English Assignment 1

"A Way Of Writing"

After reading William Stafford's "A Way of Writing" I find it interesting that what Stafford calls writing I would call music. Stafford describes writing as an adventure with no initial direction, very similar to how a jazz musician would describe his or her music process. Sometimes jazz artist make songs just as Stafford refines his writings into well manicured stories.

"Simplicty"

I rarely enjoy a reading that is unrelated the automotive world, Simplicity by William Zinsser was enjoyable. Zinsser has a point, why must we complicate our writings? Why should we be forced to write a 10 page research paper if we can get our point across in a more effective manner in just 6 pages? Zinsser's essay has been bookmarked and will be used as a reference point for future studies. The essay made me feel as though I have been approaching writing in the incorrect way for years. I can barely remember a time when I was struggling to keep my essay under the maximum pages allotted. School has/had (debatable) taught me that the longer your paper, the more thorough it must be. Less will always be more.

Zadie Smith

After reading listening to Smith's perspective and view on writing one portion caught my attention: Smith commented on not wanting to write a memoir for the reason of changing the past into something that it's not. It's so true that a photograph we saw a while ago can change the memory or actually be the memory in many cases. Once a memory is written down, it's final, there it is, right in front of you. Whereas keeping it stored in your memory allows the spice of time to marinade the memory just right.