Voices In My Head

There are a few things mentioned Berkenkotter about Murray that really resonated with me. The first was the “describe death to a twelve year old” task that had been assigned to Murray. Now while I thought his response was funny, it would definitely go under the title of ‘shitty first drafts .’ Then in reading about his dilemma on picturing his audience, I managed to scrape up what little empathy I had in my shriveled up heart to understand that that is probably a universal issue for writers.

We were all taught to write what we know, but not to who we know. In that specific situation he was writing for one very real audience in the disguise of writing for an imaginary audience. I suppose students are asked to do this all the time. For example, when we are told to write about topics that are teachers (audience) have studied extensively from every angle as if it were are audience’s (teachers) first time hearing about it.

All Eyes On Me

The next most significant mention in the journal for me was how aware Murray was that he was being watched, and the acknowledgement of the fact that this was enough to change some of his habits. Yes he did still treat his wife as his secretary, of course it still did not stop him from getting naked apparently. Though he suspects that knowing he was being watched was enough to keep him writing perhaps more diligently than he normally would have. I also think that perhaps his attempts at trying to forget he was being watched also led him to focus more on the writing as well.

Related posts:

The Planning Process Of Writing The Quirks of a Writer Testing Different Writing Processes Writing is not hard as you think