No matter how many articles, blog entries, posts, or books one reads, writing is still hard! There are so many approaches to writing, and all of them are inside each one of us, according to Haruki Murakami. Reading Emily Temple’s What’s Needed is Magic: Writing Advice from Haruki Murakami had me biting my tongue until the very last piece of advice collected from Murakami. In it, advice after advice rejoiced in the grace and importance of talent in writing, which left me feeling ultimately alone and hopeless.
Thankfully for my ego, Murakami’s last piece of advice compiled by Temple addressed the substance and blessing of hard work. Now, this is where I belong, and apparently, also Haruki Murakami. Writing, though exciting and passionate (at least for me), can be so hard and needs real hard work. Then what would working harder look like? Temple’s selection guides us through a variety of different recommendations. My favorite, despite how basic it is, is reading.
However, learning and real hard work, are not within one’s comfort zone. For that, the advice that would help me the most is to explain myself clearly. And yeah, I know, it sounds pretty simple and bland, but there’s so much to it. All my English professors have agreed on one thing: I assume the audience knows too much, and by that assumption, I fail to clearly demonstrate my thought process.
Regardless of how interesting my thoughts or views on a topic can be, if I fail to explain my thoughts correctly to an audience, then my thoughts are pointless!
To prevent this from happening to me as frequently as it happens now, I have paired with my professors in the search for guidance. Since this is the last blog post of the semester, I think I’m allowed a bit of retrospection. That being said, I am thankful to all my English professors for always taking the time to explain and break down information that I’m having trouble digesting.
Tim Gillespie’s Becoming Your Own Expert—Teachers as Writers explores the benefits of having a teacher who writes and its impact on academic success in the classroom. What resonated with me the most about this article was that understanding that when teachers write, they can sympathize with their students. By writing, instructors would first experience how hard an assignment is or how the writing process goes. I never thought about it until I read Gillespie’s article, but it made me realize that maybe this is my professor’s trick to help me understand. They write.
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