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"I believe 'writer's
block' is the normal state of writing; that is, you rarely have anything just
flow easily from your brain to the keyboard. And if it does, it's usually pretty
bad. Good writing is almost always hard, and what I think sometimes happens is
that writers forget how hard it is, or don't want to do the work any more, and
they call this 'writer's block.'" Dave Barry
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Why Prewrite?
Prewriting—even for 5 to 20 minutes—helps me to work past initial, and
often unoriginal, responses to my topic. It prevents me from committing to
superficial and boring answers. Prewriting helps me to find strong, thoughtful,
and clear answers to questions posed. It enables me to discover—concretely—what
I already know and to unearth areas of personal interest within the writing
task: prewriting enables me to discover myself within the context of my topic.
Prewriting also helps me to nail down responses—to move ideas from short-term
memory into long-term or written memory—so that I can get to the work of
writing rather than trying to remember what I want to say. I think better when I
write.
Please note that none of the prewriting methods linked above
is mutually exclusive: they work quite well together. For instance, you might
want to follow a more generating activity like listing with a more organizing
activity like a matrix or an outline. Experiment.
Updated:
08.16.07 |
