Totally Audacious Audacity & Meditations on Writing

So this is my super late post about the Audacity tutorials. Overall, they served a great purpose. I was already familiar with the program by the time we went over it in class. The only criticism I have is that the resolution was so low that I couldn't tell which buttons he was pressing! Even his podcast was a little quiet in the second one. The reading about Podcasting was very general, but it's always great to be reminded.

The "Shitty First Drafts" article we read I now have saved on my computer. I loved it. The writing game is all about getting excited in the moment. Inspiration can happen so easily when exposed to material like that. It's also comforting to know experienced writers go through the kinks too. Editing creative work is probably one of the most difficult forms of editing. The author first edits, which is all fine and good. But then when the editor comes in, it's difficult to stop and just copy edit. I find myself thinking: oh man that prepositional phrase should not go there, exist, or should just be... and it starts to blur the lines between style and grammar. 

The whole writing process is made so much easier when the writer can learn to relax. Take the pressure off, enjoy the experience. But when the urge to write comes... BY GOD GO WRITE. On several occasions I have left parties to go home and write. It's important to get it while it's fresh in your head.

Drafts are so important. They mature, as you do, with time. Stepping away for a while is a luxury you can only have when you don't procrastinate. Letting it breathe, getting out of your head, and changing the scenery are invaluable to making something that appeals to a wider ranging audience, or if it is the intent, a very specific audience. Perspective is vital. When writing the original draft that's just one train of thought in one moment of time. On second, third, fiftieth drafts we can jam in all the hair-fine details that makes creative fiction so lifelike.

For critical writing, my opinion differs slightly. This is something you can chip away at over time and do in parts. That is, ONLY if you have a central idea or thesis to tie it all in together. If you don't the paper is subject to change every time the author revisits it. It is my opinion that meditating on the the idea, letting it develop and take form while doing some general research in the meantime will allow the paper to flow naturally once it's written. Researching before writing also helps us find our topic!

Literary Criticism for example is all about focusing deeply on something with concision. This is where editing becomes really fun. Cutting is my best friend. Yes friends, cut that thing until it's clean! All of that extra stuff, those adjectives you can't part with so you put all three in, those superfluous words like superfluous used more than once, you know the drill.

It is also important to determine the tone, voice and narrative voice. I'm very informal in life, business, and writing. But I have trained myself to sound 'scholarly' when writing academic papers. My solution for matching the type of writing with the voice is to look at examples before writing. If I wanted to sound like the dense material I have read for my science classes, I would read that. But I would rather sound like Harold Bloom, who works a conversational tone in here and there.