Are you talking to yourself?

After this reading, I have come to learn two things: 1) Elbow’s theories sound a lot like Penn State’s Journalism program and 2) When I write I already do some of the things he mentions about his ideas of the writing process.

During my time at Penn State, if there was one thing I learned from almost all of my Journalism professors it was this: If you can’t write... don’t (Elbow mentions this as his last point of writing). Some people like to call this “writer’s block”. If you’re stuck, get up, walk around, talk to people (talk to sources), go grab a coffee, watch TV - whatever – do something that will allow your thoughts to collect or organize so you can write efficiently. As a Journalist, this process is sped up quickly with the restriction of deadlines, but if you have the time – take it. That is the single, most important lesson I took with me upon graduation from the School of Communications. Nothing will get accomplished if you still and lull over a blank document. I’ve done it, and it only creates frustration and keeps me from getting my “beauty sleep”.

Another Elbow-Penn State relation I found was the idea of “writing a lot”. I’ve connected the sitting-down-and-writing-whatever-comes-to-your-head process with the getting-as-much-information-you-can idea when talking to a source for an article. Today, most Journalists use tape recorders so they can catch everything their source is telling them, which makes it a lot easier to be able to write more when you actually sit down and write the article. But whether you’re writing or taping, by getting as much information as you can it will actually allow you to write more. For me - with this information, when I begin to write I’ll jot down sentences all over the document – use this quote here, that quote there – it’s not a completed story but little pieces of it that, if the holes were filled, would eventually create a roughly drafted story.

And lastly, after reading this theory of “cooking as writing”, I can’t believe that I actually do some of these strategies his mentions (when I thought doing them was weird). As previously, I get up and walk away from my computer when I can’t write. It’s too frustrating for me to sit and try to write when I know I can’t. Also, for example, my friends/ roommates always thought it was weird (or I was weird, who knows!) that I talked to myself while writing. I do it all the time! It’s more or less a therapy thing for me. If I have all these ideas bouncing around in my head and I just can’t seem to write something, the nerves from my brain to my hand just aren't connecting... I’ll start talking out loud. It allows me to actually hear what I’m thinking and be able to decide if that’s what I really wanted to write down on paper. I also always thought I was crazy when I “talked to myself” but Elbow reassured me that I’m not!