45 You As A Writer – Laura Urbin

Laura Urbin is a senior majoring in Communications Studies.  She lives in Burlington, Massachusetts.  This paper is a part of a literacy narrative that she wrote for her ENG W131 class.  Her professor, Dr. Jacqueline Kauza, said, “As a native Spanish speaker, Laura was a little concerned at the start of our class about how she would do writing in English. And she did incredibly well! I remember thoroughly enjoying how she crafted her narrative around a quote about writing that she used both to begin and end her paper. And I was most impressed by her final paper, where she presented an engaging and detailed discussion of the many different ways that members of a CrossFit community communicate with one another.”​ (See “This is Crossfit,” also by Laura Urbin.)

YOU AS A WRITER 

Introduction

“You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.” – Saul Bellow

My writing process has been limited in the last years but has been improving in the last few weeks. In grade school I was taught the basics of how to write 3 main paragraphs, but writing is more than 3 paragraphs and my process so far has grown to prove it. Writing can be difficult- when I have to write I always come at first with the question, “Why is writing so hard?” Well, it must be because it is not easy to put in words what we have in mind, and often we get blocked trying to write all at once or writing while under pressure. The author Saul Bellow’s quote summarizes a cure for writer’s block- often when we are relaxed and thinking about other things, the answer comes to us.

I come up with the perfect ideas to write when I don’t push myself, sometimes in bed or when I write in a stream-of-conscious style. For my advertising class, I had to write about a product or service we buy that is offered as a unique experience. I was blocked at first coming up with different services that did not meet with the requirements, so I decided to apply one tip for writing: Set the clock for 5 minutes and write all that you have in mind, nonstop. While writing about Instagram, nothing related to the assignment, I came up with the idea of glamping which was the perfect topic for my assignment. My point is that writing is not a rigorous process that you have to follow and be done at once. You don’t have to know your style or learn it all as you grow up and never change it. It is constantly changing as you learn. You can get your writing ideas from unrelated topics, just take your time and write as many ideas as you can.

In this paper we will look at my different experiences during the process of writing. I will mention a few of my sponsors of literacy that helped me with specific genres that range from academic and non-academic papers. My writing process will be developed in a chronological order, as my writing has been shaped during different events in my life.

My Writing Journey

During my scholarly life I have had many sponsors of literacy and each one has taught me different things. I have been taught by many professors the basics of writing, like having an introduction, body and conclusion paragraph. But my mother was one of my biggest sponsors of literacy while growing up. She introduced me to reading as a hobby, to have the desire to read and to make my own choices to read what I like and not what others forced me to. Just then I started reading all the time. She took me with her to work and let me read some files of the trials she had worked on and then told me that books with real stories exist, because I was only interested in reading as long as the story was true. At that age I did not know about genres so it was a big discovery for me. I started reading books about some historical events in Colombia and then switched to romantic novels.

My mother was a judge and she had to write all the time, which is why as a teenager, while helping me with my homework, she taught me to use commas to separate descriptions or details that were connected. She also taught me that there is a difference between written language and spoken language- we do not write how we talk. Since then, I spend a lot of time trying to write in a way that my audience will understand, using correct grammar and making it simple.

My grammar has not always been good. In high school, my grammar was very bad and my Spanish professor noticed it while reading my notebook. Usually, every student had to write their name on the notebooks so the professor would know to whom it belongs when she was reviewing homework. I did not write my name down but the professor always knew which notebook was mine because of the bad spelling on the class notes and homework. Mrs. Betancourt made me write one word per page over and over with the correct spelling. The repetition of writing the same word helped me to memorized the correct spelling, but this process took a long time to finally be able to correct my grammar. One day she called me last to pick up my notebook that wasn’t marked, even though my last name started with A. That time she did not know it was mine because there weren’t any grammar errors- I had improved.

Mrs. Betancourt always told me while writing the words over and over, “You will thank me for this once you are in college or working.” I definitely did in college and when I started working as a wedding planner. I got used to writing emails all the time to different audiences like international or local couples, providers, logistic workers, staff, music bands, catering, flowers, decoration department, and more. Email was the one of the communication channels that I used more because it was easier for others to have all the information in one draft than in multiple texts on WhatsApp.

While writing emails every day all day for 2 years, some features became familiar to me, like having a subject where I provided a brief or short description of the email as a whole. This permitted my audience to know what the topic was about. The subject is always short and we see them through a technological device, which tell us that is an email and not a text. Another feature is the sender’s email located below of the subject area, that is always included in the email by the system default. The sender’s internet address told me who the email was from. With the email address I can know if the email was sent by a particular person or by a company, if is an automatic email or not and if it the topic that requires a fast reply or it is an advertisement. As a Wedding planner, that feature was very helpful to respond immediately without the need to look for the email address. Also, the date and time received below to the subject line and next to the sender’s email, that is also included by the system default, helped me to have a notion of the time that has passed since receiving the email. In situations when an immediately reply was required, I would know to drop what I was doing and reply. The text located below the sender’s email and the time is the body of a message where I told my clients or others audiences the actual content with more details. In this section I usually include text and audiovisual pieces such like a photo of a design of a wedding invitation, or a video ad of the company.

In most recent years, I still have to use email to communicate with people in my native country for personal or educational matters. In 2020, I had to write to my University in Medellin a detailed explanation of why I needed the transcripts of my classes and instructions to send the credits to Indiana University. For this particular email, I followed a process to make sure I was addressing the topic and the audience in the correct way.

One of the first steps for this email was looking on the website of the university to find who I needed to send that email to. Then, for many days, I started writing notes on my phone about what I needed to include in the email. I have my phone with me all the time, so when some idea popped up, I just wrote it in my phone’s notes app. Then I started making a draft in my Gmail, including a formal introduction and closing. This initial draft was written in the Gmail box because I felt secure it wouldn’t get deleted.

Then in a very simple and understandable way, I started writing the email using the notes from my phone. I wanted to be very clear about what I needed from them to avoid misunderstandings. Once I finished it, I was still thinking that I needed to make it simpler in order to make them (the admissions office and the head of communication faculty) understand what they needed to do, how and when they needed to do it. It was a stressful request due to the inefficiency of the university and the short time I had to make it into Indiana University. I wrote those notes and the email sitting in bed, alone, where I felt a little calmer.

This process was different to other academic papers that I have written, because I never had to think about the audience as an important factor. I had never had to think, “How can I make a text the simplest version possible?”, as I do with a non-academic paper. Normally I write knowing that if I understand the format and the intention of my message, others in the academic field will too.

The need to write simply and clearly extends to more modes of communication than just email. This has been a challenging year, and I had plenty of free time while awaiting acceptance into Indiana University. To fill that time, I began to use more social media. I was looking for a specialist in endometriosis and, thanks to the social media, I got connected to two groups on Facebook with valuable content about endometriosis. In those groups, members post their story about their journey seeking health care, as the endometriosis is difficult to get diagnostic.

I wanted to make a post in one of the Endometriosis Facebook groups about my experience with having it for so many years and being misdiagnosed. I wanted to tell my story, about how I felt after having been diagnosed, and how I now feel validated. From my cellphone I was reading a lot of testimonies in that group, in order to get an idea about how I could make my long story short, interesting and simple. I followed a similar process to the email to the University of Medellin, starting with a draft in my phone notes and I editing it many times until I felt comfortable with the mood and format of my text. I also was comparing my text with others that I found in the group and I thought it was a simpler and more complete story. I chose to write it first in my phone notes, because I can edit it at any time of the day and have faster access to it. Normally people use the notes app from their phones to write to-do lists for groceries, simple words, but I like to use it to write longer text.

All of the members of the social media group are very supportive and sensitive towards endometriosis, so I wanted to make the story only about my experience and not in general to avoid judgment. This makes it a little more challenging to write because I wanted to been seen and heard in a way that I have in my mind but that I can’t put in words. Re-thinking about all of that process to write just a simple post for a Facebook group makes me realize that I did it consciously and I took my own time to do it. Having enough time helped to relax and the writing was easier. The most notable difference is that I wanted to write how I wanted to be heard, instead of giving a total consideration to my audience as I normally do in this time of writings.

One last factor that has been helping my writing process evolve during my life, and specially in English, is reading. Though I started as a kid by reading those case files at my mother’s work, I quickly expanded to reading books. As an adult, I also read newspapers, magazines, emails, and texts. As an adult, my lack of cooking skills exposed me to a new genre- recipes. I decided to subscribe to a weekly meal plan that delivers to my house every week a box with ingredients and instructions for 3 meals. For 3 days minimum, I’m exposed to a recipe instruction. The first time I used the services were in the end of 2019 and I have not stopped since. At the beginning it was a little hard because I did not know much of the terms in English and I was not familiar with the structure and presentation of the instructions sheet. But once I got familiar with them, it got more easier to read the instructions and follow them. I like this kind of cooking instruction that is segmented in multiple small steps because it permits me to focus in one at the time and makes the reading easier.

Reading, applying what others taught me, and being consistent of the writing process in non-academic papers, has helping me with my writing skills. My process has evolved since elementary school and to the present and has helped me shape my skills, though I haven’t mastered them. To get better at writing, I have to read and write a lot, and I have to be exposed to anything that could help with ideas. I want others to see and understand that writing is a skill that you learn over and over and that constantly changes. And that you can find your own writing style- there is no one perfect writing process, there are many kinds of writing for many kinds of genres that use different features. I encounter challenges to writing my whole life, even when I was a kid with dyslexia, which made me work harder. My experience as a writer could help in the future in giving some insight for others about shaping writing skills.

I would like to recommend to all the writers to take your time, and most importantly if you are stuck, just take 5 minutes and write whatever comes to mind. Somewhere in that mess, you will come up with the perfect idea. If that doesn’t work, just think about it as you lie in bed waiting to fall asleep. As Saul Bellow said, “You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.”