Blog Post #6

I thought our discussion this week about male privilege was very interesting because I never really think about how others view the male race, especially from the point of view of a woman. I would have loved to have also read other perspectives about this specific group of society from the eyes of other males, from children, from elders, from people of color, and from foreigners. It is always very interesting for me to see how each opinion about a certain group of society differs depending on the group viewing them. In addition, this topic of discussion brought to my attention my own social identity. I am a white, Jewish, young woman. I wonder how others view myself. I wonder how those of different color, those of different religion, and those of different gender perceive of me. I wonder how those from other countries view me. I wonder how my family views me. In fact, I wonder how other white, Jewish, women view me. Sometimes, people of the same social identity view others similar to them in a different light. Social identity is a very interesting topic that I look forward to exploring in my next essay. I also look forward to peer editing the next set of essays because it will allow me to enter the world of social identity of other members of my class.

Extra Credit

To my own surprise, I quite enjoyed listening to Philip Deloria's Writer to Writer podcast. I was really hooked on to a lot he had to say about his process of writing, his inspirations, driving forces and his experiences.

       The first thing that I really liked listening to was Deloria's method of seeking inspiration through "idea files". When he talked about a very generic thing that happens to all of us such as thinking about something really weird, but not pursuing it, I found myself agreeing readily. It makes me think of all those times a lot of weird stuff has occurred to me on a daily basis, but I have never bothered to explore any of it because I fear that nobody would get me. However, Deloria claims that he has been doing exactly that, so clearly, it works. He also talks about moving forward with these things with a full hundred percent, something which truly inspires me because I tend to not do that. It is fascinating to think that the smallest, most seemingly inconsequential ideas could lead to massive revelations and amazing work. 

     This conversation directly rolled over into Deloria's writing process, which honestly makes me appreciate him even more. He talks about the brutality of writing while he is not on leave and expands upon how he writes when he is. Listening to his method of eliminating all distractions, maintain a disciplined way of doing it and actually giving his hundred percent reminds me of how different my writing process is. He also talks about how it’s probably the easier thing to go over what one has already written and constantly edit and correct it, but he on the other hand aims to write afresh and keep building every day. I don’t know if I personally have it in me to be a very disciplined writer like Deloria is, but I certainly have immense respect for anyone who maintains a process like that. This part of the conversation is directly linked to what Deloria had to sat earlier regarding the giving in your fullest and not letting anything pass you by. If he gave into those distractions, be it only checking his email, there could be a chance of him missing out on some great idea that could have occurred to him but didn’t. After listening to what he had to say about finding time to write even in the midst of his busy schedule when he is not on leave, I think about how often I make excuses about not being able to find time to write outside of class. However, somewhere deep down I know that if I wanted, I could really make time for it, without compromising on other work.

         Moving on, I found the little excerpt from Deloria’s spa music essay really interesting. When Deloria mentioned that it was really goofy and funny, I expected a sarcastic, yet prominently funny take on assumedly spa music. But, by the time he was done reading, I was completely taken by surprise. For a moment, I didn’t know where Deloria was going with it, but when the essay took a very philosophical, yet so relatable character, I knew exactly what he was talking about. I loved how he connected something like spa music with “winners and losers in life” and talked about how the massage therapist was a “trickster”. Unable to figure out the meaning of trickster in the sense that Deloria intended, I was relieved when the interviewer asked him about it and he explained it as a recurring character theme in Native American folklore. Again, it is interesting to note how Deloria manages to bring in his passion and interest in the subject even into an essay on spa music. I thought a lot about the concept of the trickster tricking as well as being tricked. I think the spa essay was a very clever piece of writing and left me wondering about Deloria’s effortless, stylistic writing as he manages to make this an “ironic funny” piece without even trying. 

I was truly inspired by a lot of what Deloria said, especially his emphasis on the importance of our drafting process, something I had never done before I took LHSP 125. To be honest, I despised the idea earlier, but now believe that it is extremely helpful. I also agree with his emphasis on the importance of stricture and narrative in the process of writing and hope to build on that more. 

I am glad that I listened to this podcast and found Deloria's take on many things to be very relatable. I like how he conveyed his thoughts in a very amiable, conversational and humorous way, which I had not expected at first. I wish I had heard him in person, and definitely look forward to listening more of what he has to say. 

Extra Credit

I enjoyed listening to the podcast of the Writer to Writer conversation with Philip Deloria. It was cool to hear from a writer about how he thinks about writing. When I first heard Deloria talking about how he spent his days on leave writing, I was kind of surprised that he devoted so much of the day to writing. I think I was expecting him to say that he spent the morning writing and the rest of the day doing other stuff, but thinking about it afterward I had to remind myself that he’s a writer, so it makes a lot of sense for him to spend a lot of his day writing. I think that him having a set schedule every day centered around writing defined his writing as a main piece of work as opposed to a hobby. Another thing that I found important in this part of the conversation was that he said that he avoided checking his email before or during his writing time because it would distract him and disrupt the writing process. I agree with this, but thinking about it I also realized that I often check my email, even when I know I don’t have any new emails, as a way to distract myself from writing or doing other work. Because of this, I know very well that it doesn’t help the writing process, but I also know that it can be difficult to not get distracted by little things when the task at hand gets a little bit hard or boring. Deloria’s conversation is a reminder that discipline is very important when trying to complete a task. Even when writing gets hard or boring, it’s probably really important to force yourself to keep thinking about it, or at least not distract your brain with something else, because during that time new ideas could develop. If you give in to distractions, the opportunity for new ideas is gone.

When asked where his initial ideas come from, Deloria said that one of the things he finds important in realizing ideas is to pay 100% attention to the world, after which he immediately acknowledged that you can’t really always be paying 100% attention. But when you can give all of your attention to something, do it! He said to actually SEE stuff and not let it pass you by, which reminded me a lot of this class, especially what we talked about early on in the year. In every one of our essays we have been asked to look past what is immediately obvious, and dig deeper into things. We have also been encouraged to actually look and pay attention to our surroundings, especially in the first essay of the semester. I think this idea relates a lot to what Deloria was saying about seeing stuff and not letting it pass you by. There are so many things in our lives that we don’t actually see because they are there so much. Ordinary things that we don’t pay any attention to because either we don’t notice them anymore or because we don’t think they deserve being noticed. Deloria talked about something slightly different; not letting the weird things pass by. He mentioned that often we brush weird things aside and don’t pay attention to them, but if given some thought, they could turn into a whole new project with all kinds of ideas bursting out of them. Hearing this was an important reminder to me to not ignore things, especially since I feel like recently I have had a tendency to just keep walking and not give too much attention to things I might be curious about.

In talking about things he wishes he could get his students to do, Deloria said that he wishes students would understand the importance of taking the drafting process more seriously. He then gave an example of his experience drafting and re-drafting some of his own writing. Talking about his own writing seemed like the obvious thing to do, but at the same time added in some humanity and credibility to his suggestion and to himself - it showed that he, too, is a regular person in addition to being a writer, and that some parts of the writing process aren’t easy for him either. He talked about having done a draft that he liked and felt good about, but also knew that he needed to reorganize it, which is a very familiar feeling to me. I think often I am very reluctant to change things that I know need to be changed because I don’t want to feel like my ideas will be erased or destroyed. Deloria talked about the importance of being open to multiple draftings because no one nails it the first time. He also said to make sure there’s time to stop, pause, and have some time to think about what you’ve written. That’s something I’ve known for a while that I should do, but often during this semester I found myself putting off writing drafts so that, besides the time between peer reviews and final drafts, I didn’t really end up having time to set the draft aside and come back to it. That is something I hope to work on in the future. I appreciated that he acknowledged that the drafting process can be painful because that makes me seem less different from a “real” writer.

Deloria also said that one of his favorite moments as a writer is reading something and realizing it’s not as bad as he thought it was. This is actually similar to one of my favorite feelings - going back and reading something and thinking “I wrote this? Dang! That’s brilliant!” It’s humbling to see that people who write professionally can doubt themselves so much and have these moments too.

Extra Credit

Deloria speaks about a ‘trickster,' which is a philosophical figure that traditionally appears in Native American stories and is meant to demonstrate "how to live by knowing how not to live; here's how to not live by knowing how to live.” He uses a trickster as this narrative voice in this piece of short fiction to show how the spa is not an accurate depiction of the life of a winner, and that in reality, a winner acquires a high status in society by making sure others are considered losers in comparison to them. To summarize this idea, he claims that life is actually "the delusion and privilege of the winner.” This statement stuck out to me initially because Deloria uses the word “privilege” because this concept frequently appeared towards the end of the semester around the time we were writing our personal narrative essays. I found his use of the spa metaphor particularly interesting because we have discussed so much in class the role of our social identities about others but in a more literal sense, like in McIntosh’s essay about her privileges as a white woman. While Deloria doesn’t directly reference minority groups in society like McIntosh does, he parallels the idea there is a social hierarchy of “winners” and "losers" in our society and one cannot exist without the presence of the other. 

During this discussion, Deloria claims that he believes structure and argument of a piece of writing are more important than narrative voice and tone. I found this particularly interesting because, in my educational career, this has not been the case in regards to the curriculum I’ve been taught. For example, after taking LHSP 125, I’ve been able to identify that one of my major weakness in writing is structure and organization of the overall piece because. I assume that this is because, before college, my lessons on writing mainly focused on developing a writer’s voice — which I believe is one of my biggest strengths in writing today. Also, Deloria states that narrative skill and fluidity compensate for solid structure in writing, and he uses his poetry as an example. I find this especially ironic because recently I have often looked to poetry when trying to improve my style of writing. The general point Deloria makes here caught my attention and got me thinking because it somewhat contradicted how I’ve personally developed as a writer throughout the course of my education.

When he was asked what advice he would give to students by the interviewer, Deloria says that they should take the drafting process very seriously and be honest with themselves during the writing process. By working and re-working a draft, he believes that the final product will be much better as well. Being open to constant revision and accepting that one’s writing is not as good as it can be, according to Deloria, is difficult but ultimately makes the best writers. This advice reminded me of the Thomas Mann quote that was put on the board earlier this year: “A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” Deloria acknowledges that repeatedly drafting a piece of writing over and over is a super hard and time-consuming, but that this is what the best writers do — just like what Mann says in this quote. I found it interesting that we started and ended LHSP 125 with the same general idea about writing, but now I understand it so much better due to what I have learned in this course. Personally, I agree with Deloria and Mann because the best pieces of writing that I have produced (and the best pieces or art as well) have come from adapting it into several drafts and constantly re-structuring until I can’t bare to look at it anymore.

Blog Post #7

By the time I graduated high school, I was pretty confident in my writing abilities. While I knew that I had much more to learn in college, I was unaware of the extent to which this class would change my opinion on my own writing. After taking LHSP 125, I have realized that one of my biggest struggles in the writing process of any English assignment is developing a strong, organized essay around a central thesis — which I learned very early on in my education, but never discussed further in the context of college-level writing. Also, in LHSP 125, I was first introduced to the idea of a complex thesis when we were working on Essay Assignment #4 which further complicated how I worked with a thesis. Overall, this class challenged how I organized, structure, draft, and develop a thesis while writing an essay, and has left me less confident than at the start of this semester. However, I think this is a good thing because it means that I have risen my standards for my writing and motivates me to continue to grow as a writing because I am now aware of where my weaknesses lie. 

In this English course, I have had to write longer papers that count towards more of my cumulative grade in shorter amounts of time. As a result, I’ve developed new methods and processes of writing essays in general. Specifically, rather starting by brainstorming or outlining, I now immediately start writing paragraphs of ideas as they pop into my head because I’ve learned that getting all my initial ideas down as fast as I can ultimately leave me with less work to do later in the drafting process. This saves an immense amount of my time and makes my work longer with less overall effort.

A final thing I learned from this course is descriptive writing. In high school English, I never got the opportunity to neither write descriptive pieces nor creative/personal narratives like I did in this class. I’m glad that I got the chance to write in this way because I think it was valuable to my overall writing abilities by letting me explore a writing perspectives and voices I have not been able to before. 

Extra Credit

One of the things that really fascinates me is how the people who write get the ideas for their writing. Listening to Deloria's process of 'idea files' for stories and his general advice on how to generate ideas for writing were quite interesting. Deloria was asked how he generates ideas for his books, was it actively or did he just wait for an idea to pop into his head? He said that he tries to pay his full attention to what was going on around him, and not let stuff pass you by. He said to not let little ideas pass you by, to not forget it. By scouring into the weird, he sometimes find things that are worth writing about. I personally do not think of myself as a writer. Sometimes I like to write little posts to myself when I'm bored, for example but that's about it. However, I have been wanting to write something of my own for a while- something interesting, something witty, something I could be proud of. There's a website called Wattpad where people can post their own stories, and every summer I told myself that I'd write one. However, I could never think of what exactly I want to write about, and how I'd even start. I realised as I was listening to Deloria that part of my problem of my lack of inspiration is my very low attention span. I am often oblivious to my surroundings, and don't notice things unless explicitly pointed out to me. If only I could make a better effort to be more aware, and not hesitate to speak to people and let my curiosity be piqued, I may just end up finding something that I think would be worth sharing.
Another thing Deloria talkes about is discipline. He says his prime time for writing is in the early morning, and he tries to write for a solid amount of time without any distractions. He mentions how he avoids line editing in this process, which I think is something a lot of us (at least I) tend to do, and something that could benefit us if we avoided it. By going back to edit the little things while we write, our flow gets interrupted and we often forget what we wanted to write. This is particularly bad for me, as I tend to not plan what I write in advance, instead going with the flow of ideas that pop into my head when I write. He also mentions how he takes short breaks to do some physical activity after writing a bit. I think this could be potentially a very useful strategy as when I write I often feel mentally exhausted, and focusing on physical exertion helps clear up my mind so I can think from multiple perspectives when I go back to my writing. Writing is a very time consuming process, that requires full attention in order for it to be the best quality it can be. It is very impressive to me how people can write entire novels while working at the same time. Although Deloria mentions that his work when he isn't on leave isn't the best, he still makes time for it. Although I do not intend to major/minor in writing or pursue it as a career, I definitely like using it as an outlet for my emotions and ideas. He reminded me that it isn't necessary that I can only write when I have nothing at all to do, in summer for example. Instead, I can make time for writing during the semester, even for a few hours a week.
Deloria also talks about how in the writing process drafting is particularly important. He says that it's very difficult to nail something the first time it's written. It's encouraging to me to hear that such an experienced and accomplished writer also feels this way, and doesn't write perfectly the first time around. I think I may have mentioned on this blog before that in my high school career a lot of emphasis was never placed on re-drafting as most of the time for our english classes we had on the spot writing and submission. Something valuable that I've learnt after coming here is the importance of the editing and re-drafting process. Deloria says to keep thinking about the primary question- because usually there is only one primary question and this needs to be answered well and throughly. He says that if it isn't dress properly, it is a must to reframe the entire thing. I still cringe when I think of how much more effort this takes, but I've realise that I've done this multiple times with my essays this semester and although it was a lot of work, it payed off in the end. I had a more comprehensive, well flowing essay after thinking about my thesis and the primary purpose of my essay, and how well I have presented it.
I quite enjoyed listening to Deloria and will definately keep a watch out for more of the Writer-to-Writer series.

Blog Post #7

I have definitely learned a lot about myself as a writer and about writing itself this past semester. In high school, I was very used to writing analytical essays about novels and essays, so delving into the world of more creative yet still analytical writing was challenging but also rewarding. I loved having choices, whether it was picking my place of interest or picking my advertisements to compare. I also loved being able to explore the usage of the first person pronoun, "I." It was nice to be given some freedom as a writer, which allowed me to find my voice and my style. Over this semester, I feel that I have definitely improved in terms of writing, but I still have many areas in which I could improve upon. Most notably, I hope to write less wordy. I want to become more concise and more to the point. I am big on deep, vivid description, so I need to learn how to create a balance between good insight and good sentence quality. I also want to work on varying my sentences so my essays do not sound monotonous. I look forward to delving deeper and deeper into the world of writing and I hope to keep improving myself. I am grateful for what my Freshman writing class has provided for me this semester, I wonder what the next four years will have in store for me.