Journal Entry #1
The Steps of my Current Personal Writing Process
As argued by Arlov, gathering ideas for writing can be a time consuming activity (2015, 23). In my opinion, it is very nice to have enough time to input significant amounts of information to the subconscious. On the other hand, it can take days, months and even more to read or speak about the material related to the area of interest and then receive a sudden sparkle of inspiring idea. However, the writer often does not have that much time to induce creativity.
Arlov argues that the process can be accelerated by prewriting techniques, which can open a doorway to one’s thoughts, help prevent writer’s blocks, build confidence, spark creativity and omit fizzle in the mind (2015, 23-24). In my personal writing process I try to use various prewriting techniques, such as brainstorming, freewriting, clustering, outlining and journal writing, as suggested by Arlov (2015, 24-31). As the left part of my brain is dominate in my writing I always stick to the structural activities, such as two-sided brainstorming or cluster-based brainstorming, where I can design a clear idea of focus and give my reader a structured vision. In the recent time I also opened freewriting technique as a very beneficial and entertaining one. Hence, depending on the nature of the topic I approach it with one of the mentioned methods, using the latter for personal reflection topics. I take paper and pen and start to seek the idea within me. After that I create an outline of all the obtained material and get down to writing.
The Strengths and Weaknesses in my Writing
Trying to answer the question of my writing strength and weaknesses I envisioned the allegory of the comics’ superheroes, whose weaknesses often originate from their strengths. I my case, it is the striving to give an ultimately original and unprecedented vision on the observed subject. The enthusiasm to represent something that would impress the reader and me is often followed by the struggles to put everything in a structured and clearly perceptible writing. Sometimes one extraordinary idea brings so much inspiration, that the writing goes beyond the scope of the main idea and is followed by new ideas, which appear one after another in the process of writing. In such a way the reader can become exhausted in following my thought and, as a consequence, reluctant to get involved into further reading.
The only way to diminish the outlined weakness is the proofreading activities, many techniques of which are suggested by Arlov (2015, 110-112). In my case the most effective technique is the top-down technique, when I read the written text in the sequence similar to the one taken by the reader. Hence, I assess the flow of my writing. When I get at the point where I lost or get messed up with the idea, I correct it to align with the flow and rhythm of my writing. It is the most …
