Reading Response #1

SO, I'm guess it's probably obvious at this point, but I haven't really been keeping up with the blog as I was supposed to.

It's been a crazy semester, crazier than I'm used to. But I'm not going to use this post in order to make excuses, because that's no fun. Bottom line is, I'm behind, and I'm hoping to catch up before this baby is due. If I lose marks because of my slacking, then so be it, but I'm still gonna put a full effort into my writing so that I can be evaluated on the quality of my work.

Let's get things started then, shall we?

I'm gonna start off doing one of those lovely reader responses that we have been assigned. I'm going to start off with something easy, and only because I knew from the moment that this was assigned that I wanted to write about it.

Reader Response: "Belief & Technique for Modern Prose"

by Jack Kerouac.

So Kerouac came up in the lecture titled "Back to Basics: Grammar, Style, and How to 'Paint With Words'" that happened early in the semester.

The text is, simply enough, a list.

But the list does have some good advice for aspiring writers to follow.

I should admit, some of the points that Kerouac brings up made me flinch the first time I read them.

Mainly the many instances of "yr" instead of "your" as well as one particular item on the list:

"13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition"

For me, that's easier said than done.

I am what many people would like to call a Grammar Nazi.

(fingers crossed that I don't end up offending anybody . . .)

I thrive on keeping my writing grammatically correct. I plan on being an editor someday, and while that's only one part of the job, it's a part that I'm pretty good at so far.

I'll even prove it: You may have seen this already, but here is a sticker that decorates the back of my laptop.

Yeeeeah . . . That's me.

Of course I understand Kerouac's point completely. It's a point that English teachers and writers alike have been trying to drill into my head for years: when it comes time to write, just write! Don't worry about it being pretty or perfect right away, that's what revision is for.

Even knowing this, it's a difficult point to really grasp. Nevertheless, I'm still trying.

Now back to this piece and the lecture. From what we learned about Kerouac, his writing appears to come off as interpretive, because Kerouac has a personal involvement with what he writes and his writing attempts to engage readers intellectually and emotionally.

Of course, there is also a critical component to his works, because all of his characters are in fact based off real people and a big chunk of what he wrote about actually happened to him. There are elements of critical writing in the examples we were given, but all in all I'd like to personally interpret his writing as, well, interpretive.

I do really like this text. Points he has taken to add to his "list of Essentials" would surely help out any aspiring writer.

Points such as "17. Write in recollection and amazement for yourself" and "5. Something that you feel will find its own form" These points are worded in a sense that I'm not really used to reading on my own, but they still manage to make perfect sense.

All in all I'm glad that we were assigned this reading, and I know I'll have to keep this list of essentials in mind for when I further pursue writing, either related to arts and culture or even outside of that.

I think that's a good place to end on for now. See you next time!

~ topCAPcritic