Final thoughts on The Writing Life

Since I had technical difficulties not being able to get on blog for a majority of the class so far, I wrote down little notes on parts of the book the stuck out to me. I'm going to try to sum up my thoughts. This book showed a different point of view on a person who is unlike anyone I've met but through Ellen Gilchrist's writing I feel like I know her and her crazy ways she gets things done when writing. She talks about she often would ditch her friends when she got going on a writing frenzy. What a dedicated writer.

She talks about how you don't have to have traveled around the world to be a writer. Although I think having more experience worldly helps, she says write about what you know. And if you're tired of writing and feeling forced, take a break. She repeated often in her book that writing is rewriting. Which I think Roy talked about in class how your story evolves and then you should go back and rewrite it. But Gilchrist talks about how you should write, edit, rewrite, edit again and keep repeating until you've got it.

She says you should know your characters. You should know who their great-grandparents were and where they lived. How many siblings did he have? What did he think about when he was a child? Did he play sports? Did he go to church? What is mother cooked for him? What is parents did? What he got for Christmas? She says you should know them in and out. You don't have to include all the information, just know it.

She also often said show don't tell which I know Ms. G tells us often.

She says you need to trust yourself. If you write something that you think is funny, don't second guess, the reader will think it is.

She says students often fear writing because they fear what they write won't be good. So they don't know until they write. So she says write!

All in all the best way I'd sum this up in lesser words is that Gilchrist's message is to trust yourself, write what you know, show it don't tell, and that writing is rewriting. I'm not exactly sure what specific thing I take away from this book, probably the idea of writing without fearing what it will turn out to be. But the book is great :)