Trust

Trust

While I have great difficulty with the process model of writing, I like Toby Fulwiler’s observations about the process of writing in “Writing: An Act of Cognition”:

I have learned to trust this process, and I can predict that writing for a certain period of time will usually serve to create meaning. It is this trust, especially, that we need to teach our students.

All I need to do now is get some trust. It seems to me that the longer I write, the more difficulty I have with the creation of meaning. Perhaps the “certain period” which he refers to is shorter for some people than others. Meaning usually comes to me only in brief moments, flashes, and if it isn’t contained in words within a brief span of time then it goes away. The more I write, the more it’s like flogging a dead horse.

I seldom write myself into a place where things make more sense. If anything, they make less sense. But writing often gives me ideas about new things to write, if I can just shut up about what I was writing about to begin with.