Blog 6

While reading Anne Lamott’s excerpt from her book “Bird by Bird” I found myself laughing a lot. Reading what she has to say about writing a first draft is everything that happens to me when I try to write a paper. Her talking about how she just puts whatever she can think of down onto paper to get that draft done is what I do. I find my main points and try to get everything what I want to say down. I think that if I have more than needed in the beginning of the process of writing a paper is better than to not have enough.My second step is narrowing down and explaining more if needed just like she does. The two of us seem to have the same perspective on starting paper, being afraid of what people will think. We have anxiety provoking thoughts and can imagine the negativity that will be brought through from critics. Always wanting our best work to show even if it started out as awful behind the curtains. But a first draft is a first draft, it is not the published piece, it is simply a paper with a bunch of opportunities on it. Those opportunities lead to amazing papers.

1. Your goal (or goals), articulated in your own words.
2. The steps you plan to take to achieve this goal (in order of priority)
3. What you see as your biggest challenge
4. And what will you do if a challenge comes up that proves too difficult for you to solve on your own? In other words, what resources do you plan to use?

My goal is to be able to write a paper that I’m proud of. I’ve written papers in high school that I wasn’t proud of at all but they met the requirements that the school wanted. Writing a paper that I’m proud of will consist of something that I’m passionate about. It will be in my own words, not in words that I’m forced to type. It will be something I will want to everyone about. It will be in my own words and my own perspective. Something that follows my personal guidelines. I feel like my first priority will be making sure I have everything I want included in the paper. By that I mean every quote, every word, and every opinion I want will be included. I’ll then write everything out and go off of what I’ve written. I’ll add more explanations if needed, add more quotes, and I’ll just make sure everything is included so I can get my argument across as best as possible. I’ll have peers read my paper and give me feedback and I’ll take their advice and put it in my own words. My biggest challenge may be trying to not repeat myself. I know that repeating your topic in an argument is important but I sometimes find myself repeating too much. With repeating I also spit out some of the same things that have already been said. I just need to make sure everything flows correctly and doesn’t feel like it has too much repetition. The resources I may use is some rewording. Try to find a way to reword my statement so it doesn’t sound overused. Or I can find somewhere else to put my statement or just completely disregard it. Find a new idea and go off of that.