Perhaps I'm selling my early work short but I feel that it was initially about meeting requirements and it has grown into something that is more productive and more appropriate. As an aspiring artist it is important for me to be able to speak about the theory and concepts that my art will deal with and to be able to write about my art. And to be able to write effectinve grant proposals, critical reviews, and so many other things. I'm also interested in teaching and as a teacher writing is highly important.
I wrote a lot of poetry when I was younger, for a while I considered focusing on that durring my college education but I decided that it was more a personal thing and that I wasn't interested in turning it into an academic pursuit but rather I wanted to keep it as a pleasurable pastime. Perhaps I should have reconsidered, but I think almost every teenage girl writes a lot of poetry. And I think it's purpose is to work through the emotions and changes that you are experiencing.
I think my favorite type of writing is when I'm upset and writing becomes not a goal orrient thing but a procesual ritual where in the emotions that I'm feeling work themselves out through the act of trying to put them into words. Words shape who we are, they shape how we think and feel, by giving something a name you gain power over it. Writing becomes a method of projecting the inside into the world and through that projection gain controll over that which is projected. I'll write for hours when something traumatic has occured, it helps, it distracts from the pain and lets you remove yourself just that one little step.
I'm also a big fan of the writing style of William S. Burroughs where in the cut-up method is emplyed in order to try to get at something that is essential or perhaps to use words as a modern method of divination. My father and I write haikus back and forth on post cards in the mail. I love using writing to connect to people, as much as I am a digital girl writing this very sentence on my lap top on the wiki and out into 0's and 1's I relish holding the post card in my hands that ocne lay in the hands of the person whos words I read off of the paper.
My strengths as a writer lie in a good vocabulary, a sometimes frustrating inability to settle for anything except the perfect phrase to contain the ideas I have; I am a good editor, of my own work and others. I need to work on my writing style, to develope a more unique voice that will allow me to bring my points across without offending anyone but also in such a way that they will be hard to forget. I need to leave the passive voice behind, I use it way to much. I remember the first time I really realized how important writing style is was durring my Political Freedom class as a freshman when the professor contrasted the writing styles of Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X. Just the different ways you can reach out to your readers by modifying your writing tone and style. Recently I read Rhizomes by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari and was reaquainted with what a dramatic shift in the writers voice can acomplish. I tried to write a response in a tone to match theirs and I found it very difficult.
I think that's all for this time.
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