Essay About My Writing Experience

I am terrified of writing. I know that writing is routine; it should be easy for me to do, given I have written probably a hundred essays, scripts, laboratory reports, articles, poems and speeches throughout my school career. I remind myself of my accomplishments—of how much I have already written—and try convincing myself that writing is not difficult, but I am still terrified. I am frustrated because I am incapable of finding the right words to articulate my thoughts and feelings. I am frustrated because I feel that my writing will never equate to my actual thoughts or feelings; it will only either exaggerate or understate. I am frustrated because I don’t know if I am getting across, because it is difficult sorting and arranging thoughts in a way that others might fully understand them. I am frustrated because I doubt the authenticity and magnitude of my thoughts and emotions, making it hard for me to write definitely and confidently. The bottom line is that for me, writing is stressful, frustrating, and

I spend considerable amounts of time evading responsibility because of laziness, but more because of the fear of not getting it done perfectly. When I finally start I sort out my thoughts and write them on sheets of long bond paper, folded lengthwise; I organize them into paragraphs, then layout each paragraph according to my desired flow of ideas. I then type a draft—informal, full of slang and cursing—in Microsoft Word (Times New Roman, justified). I reread my essay and make adjustments: edit sentence structure and order, replace the curses with appropriate words, and try to stay within the word limit. Once I have edited enough times, I send my work to my friends via Facebook; I ask for validation and reassurance. Normally, they give comments on how to improve what I’ve written; I almost never follow them. My writing process may be tedious and extremely systematic, but it