In Class Writing 5/9/11-Sara Ach

The first author I chose, T.C. Boyle, describes the difference between the revision process now compared to the revision process before the technology we have today was invented. This source showed through hand-written revisions the process that we now complete on our computers, and how much time and effort goes into revising just one page. It reminds the reader what the revision process is like, and should be like, and is not just going back into the computer and changing a few words, it involves re-reading and working through the entire composition. I feel like sometimes, this process can be lost because of technology. This is not to say that people are not revising, but the extent that it is done I feel has lessened and this is a great reminder of what is really going on. This will help me because I have always like printing out papers and revising them by hand, but because of time recently I haven’t done so. I will get back to that process.

The second author I chose is a musician, Paul Simon, who described his song writing process. He wrote about how he will start off writing some lyrics, then switch to melody, and jump back and forth until it is done. If he can’t get the right words, he just keeps erasing and re-writing until he gets it right. It’s a process, not a one time event and then it is done. I learned from this source that, just because a piece of writing does not flow onto the page right from the beginning, does not mean that it cannot be good. Sometimes I feel like my good papers just flow easily and whenever I struggle with one, it is not as good. This source taught me that is not necessarily true, and I can apply this knowledge to my writing whenever I sit down to write a paper now, and words are not flowing like I would like them to.

The third and final author I chose was Tim Burton, a film maker and director, who developed the characters for the recent movie of “Alice in Wonderland.” This source has very few words, but shows the steps in creating the design and looks of the characters he created. This shows that, like a writing process, one must start from the bare bones, the core, and can only move ahead to the next step once that is finished. Burton starts with a rough pencil sketch, then moves to a rough sketch with color, then to the final. This is the same as the writing process should be, brainstorming and creating a rough outline, writing a rough draft, and then revising and touching it up to create the final. Especially with this source, I can apply his techniques to the google map project both in the writing section as well as the creative section, knowing that when I create my map, it is probably not done. I can go back in and touch it up, make it more appealing to the eye, and make it easier to navigate.