Allen Questions

Applying and Exploring Ideas:

1. I can't really pin point a time when I have used the method of imitation, I've never even heard it be put like that but I am sure at many points in my life I have used this imitation. Writing is all about being inspired so when you read something you really enjoy, you might like how the reader puts his or her paragraphs together and the tone of the text. I think that's what really affects me. I think this can always be an appropriate approach to your riding as long as you never let it take over your writing. It is a way of helping you get started writing but it is never an idea that should make you feel controled or boxed in. I am sure I have used this method a lot in my writing.

Questions for Discussion and Journaling:

1. Allen believes the inspired writer is a writer who everything comes easy. The ability to fluently write an entire paper with no revision. This affects students because we believe if the writing doesn't come easily we are bad writers and if the writing does come easy we turn the paper in with no revision. It seems as if we know what were talking about so we hope for the best. The reality of the inspired writer is just a minor portion of actual writers. Not one person can sit down in one sitting and write a flawless peice of writing. Everyone has to make notes, revise and revise again. Every writer has some sort of pressure on them from all of the great writers before them! But somehow we can never get that inspired writer off our shoulders.

Meta Moment:

I think I have definitely been negatively affected the the idea of the inspired writer, it is very intimidating idea. Sometimes you want to give a paper all you can give but you just can't find a connection with it and you can't get inspired. In high school, when you're forced to read a book you don't like, lets say for me The Great Gatsby. If you didn't enjoy the entire book, you are surely not going to enjoy writing a paper on it. I did the best I could on the paper but I don't think I did overcome the inspired writer theory, it was extremely difficult for me. I have never thought of this idea like that but this article will help me. It makes me see that though the inspired writer seems to exist, I can push it away if I want to and focus on what I need to do to be successful with my paper. I don't have to feel like I have to be better than every writer before me, only be the best I can be.