Before I started this course, I was mainly engaged in writing science fiction novels and technical manuals. However, this course has opened up to me the world of more academic writing, like the purpose analysis or rhetorical analysis, in addition to much more abstract writing topics. I don't have a new view of writing novels, but I see academic writing in a different light now. The one thing that stands out among these writing concepts I have learned is the extensive amount of planning, drafting, and revising required to perfect something. Usually I would just write something up, look it over, and then send it out to be published. However, this new writing process calls for a whole new series of stages about planning, drafting, revision, reviewing, and then writing up a totally new draft with the corrections from the revision process.
I am now approaching writing tasks slower than before, beginning to plan what I will write first, and then actually doing the writing. I don't think I'll ever be able to write a whole 20,000-word manuscript all over again with corrections, but I think my approach to writing definitely has changed.
I think I have stopped thinking about writing as something you can write, review, and then finish, but as something that can be written, then reviewed, and then revised according to the review points. These changes have affected how I write stories now, and how I think about other people's writing when I read it.
And that's all for Writer's Journal #17.
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