I must enjoy journaling. I’ve been doing it twenty years now. In my youth I did very little writing and avoided it whenever possible. Getting an E on my first college writing assignment when 18 is one of the reasons I gave up on college in the first two weeks.
It would be almost twenty years before I’d go back and try to get the degree I gave up on so quickly. The dread of writing papers had something to do with that. Being a college drop out kept nagging at me, so I signed up as a part-time student at University of Michigan-Flint in the winter semester of 1988. Not until the fall semester did I have to write a paper. It was an English composition class so there was plenty of writing. With no computer at home I was in the computer lab many hours.
I’d never used a keyboard before but was shocked when my fingers began typing words without looking for the letters. Weird, I hadn’t typed in over twenty years. That would have been when a sophomore in high school, 1966. I was possibly the worst student in Miss Leonard’s typing class. Not for being inept, but because I broke a wrist in gym class soon after school started that fall. I was six weeks behind the other students in the class when my cast came off.
When the class ended I was writing 29 words a minute, compared to classmates with lighting fast fingers. They seemed to be doing sixty or more words a minute. Not being a good student in typing class is why I was amazed by the memory of my fingers. Memory, as in, they seem to be functioning without my brain having any communication with them.
There’s been a huge change in writing technology since my high school typing days. As a sophomore I began by clicking away on manual typewriters, before moving up to an electric the second semester. But, computers with word processors created a whole new world for me. No more writing on notebook paper, and editing repeatedly on blank sheets.
I did have one minor writing success that used that technique. That would be in 11th grade English. Mrs. Tate assigned the class to write a Christmas story. With no word processor many pages of notebook paper must have been used. I was just hoping for a passing grade. The story I turned in was titled, A Hippie’s Christmas.
Days later, before returning our graded papers, Mrs. Tate said there was one she wanted to read to the class. When hearing the first sentence I realized it was mine. I wanted to crawl under my desk and hide. I was thinking she had picked it because it was so horrible, she was using it as a bad example.
By the time she finished I realized that she thought it was good. She ended by saying “Guess who wrote that story? It was written by Riley.” Classmates heads turned and looked at me in shock. Nobody was more shocked than myself when papers were handed back and I was staring at an A+.
For some people that may have been a catalyst to a writing career. I can’t say that. I took it as a fluke. To do it again would be more work than this lazy teenager would ever muster. Yet, had there been word processors back then, who knows.
I’ll never claim to be a good writer, just adequate. I believe all who read this could do as well. All one needs to do is type a bunch of crap, then keep editing until it no longer stinks. I imagine a good writer to be somebody who writes a quality story without ever having to edit. Very little editing would be done on these updates if I knew nobody was reading. The amount of editing is directly proportional to the number of readers. Also, the updates would be much shorter. Very short, if I was just writing to myself. 284 is the number of DAYs I have journaled about since Swiftee and I became a team in 2005. Some DAYs writing’s were quite short, for it seemed I was writing to myself.
When I did go back and give college another try, it was with some maturity, I knew better than to turn in something unedited. Or let anyone read it before some editing. In ENG Comp 101, the instructor would have us exchange papers with classmates beside us. We were told to critique that students essay. I swapped with a girl fresh out of high school. What I read made no sense at all. I barely could tell what it was suppose to be about. Her topic of choice was French impressionist Edgar Degas. All I read was chaotic ramblings about paintings of ballerinas. (Being into art, maybe she was going a Picasso style of writing.)
I didn’t know where to begin telling her tactfully her how to improve the essay. At the time I thought the instructor was pawning his work off on his students. I now believe this exchange was more for the benefit of the student reading them, not for the student who wrote it. I came away gaining more knowledge than she did. I learned that time editing = or > time writing.
I also learned that I wrote that same paper that girl did when I was her age. Only difference, hers was about Degas and dancers, mine was about the 1968 World Champion Detroit Tigers. From chatting with the girl (a diversion from critiquing?) I learned she was in college to become a nurse. She was still in the class at the end of the semester. Hopefully, in a few years she did became an RN. At least she didn’t quit college in the first two weeks, as this stubborn and naïve teen did.
You got that right. Looks like no editors beyond the writers themselves.
Ah, proofreading and editing. They seem like lost arts, don't they?