The Nature of Writing Process

DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGES AND HUMANITIES

CREATIVE WRITING    EN1109

ACTIVITY # 1

THE NATURE OF WRITING PROCESS

Writing is considered as a complex process that allows writers to explore thoughts and ideas.  Concretization of sentences is an important part of the writing just like laying the foundation for a house construction. When thoughts and ideas are written down, they can always be read and re-written, revised, edited, examined, rearranged and changed. The writer must first “think” in the language that he or she is writing.

The beginning writing may appear a waterloo. Much of Annie Dillard works have been about the writing process, but she says that “Writing is a hard, conscious, terribly frustrating world!”

Considerations according to some differences between Technical and Creative Writing:

On Creative Process:

Gemino H. Abad gave the following important aspects of creativity:

1.  The creative process is not a continuing development or a method but rather what we call an “outbreak” or a “happen-stanch” or a seizure”.

2.  The creative process is illustrated by internal signs and one of them is the fact that you can write anything creatively on anything at your best if you are “possessed” by words and meaning, and by the power of the language”, the power of “thinking” as well as the power of “imagination”.

3.  There is a matter of “attitude” toward one’s own work, plus the “mental discipline” to get everything right and push one to write.

4.  The Language. It can be any language in the world.  You can write in a language that you are most comfortable with.

5.  The material itself (your topic) will consist of any “experience” from first or third person perspective, or whatever which could be re-created.

6.   There are three (3) specific levels of creative writing, namely:

        A. the level of telling what you write

        B. the level of showing what you write, and

        C. treating instantly what you write

7.  Each writer has a “point of view” or what we call a “personal conviction”.  Points of view are obsessions, agreements, or disagreements among writers. One can write depending on the “mood” of the writer.

8.  There is the existence of an “established” writer and a “beginning” writer.  The distinction lies only on what we may call as “reputation”.  For a beginning writer, the writer is in fact always beginning.  One authority to writing stated that writing for beginning writers is “forever an advent and Easter is far off.”  The metaphor applies directly.

9.  For Filipino writers, the personal and sentimental is at the “core” of the Filipino psyche in writing.  This is the easiest way to seduce the writer and entertain them. The sentimental realities surround the Filipino personalities.

10.  What is important and what matters most is to believe in whatever one is writing and creating; you have the final authority for yourself to decide honestly on what you will create or write, therefore cultivate an imaginative and discipline mind in the field of creative writing.

Points to Ponder and Remember for Good Writing: 5 Cs

Good writing needs clarity of thoughts and concept.  Personal commitment to and involvement with the subject and the reader is significant to good writing.  Good writing will be satisfying for any particular courses in college, in the workplace, and for our lives.  Knowing the subject and being passionate about it is a powerful relationship between the writer and the reader.  

It is good to remember the following points for good writing:

1. CLEAR.  If writing is not clear, it can cause serious and perhaps costly misunderstanding. Poor sentence structure, misused words, flawed grammar, redundancy and verbosity can all cause unclear writing.

2. CORRECT.  This means it is correct as its content as well as grammar, spelling, word usage and even punctuation.

3.  CONCISE.  The writing should not contain a lot of unnecessary words or information.

4.  COMPLETE.  It should have pertinent information.  When you’re writing, stop when, but not until, you’ve said all you need to say.

5.  CONSIDERATE.  It is unnecessarily long since it can waste the reader’s time.  If it offends because of intended or unintended racial, religious or sexual scars, it is inconsiderate.  If it is incomplete, it is inconsiderate.