EA and going to programming office hours because I swear I will finish before I leave. Wednesday has one last final, and then if everything goes according to plan, I will be coming home.

Also, somewhere in all of that I will be trying to finish up all my points for the quarter since they don't carry over and I literally have half of them left.

Basically it's time to focus. But then I get spring break! And unlike the lame-os on the semester system I will have no homework over break. Assuming I finish my programming before I leave. And even then I will have no homework after Friday.

I Think My iPod Has a Crush

I thought it might be fun to put my iPod on shuffle and write a story based on the first three songs that came up. These are the songs that were played:

Don't Look Back - Alex Day
This is Not Harry Potter - Hank Green
Love Me Do - Beatles

Ummmm. Let's try again.

Forever Yours (demo version) - Alex Day
Everything You Know is Wrong - Weird Al Yankovic
No Sacrifice - Alex Day

Sigh. I've got nothing. My iPod however seems to have a thing for Alex Day.

Update on Goals

Earlier this month I mentioned that I was going to try and finish the current draft of the novel I've been working on for the part few years. Currently I have two more chapters left to write. However, it has become clear that even if I do finish (which is doubtful due to other academic obligations) there is still a lot of work to be done.

This month is NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. The goal of NaNoWriMo is to write 50,000 words or more of a novel. As it stands, my work is just below half of this. Clearly, December will involve a lot of editing and trying to find more stuff to put in.

In a way this is good, as it gives me the chance to add subplots and more detailed and expanded back-stories.There were ideas for chapters that I decided against that I can now put back in.

On the other hand, I've had this order of events and chapters planned out for years now. I will probably have to add in new chapters, and expand upon those currently written, but that means reordering events, or creating new events that I never even thought about putting in before. Basically, I have to do what took me three years in much less time.

Ideally I'd have all this work done by the end of my December break. But I think we all know that's not going to happen. I'll be going out with friends, helping out with some volunteer stuff I used to be a part of and procrastinating from working on the book. Those will all take time away from writing.

Maybe, if I really focus I can use the time between my parents going to bed and me going to bed for writing. After all, I don't really do anything then. I just don't go to sleep until really late because that is the obligatory collage student thing to do. Maybe if I use that as writing time I can justify it to my mom. And then I can sleep in.

I Should be Writing (but I'm not)

I publicly made it my goal to finish the current draft of my book. Yet here I am, with a few free hours and what have I done?

I wikipedia'd Chuck Palahniuk. I read a magazine. I started writing a blog post. 


It's not like I'm doing NaNoWriMo. I'm not trying to write 50,000 words. I just trying to finish a (very) short novel (probably more of a novella when I think about it) that I've been working on for a few years now. Most of it just requires me to type what is hand written. And yet, here I am, procrastinating. 


*sigh* I'll start working now. Except I'm probably just going to open a book, or go on hulu or find some other way to distract myself.

Goals

A lot of times when I give myself a goal, I set two deadlines. One is the absolute deadline, the other the dream deadline. For example, today is Tuesday. If I have an assignment due Monday at 2, my absolute deadline is Monday at 2. My dream deadline however would probably be Friday at 6. That is I want to try and finish it by then so I have the weekend free but know that if I don't well, I have time. I tend to finish things by the absolute deadline more than the dream deadline.

Sometimes goals don't have specific deadlines, but rather levels of completion. I gave myself the goal of not drinking any soda in October as a dream goal, but gave myself guidelines in which I was allowed to drink soda without it counting against me (this was mainly just that I was allowed to have ginger ale if I got sick). As it happens I did achieve my dream goal of no soda in October. I gave myself this goal because I noticed that I was drinking more soda than I normally did before since it was now readily available in the dining hall.

Now that October is over I decided I need a new goal. This one will be more traditional in terms of deadlines. I began writing a novel nearly three years ago. I finished the first draft after a year and a half, though interestingly enough the last third of it was written in the space of a week because I was able to give myself a scheduled writing time everyday. Once I finished my draft I stopped allocating time. Which is why it's now almost a year and a half later and I have only about 2/3 of the book edited into a second draft. And since the first draft is hand written it also means I only have the first 2/3 or the book saved somewhere besides a binder. So since November is National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo) I am taking this opportunity not to write another novel, but to finish the current draft of the one I've been writing for the past three years.

Here's the thing. I have classes. And homework. And a second round of midterms. So I've decided that while my dream goal is to finish my current draft by Novermber 30 at 11:59 PM whatever timezone I happen to be in, my absolute goal is December 31 at 11:59 PM whatever timezone I happen to be in, since my quarter ends December 10, and I have 3 weeks off from school with no homework or anything. Although to be fair I managed to do almost no work all summer even though I had pretty ample free time (I was also working at a day camp which is very tiring though, she said unconvincingly).

Considering that I just spent a good chunk of free time writing this longer than usual post, I think this will be an interesting month or two.