Words to the Readers of Writing With RCS
We are learning to write well. Writing well is a bit different for each of use. For most of us, writing well includes being understood. I have come to believe that writing is an ongoing developmental process. In that process we often develop as much as our writing does. That development includes growth, maturation, cooking, transformation and like that. It seems to let more meaning and understanding into our lives. All this occurs whether we are aware of it or not. Sooner or later we usually do become aware that the process changes us. That awareness gives us a chance to co-opperate with it.
"Too soon old, too late smart"
I forget who told me that he heard an older immigrant say them. It seems to have caused them both an introspective thought or two. Looking back, I see that I was long mostly unconscious that my writing was developing me perhaps even more than I was developing it. It's a wonderous world, we can, and do improve without being aware of the sources of our growth or its source. I do now see that I was learning and coming to new understandings of my world and of myself. It is a pleasing discovery.
I also discovered that I very often know what I was talking about until I completed writing about it. I hesitate to add that, in an important sense, I have never come to completely come to completely know the nature of "it."
So, in a sense, I have never completed writing anything. Now when I write, I know that I am clarifying my present understanding in a way I hope I can help another to understand. I have more to learn, more to put together. As I practice writing the process of my development is enhanced.
Five Little Steps. Wait for them.......
I have just been looking at some notes of mine and see a little list of five steps. I have found it useful as a way to see where I am in the process of writing a piece. I tells me about my progress. It has been a help and a comfort, but it has not provided me with details of how to write.
Memories:
A lot of memories and thoughts are coming to mind just now, doings and happenings related to writing. A good happening to one wishing to write of writing. I am remembering that I read a lot and still read. I believe that doing so helps me to write. I did not analyze the way a work was written. I just enjoyed the content and tried to understand it. Sometimes I just read as fast as I could so that I could "getto the good parts."
I discovered "vocabulary." I enjoyed my growing vocabulary. It helped me to think better and it helped me, I thought, to better explain my understandings to others. I began to think with my wonderful vocabulary. I believed that, with it, I could make myself understood, not only to myself, but also to others.
I began to use my wonderful vocabulary on my on my friends and my family and to as many more as I could with my writing. I soon found that a few who found my vocabulary gratifying, but they were very few! Many, I discovered, did not know what in the world I was talking about. I was not very aware that meanings could be expressed in a variety of ways, some more appropriate to the moment than were others.
About this time I became a young traveler and writer of letters.I wrote mostly to my mother and my sister and used some of my wonderful vocabulary. They wrote back telling me that they loved my writing and my letters and that they laughed and laughed. I was pleased that they enjoyed my humor, but I thought that they were missing some of my descriptions of scenes I had enjoyed. Had my descriptions been boring. No, I had used my wonderful vocabulary to paint realistic pictures and to include the mood which they had evoked.
As I remember, I was told that the joy of these ladies of my family included rolling on the floor holding their sides from so much laughter. Their laughter, they explained, came from the nature of my very poor spelling, and from their efforts to pronounce my written version of the English language.
I knew my spelling was not wonderful in any positive sense. There were reasons for the poor quality which did not include sloth,, much sloth. I had learned to read with no conscious knowledge of paragraphs, sentences, words or letters. No alphabet for me. I was read to at an early age and had opportunity to look at that which was being read, sometimes being indicated by a moving finger. Slowly I came to recognize words and their meaning and to gain some concept of sentences. I was even slower to recognize individual letters and their significance.
So I was recognizing meaning in writing before I understand the nature of individual words or letters. I did come to see that certain groupings had certain meanings and even certain ways to be said. I was nearly an adult before I recognized that letters in words had much to do with the way they were pronounced. To this day it is difficult for me to attend to letters and their ordering in words.
The idea is that I came to reading with little understanding of letters, words, or their "sounding out." I thank the developers of "spell check." My knowledge of reading contributed less than usual to my ability to spell. I neglected letters. I was not conscious of being bothered by this until I began to receive bad marks on spelling tests in the 3rd grade. Than I thought I was born a bad speller and might benefit from writing the same word over and over again.
The fact that there was not yet a kindergarten in the public school system, that I never entered first grade, and that I entered 2nd grade twice, and entered 3rd grade with never having completed second grade very likely contributed to my condition.
Beginning to write:
Forward to my days of writing. As I struggled with my spelling and wonderful vocabulary, became willing to make my writing more accessible to readers. I did not truly realize that my writing, and even a bit of my speech, had become what might be called academic and literary. What I did was to invent am imaginary brother whom I loved and respected, but who did to enjoy or even appreciate my vocabulary, and perhaps my sometime large jumps in logic. This invented person with whom I very much want to share the thoughts and meanings of my writings. I had much to share with him, much of which it was not easy for me to express.
I decided to use language which I was more sure that we held in common. And, also to try to write so as t be more careful to fill in all the gaps or neglected steps in my logic. (I wish I had a doctor who had the same idea.) I had much to learn, but it was an improvement in my writing. However, half a centaury later, I am still slowly learning to express a fuller meaning of that which I want to say in a language that would be clear to a reader, and to me too. I am still finding that my writing, my writing practice is helping me to have the meaning I want to express more clearly in my mind.
Internet readers:
The internet is a problem for me because I have been unable to get to know my readers. It has been impossible for me to imagine them accurately. Still imagining helps a bit. Feedback helps. Years ago, when I had many more readers world wide. Most of them were from the US, followed by Europe. I began to receive many comments from Eastern Europe and began to get a better concept of to whom I was writing and the nature of their interests. That knowledge and feedback helped me to write better. Then I traveled for a time and finally decided to move from the US to Colombia and from my lack of publishing I lost a great many followers. I began to get a few returning and a few new followers, and along came "Covid 19" and I lost more readers. Also it now seems that a smaller percentage of those using the www know the advantages of blogsites and I do not appreciate the present value of visuals, the I do us a number videos. So now I am down to the number of viewers I had in the 1970s and have practically no commenters so practically no feedback.
Feedback from many blog type webesites is a two way deal or more.
Back to the notes I was looking at:
The list had been a sort of aid to where I was in the process in a given piece of writing. The process is divided into five parts. You may find it useful as some others have.
Here are these five steps:
1. Start writing and keep writing(its OK to stop to eat, sleep, and cogitate). Having the idea in the back of one's mind of completing the piece at hand may be helpful.
2. Experience disorientation and chaos, and keep writing. Here too it may be useful to have near consciousness the orientation and order may return.
3. Begin to detect to detect a growing center of gravity, the development of a central theme. Continue to continue to develop and express that central theme as you continue to write.
4. Mop up. Make sure that you have written you you thought you wrote.
5. Edit for publishing.
You may very well see other steps to include. I find that I may do two rewrites with rests in between, followed by another clean up.
Writing is an ongoing practice. Continued practice with these steps in mind has improved the writing process of others. They also can help one to be alert to where they are and what they are doing in the process of their writing.
Early on the second step seem to come to me most naturally. I often pass through it quickly these days, but it still recurs and is help in sorting through what's on your mind. I think about and develop my writing as I write. I find that it is a learning process for me.
We writers have a ''hard row to hoe." That is to say writing is seldom easy. We not only feel compelled to think about meaning and understanding, but also topic, theme, outline, paragraph, spelling, readers, etc, etc.
I have learned, am learning, and I am grateful. I hope to share more with you. Looking over that which I have written here, I do not see it as complete.
I see it as probably enough for now. The center of gravity may be weak. With another look it may seem half cooked. Right now I can see it as a fair beginning. I expect to continue the practice of writing and to keep plenty of meaning in my life. I may also experience an ongoing gratitude for my spell check app.
Thanks for reading. Come back anytime; the sooner the better.
rcs