It was another day in Philly and I had just finished playing basketball with my friend down at the rec center. Me and my bro were tired and decided we were going to go to a store and get something to drink and something to eat. As we were making our way down the street, my homie was going on running his mouth saying “since I’m the best baller out of me and you, you gotta do my homework assignments for a week and you gotta comb my chest hair since I’m JORDAN”. I looked at him like “boyyy ya name Bobby u ain’t no damn Jordan u alright in ball but u tweaking if u think I’m doing anything you talking about. I ain’t even do my own damn work ”. He said “okay forget the chest hairs we still got homework to finish and I ain’t start you know what to do ?” I told him “I know what to do but the problem is I just don’t feel like doing it”. He said “I’m going through the same thing bruh”. My friend Bobby was tryna go to the Poppie store to get something to eat and drink but I was tryna slide to the new Wawa they just built in Collingdale. He told me “you tripping bro Wawa expensive I’m on a budget”. I said “damn bro you outta luck I want a warm cookie and a smoothie”. He snapped me up and told me he was gonna see me later I told him rd bro be safe. As I proceeded with my day heading to Wawa I noticed all these people crowded around these three old heads in the park asking them questions about writing and reading. I was thinking to myself like “hmmm Philly moving up when they start doing stuff like this”. The one old head was Don Murray I’ve never heard of him before but as I was walking closer to the crowd I started to pick up on the conversation the crowd was having with the old heads. He was saying “Writing is the act of producing a first draft. It is the fastest part of the process, and the most frightening, for it is a commitment.” It took me a while to understand what he meant but I started to realize that everything they were talking about could help me with my assignment. I got three human answer keys right in front of me to help me with my homework. I decided to ask Mr. Murray a question after he was done answering a girl question in the crowd. The girl must’ve been a teacher because she asked him “What is the process we should teach? He said “It is the process of dis- covery through language. It is the process of exploration of what we should know and what we feel about what we know through language. It is the process of using language to learn about our world, to evaluate what we learn about our world, to communicate what we learn about our world. I started to ask him “How do you motivate us students to pass through this process, perhaps even pass through it again and again on the same piece of writing?First by shutting up. When you are talking you aren’t writing. And you don’t learn a process by talking about it, but by doing it. I said “okay so do you want me to shut up when I’m writing from now on but they ended up moving on to the next question so I told him thank you” I thought Don Murray was a little harsh to begin with so I started to focus my attention to the next old head right next to Mr. Murray to ask her sum questions. Her name was Mary Karr. She started saying to the crowd and me “In fact, after a lifetime of hounding authors for advice, I’ve heard three truths from every mouth:(1) Writing is painful—it’s “fun” only for novices, the very young, and hacks; (2) other than a few instances of luck, good work only comes through revision; (3) the best revisers often have reading habits that stretch back before the current age, which lends them a sense of history and raises their standards for quality.” So I started to ask her, do you think revision is the best thing to do when writing ? She said “Revision is the secret to their troubles—and yours. That, and a sense of quality that exceeds what you can do—that gives you something to strive for. Actually, every writer needs two selves—the generative self and the editor self.” I asked her do you think you can have your generative self to write without your editor ? She said “the generative self shakes pom-poms at every pen stroke and cheers every crossed t.The editor self then shows up to heft the pages, give a sniff, and say: Yeah, but . . . The editor condenses two hundred pages down to about thirty. I don’t mean she cuts the rest; she may well boil the whole thing down so the same amount of stuff happens more economically. “ I told her okay last question is it harder for you to edit your work or to get it started ? She said “I find generative me harder to get going. But through sheer hardheadedness, even I can grant myself permission to run buck-wild down the page with sentences dumb as stumps and few glimpses of anything pretty. The idea is to get some scenes down. Let your mind roam down some alleys that may land in dead ends—that’s the nature of the process. The security started to let other people ask questions besides me so I thanked Mary and went to the next old head next to her. This lady's name was Anne Lamont a lot of people weren’t surrounded by her so I was happy I could actually have a conversation with her one on one without everybody trying to hassle her for answers. I first told her my name and told her I know that you are all great writers and good teachers to some extent but was there ever a time in your life where you had shitty material when you was trying write ? She told me “For me and most of the other writers I know, writing is not rapturous. In fact, the only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts.” I asked her “ So basically as students when writing we should revise and make our shitty drafts our final draft ? She told me “The first draft is the child’s draft, where you let it all pour out and then let it romp all over the place, knowing that no one is going to see it and that you can shape it later. You just let this childlike part of you channel whatever voices and visions come through and onto the page. I started to understand more about how writing is and what I should do when I’m writing. Everybody has their mistakes especially when it comes to writing. It's about revising and correcting your errors . I asked her one more question before I headed to Wawa “I asked her, do you think there’s such a thing as a perfect piece of writing or can u write a perfect draft ?” She told me “I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won’t have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren’t even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they’re doing it.” That made me look at things differently in my head now when I’m writing and looking at other people's material. I told her I had to go but thank you for helping me by answering my questions. It was a big help. I thanked the other two old heads for looking out and helping me. I realized that you don’t have to take the easy way out to get thing done.
3 Comments
Sabatino
2/10/2020 07:24:41 am
CIF.
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Elaine Tran
2/11/2020 07:25:46 am
I like how you used color coding to distinguish the quotes. These quotes are also great and useful.
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Joceline Sanchez
2/11/2020 07:55:54 am
This post was entertaining to read. I like how you weren't the only one asking them questions.
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