Allen

Getting ready to read

It seems from reading Sarah Allen's The Inspired Writer Vs the Real writer that student writers seem to focus more on the draft of a formal paper along with the grammar and punctuation. They are use to writing in a high school setting and tend to follow the 5 paragraph formula that Allen refers to.Professional writers focus on strategies and revision of their work. They are similar in that both student and professional writers all struggle at times.Allen refers to the sinking,spinning feeling she still gets when reading and writing along with the trudging feeling at times when searching for ideas.All writers student or experienced all come to the same road blocks.

Applying and Exploring ideas

I have not personally used this method of imitation in my own writing. This is the first writing class I have been in since high school 20 years ago. I feel however that this method my help someone in my position that is trying to learn the process of writing to begin to put together the process of writing and then form my own individual ideas and methods.

Discussion and Journaling

Allen believes that the myth of the inspired writer is that writing comes easily to he/she. The reality is that the inspired writer also had to answer to great writings that were before them.They to in fact had to deal with struggling for ideas and the feeling that their work did not meet the standards put before them. This works against us as student writers in the fact that this myth gives us the feeling that if writing does not come easy to us we can never be good at it. It makes us give up so to speak on trying to be good writers and put less time and effort into our work because we assume that if we struggle our writing is not good.

MM

Yes the idea of the inspired writer affects me now as I am trying to work on the first project of this writing class. By reading her article I have come to realize that I am not alone in the feeling of being unable to be inspired or write. It also makes me realize that it is okay that ideas and understanding the process of writing does not come easy to me.