Thoughts on "Write Before Writing"

"Write Before Writing" is another excellent essay in Teaching the Neglected "R". I decided this book is a keeper just this afternoon, as I was settling into my reading in a patch of sunlight on the lawn. If there was any doubt about it's eventual resale that was quickly put to rest by Athena, the big dumb lab. She came up to snarffle in my ear and smeared her muddy paw across the pristine white page. Athena, named by my mother-in-law after the Greek goddess of wisdom and war, has been nicknamed "Pork Chop" by me. Its more fitting, for a dog of her girth and intellectual attributes. Donald M. Murray, the author of "Write Before Writing," has far more in common with the mythological Athena than her snarfling namesake.

Murray balanced the personal and professional expertly in this piece. I gained insight into caring for an invalid spouse, widowerhood, paratrooping, and his writing process. His main point was not a memior, but those memories were interspersed with tips on the pre-writing process. This style of writing is more accessible to me than the bone dry style of much pedagogical writing.

The piece of his advice I found most helpful was to not disrupt the flow of a paragraph when writing, but just use XXXX to remind yourself to come back to it. Often in my scholastic writing, I write in a torrent and then get snagged, plucked out of the torrent by a void. Words are very important, they carry weight in essays and conversation alike, but the decision of which word can really throw a monkey wrench in my writing process. Wracking my brain, consulting the thesaurus, googling a not-quite-perfect word + "synonym," all of these activities hamper the completion of the paper. Now thanks to Murray's tip, I just tap into my keypad the example was very XXXX that day and my train of thought continues without missing a beat.

Another brilliant bit of Murray shone through when he wrote, "At eighty-one I am still failing in new and interesting ways and then trying new and interesting ways to succeed" (23). As a student of writing it is comforting to know that even polished professionals are not immune to occasional failure.