Inspiration in Writing

"Writing from the gut." Rex makes it seem like it's so easy to just sit down and start writing about the life experiences you've had. For me, and likely for a lot of people, it's a scary process. I find it so much easier to get into the heads of characters, of other people, than to go inside my own head and write about something so personal. Rex is right when mentioning that it takes a lot of trust to do this inside a classroom, and I'd be willing to give it a try. But for a lot of students, there would still be an element of fear. A "I trust them, but do they trust me enough to relive this moment with me?" moment or even something along the lines of "I really don't want this going outside the classroom" or "If I let this situation out of me, can I make it go away again?" I was what we'll call an "outsider" in middle and high school, and I think if my teachers then had assigned something like this I would have made something up instead of opening myself up to embarrassment.

Rambling aside, I think it's a great teaching idea, but you just have to consider your audience, your class, and see if they can handle doing the assignment. If they're willing to let go enough to trust their classmates and come up with something all their own.

In the Graves reading, I enjoyed how he put into words one of my favorite ways to write. Not just sitting around and waiting for inspiration, but when that inspiration hits, you need to drop whatever it is you're doing and write. It's why I'd encourage my students or anyone, really, to keep a notebook in their car, their purse or back pocket, their desk at work/school. That way, when an idea hits, you can just pull out paper and start jotting down notes and ideas. There has to be a balance between waiting for inspiration and writing to write, as Murray talks about. If you're always sitting around and waiting for inspiration, you'll never write anything. But if you write constantly, it's easier to switch gears from those topics to whatever you "have" to write about when an idea hits you.