When writing, I am very particular about how it sounds. Kind of the whole point, I know, but hear me out. I mentioned before that I write how I speak, and in certain situations, it can change. Essays or serious discussions, even just in a working environment, differ from how I normally would sound, and that is when it becomes harder to make conversation. Especially when working on the same topic with other people, who, obviously, will not have the same writing style.
Group projects are the highlight of my day, and the bane of my existence. Just as another person’s writing is different, so are they as a whole. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but there is never a chance of the same person twice–and that’s where it starts. Finding a good middle ground. Collaborating, as spoken about by Rebecca Ingalls in her article “Writing ‘Eyeball to Eyeball’: Building A Successful Collaboration”, comes with a lot of steps. Which is funny, because it should be something that is simple, yet, like I said before, there is not just one person at play. There are always two (Star Wars Reference :D), or more who will be working together to completely destroy each other’s self-esteem.
I like making jokes or sounding relaxed in my writing, so when others read it, it’s not just words on top of words that are huge and exhausting, but a little more fun. However, in a classroom setting, most people don’t like that. Here is the problem though, I am never usually confident about how I write. In high school I would constantly ask my friend to look over my writing because she was smarter and actually knew what she was talking about. It would come back with a lot of red marks. The beauty of it though, was that with those marks, I’d actually do well. Surprise, surprise. It’s like asking the smarter kid to do their homework for them, but with less threatening. And when I couldn’t get her, I just threw it down to the teacher without looking twice, feeling confident. They didn’t love it either.
A lot of the times when I do sound professional, it works in my favor. Still, I personally think I sound like an idiot and will also ask someone to look over it. Take an email for example: I was emailing a professor about a job, and had my friend, who already works under her, look at it for me. It’s not cheating if money is on the line. It’s working with skill in a smart way. Maybe. Anyway, she thought it sounded good and I sent it off without a second glance. I had one goal, and kept an open mind for suggestions, and it worked out. Don’t know if I got the job yet, but I see the professor every other Monday already so, fingers crossed!
Now, my favorite thing to talk about: failure! May not seem so fun, but that is what makes it interesting. Failing is a part of life, and with writing, oh boy do I fail a lot. I write a lot on my own, making my own storylines and characters, etc. What’s funny about it though, is that I quit super fast. If something sounds off, I delete the whole thing and scrap the idea. I’m not proud of it. What’s good though, is that those scrapped ideas come back sooner or later, and I feel more accomplished when I use them again and it works out.
Failure is fun, and thanks to Alexus Yeakel in his piece of “Failure Is Awesome”, we can know why. Learning from mistakes is the whole point of them. In order to succeed, falling down is one of the main steps. Afterwards, it keeps a person’s head up and eyes down to make sure they won’t fall again. The only problem with failure is that a lot of the time, it’s because other people are the ones failing them. It won’t entirely be on the person or their writing if it’s just someone else’s opinion, which makes the whole thing biased. That’s how we learn how to adapt to others, just in the saddest way possible.
I can actually relate this to dance as well. When dancing, failure was also a constant. There is winning and losing and learning, and all three of those have a hand in the failure department. Because, if one doesn’t win, they fail and have to keep going. Which brings us back to collaborating. One has to prepare for others to fail them instead. Of course, they can fail themselves, which counts as a personal attack, but it hurts just a little bit more from an outsider. In competitions, the judges would be the one to help fail them based on their scoring.
But, like I said, that is how we learn how to talk, and perform, to other groups of people. Not everyone thinks or writes the same, and calling back, they will never have the same kind of person twice.
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