Remember to "Let Yourself Write"

What is it about a blank page that zaps any coherent thoughts once floating about in my head, turning them into fog and fluff? Julia Cameron hits the nail on the head in an excerpt from her book, The Right to Write; as she says, “the blank page creates a sense of seriousness.…We forget the term ‘rough draft’ and want everything to emerge as well-polished gems.” I have struggled with this for a long time; writing always seems to draw out the perfectionist side of me. Cameron stresses that writing is not intended as a cause of stress. It should give us joy, not be the means “to self-doubt, to self-scrutiny in the place of self-expression.”

According to Cameron, we were all born with the ability to write well, savoring the power of words. However, academic aspects of writing crush this spirit in many of us. The second an English paper is assigned there is a collective groan. With a specific audience in mind, it is important to watch the sneaky semi-colon and ellipses to make sure they do not find a way into the middle of a sentence. Suddenly every sentence fragment is glaring up from the paper, nearly shouting, “I’m missing my subject!” Or, “Where’s the verb?” When confronted with paper, it is sometimes difficult to remember what the difference is between “there” and “their” or whether “i” comes before or after “e” when following a “c”. Before academia, it did not matter whether everybody ate grandma (“Let us eat grandma!”) because a pesky comma went missing. Now the pressure is on to save all the grandmas out there: “Let us eat, grandma!”

Papers returned with red marks all over ruin the pride felt at completing an assignment. Instead, it becomes important to follow the many confusing grammar rules to a T, follow standard Modern Language Association (MLA) formatting, and keep that oh-so-important 4.0 grade point average. This squelches the creativity out of students and soon they replace belief in themselves with the belief that writing is painful and impossible. “As a result, most of us try to write too carefully. We try to do it ‘right.’ We try to sound smart.” This is the problem: it is impossible to write well when trying too hard. It just does not flow. The title of Cameron’s second chapter says it all: “Let Yourself Write.”

This short phrase is, for me, the best advice Cameron gives on the subject of writing. The times when I force myself to let go and just write are when some of my best pieces of work result. My freshman year of high school, I had this one teacher who assigned journal prompts each week. She would set us strict time limits for each of three prompts, usually ten, fifteen, and twenty minutes. In so little time, I had to keep writing constantly to complete the prompt. Ever since then, I have tried to apply similar time constraints to my academic writing. When I stick to these time limits, it is always much easier to write. I suddenly have to get something down on paper and the spontaneity produces more interesting work, without the stress usually associated with a paper.

Well, I actually let myself free write, conquering the blank page. And I must admit, it feels pretty good.