Tag: #writing

Let It Simmer

Todd Richardson, Writing Consultant

“I have to get it done,” the student says. She sits across the long table from me in the university lounge where I hold office hours. I’m a writing professor at a small liberal arts school in Western Kentucky. Her hands hover over her laptop, shaking and white. Her mask pulses with her breath, the cloth sticking to her lips then puffing out like a balloon. Outside, the leaves are brilliant—gold, crimson, orange. The breeze is crisp, brisk, earthy. I suggest it’s time for a break, perhaps take a walk without our masks, peep some foliage.

“I have to get it done,” she says. I wait for her to ask questions, but she doesn’t speak. Instead, she stares at her screen. Her typing comes in bursts, first in words, then in rapid deletions. After a few minutes, she throws up her hands and sinks her face into her palms. “I can’t,” she says. She tells me she sleeps four hours a night. She wants to graduate in no more than four years, fewer if possible. That’s why she’s enrolled in seventeen hours for Fall of 2020. She wants to do well in college, like she did in high school. Even in the pandemic, she managed to keep her grades up through her senior year. Then, in college, where the institution decided to teach a hybrid in-person/asynchronous model to cope with covid, she floundered. “I work all the time,” she says. “I never get ahead.”

I look back out the window, watch the leaves sway in the air. They seem peaceful. They breathe and sway. I know that what I have to tell my student isn’t what she wants to hear. I know because it’s not what I wanted to hear when I lived through a similar experience in grad school. It’s the same advice I’m advocating for here, and it’s counterintuitive to everything on your syllabus, everything your guidance counselor told you, every shred of the individualistic, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps culture that you internalized from your parents or the news or however it made its way under your skin. Admittedly, it’s advice that I still struggle to follow to this day.

“Maybe you need a break,” I say to her. She shakes her head.

“I can’t.”

“You think you can keep writing?” She pauses, doesn’t answer. Then she shakes her head, rises, and shuffles out the door. I don’t know if my advice landed or if she’s just too tired to sit here anymore. As I watch her gather her things, a pang of empathy tightens in my stomach. I was just like her as a student. I wish I’d taken it easier on myself.

In graduate school, I worked at a similar pace to my student sitting across from me—always writing, reading, stressing, obsessing, striving for some academic, pie in the sky, attaboy. I kept articles and books stacked high on my nightstand and in piles next to my bed. I slept in fits—an hour and thirty minutes here, a toss and turn there. Eventually I gave up on the REM cycle and woke up to write the next term paper, the next prospectus, the next page or paragraph or chapter of my thesis. I managed—thrived actually—in the first year. I’m fine, I told people who commented on the dark circles under my eyes. I’ll sleep when I’m dead.

Then, as time passed, a mental sluggishness set in. It started as spacing out in class discussion. You’d find my body in its seat, but my mind had left orbit some time ago. I forgot what I was saying in the middle of a sentence. Then the fog spread to reading. My eyes would scan articles but would not absorb their meaning, as if my vision would bounce off the text. I became irritable with my friends, parents, and wife. Then the haze came for my writing. I stared at the blank, white snowdrift of my word processor, the cursor blinking on and off like a flickering synapse in my skull. Words would not come. Thoughts ran together in long, incomprehensible sentences. Quotes went without citations. Phrases repeated themselves without my awareness.

Eventually, panic set in. It started with feedback on an essay that read, “Todd, not your best work. Better luck next time.” After that, I entered every class with icy fingers and a tightening chest. It was all I could do to breathe, to lift my gaze to meet my instructors’. I felt the control over my own body seeping away and I was helpless to stop it. One night I got an email from my thesis advisor. The subject heading read: Todd—Chapter 3 Draft, Revision Needed. I didn’t get a chance to open the message. The edges of my vision darkened. I inhaled sharp sips of air. My knees buckled. I thought I was dying. My wife and my brother-in-law (he happened to be spending the night at our house) carried me to the bed. I regained consciousness in time to stop my wife from dialing 911. I had experienced my first full-fledged anxiety attack.

I wonder now what would have happened had I known the importance of taking a break. Not just because it’s good for your mental health—it’s good for your brain and productivity, too.

First, in order to be efficient, your brain needs time to be inefficient. What “inefficient” looks different depending on your personality, but a good suggestion for anyone in school—especially those of us in the middle of the second year of pandemical education—is to move around. Go for a walk. Dance. Kickbox. Or get all woo-woo and meditate, get a vinyasa flow in before hitting the draft again and take ten deep breaths. When you have more time, like right after you’ve submitted your paper or are just plain ol’ done for the night, do something that refills your mental gas tank. Video games, LARP, play a board game—whatever floats your raft down the river. Don’t take a break forever; we have deadlines and GPAs and life to keep up with. Set a timer for twenty minutes to write and twenty minutes of breaktime and stick to it. There will be times when you can’t take a break (life has a way of lobbing emergencies at us in the middle of finals), but make sure that you set aside time to let your mind wander wherever it needs to go.

Second, walking away from the keyboard is actually good for writing (and let’s go ahead and extend this to proofs, algorithms, presentations, and the like). Again, don’t walk away forever—I’m not saying that your term paper will write itself while you Fortnight the afternoon away. What I’m getting at is, let your writing simmer. Even if all you have is ten minutes, it’s good to set your draft aside and let it stew. Pounding your fingers against the keyboard until they bleed leads to a law of diminishing returns; over time, you will earn fewer rewards than the amount of energy you invest. Trust your subconscious to mull over your topic for a bit. You might find that your mind approaches your draft with fresh ideas, newfound energy, and a special zazz that makes your writing come to life.

Finally, taking a break is good for you. You have experienced what no other generation in the last one hundred years underwent; a global pandemic and one of the most prolonged disruptions to everyday life in recent American history. There’s nothing wrong with deciding to take a breath, to take time to feel the grass beneath your feet, to finding the peace in the reddening of the leaves. You are worth the decision to walk away.

This fall, you might hit a wall. That moment when your vision goes bleary and your eyes scan the article, you’re supposed to read but you can’t remember for the life of you what the words mean, when you’re staring at the blinking cursor on the blank page and your thought faucet feels clogged, take a break. Get woo-woo. Go for a walk. Let whatever you’re working on simmer on the back burner for as long as you can. Your brain will thank you for it.

On Words and Images

Amanda Dolan, Writing Consultant

When re-curating the bookcase visible to my webcam, I initially hid all comics and graphic narratives behind horizontal stacks of traditional novels. Considering how generally beautiful the spines of graphic novels are, I don’t think this layering was a result of an aesthetic instinct. I was almost definitely conceding to the idea that stories with images are fluffy. And though I enjoy similarly described pets appearing in other Zoom backgrounds, I didn’t feel totally comfortable featuring reads perceived that way in my own.

Now, nearly a year later, these books can be seen bowing a middle shelf, and I can be seen, metaphorically, going to bat for them this baseball season. I have the writing center to thank for this. Both the UWC staff and writers have taught me the extent to which language transcends words, and the value of, I guess, communicative syncretism. Writers or colleagues and I will talk about things like the weather or even planetary energies not out of awkwardness or eccentricity but because such topics are strangely good starting points for thinking and communicating. Basically, it’s very natural for people to reach to make concepts work together so they can communicate a little more clearly (think emojis and storytelling). And writing center pedagogy, as a technique focused on communication, embraces that type of syncretism by defining and upholding the center as an inherently social space where writers and consultants bring their own unique knowledge and life experiences.

Embracing this pedagogy alongside the fact that a lot of sighted people experience the world by contextualizing words and images together has me not only defending comics as literature, but also advocating for drawing as a natural extension of the writing process. It’s common, accessible, and effective to make meaning and record our worlds through visuals, and I personally started drawing pictures in my essay and class notes to combat lockdown-created memory issues. Whenever my brain has a flicker of an idea but is reluctant to fully enter analysis mode, I either make a quick semiotic square or caption a small drawing to revisit when I have the patience and mental capacity to puzzle out my thoughts. If you are interested in trying to use image as an avenue for developing scholarly written communication, consider starting with a semiotic square or a map —or even try drawing items that stand out from a text you need to analyze. I’ve also found that quickly drawing items or settings can be beneficial for immersing myself in a piece of creative writing. This method shouldn’t become fraught or have anything to do with how well you think you can or cannot draw —it is just another way to engage with complex ideas before tackling them through words.

Letters to My Soulmate

Maddy Decker, Writing Consultant

Call me someone who’s watched Aquamarine 17 times too many, but I believe in soulmates. I believe that each person has multiple soulmates and that not every soulmate is meant to be a romantic match: some are just friends that you connect with on another level.

In 2018, sick of my anxiety controlling me, I threw myself on a plane to Ireland to study abroad for the summer. I met one of my soulmates, Becky, in our hostel the day before we started our program. Despite how shy I usually am, we were discussing everything from grief to spirituality to mutually enjoyed YouTube videos within a day of knowing each other. She bunked above me in the room we shared with the other girls, and we spent nearly every moment of the next 6 weeks together laughing and continuing our deep discussions. We returned to the program the next summer to share another 4 weeks, but the pandemic prevented us from meeting up in person again. The problem: Becky lives in Minnesota, a 10-hour drive away from Louisville. We vowed to keep in touch but quickly realized that neither of us particularly enjoy holding our conversations over text or SnapChat messages.

I don’t remember who sent the first letter or if it was a mutual decision we made; regardless, writing to each other has helped us maintain our friendship and communication at a pace and level that we both seem comfortable with. When I receive a letter from Minnesota, I know I’m in for a treat. Our letters usually end up being 5-7 handwritten pages, depending on how we feel when we write them, and we talk about whatever comes to mind. Sometimes our letters are funny, and sometimes they’re more serious in tone (they’re usually a combination of both). I tell Becky how school is going, what shows I’ve been bingeing, and that I’m not entirely sure what my future plans are after the next few years. She tells me about her family, boyfriend, and work, and she shares that she’s facing similar uncertainties. We serve as each other’s friends and confidantes through our letters.

The pace of our exchanges contributes to the success of our letter writing, I believe. Due to the unfortunate truth that being an adult means not spending every second with or talking to your best friends, we each keep fairly busy. We write a few times a year, always making sure to send a letter near the winter holidays, sometimes with a small gift attached. Somehow, we do manage to maintain conversations even with the large gaps between our letters. We ask each other questions and answer them, knowing that each letter will continue to layer and build with our past queries and our present news. It’s like catching up over a long lunch, or even a weekend trip, depending on how long it takes me to read and respond to her, and I treasure our letters.

I’ve seen letter writing pop up as a fun hobby to try, and I cannot recommend it enough. Becky and I continue to write to each other, and I’ve recently started sending shorter letters to some of my other friends, including a friend I usually see at least once a month. If you don’t have the kind of relationship that enables a regular exchange, you might consider looking online to find a pen pal or writing to someone you know who isn’t expecting mail (or, at least, ‘fun’ mail).

It’s always exciting to receive a letter, and it can be so enjoyable to write one. Try choosing some decorative stationary that calls out to you (although there’s nothing wrong with notebook paper)! Use a pen in a color you like, and cover your letter in stickers, stamps, tape, sketches, and whatever else makes you happy. Tell someone a secret, tell them something funny, or just tell them about your day (and if you’d like some more tips or inspiration, you should scroll back to an earlier post from Andrew Hutto: “You Should Send a Holiday Card This Year – and Here’s How!”). You might not be writing to your soulmate, but you could find that you enjoy picking up this new hobby!

The Value of Writing Every Day

Andrew Hutto, Writing Consultant

“Writing every day is a way of keeping the engine running, and then something good may come out of it.” – T. S. Eliot

Early on in my writing practice, I would consistently seek out advice from more seasoned voices on how to improve. This is fairly common for newer writers; we get hooked on a great idea, scribble out a few lines, and then sit back to marvel at our own greatness. Then the realization starts to sink in: after looking the piece over a few times, the rotten feeling of inadequacy starts to crest. If the bug for writing isn’t crushed by these initial falters, seeking out improvement is the next logical step. This goes for most things, not just writing. If you enjoy playing pickup basketball, you start watching videos on proper shooting form, you start consulting the fellow player at your gym, and so on. With most skill-based activities, the desire to improve accompanies. You want to reexperience the rush of finishing a good poem or hitting a corner three. Ultimately, the goal for most is to develop their talents to feel comfortable and consistent in achieving these goals within their discipline.

The writers I consulted for my own improvement gave wonderful advice on several topics, but the most reliant answer I received was “write every day.” Several blog posts across the internet have discussed the practice of writing daily; I’ve heard this advice from teachers and mentors, and even read peer-reviewed studies demonstrating its value. The recommendation seems endless, especially from the pantheon of celebrated writers we’ve come to admire.

Now armed with this advice, I started out headstrong, trying to outwork bad habits and stumble upon something meaningful. Now, as you might imagine, this can’t last long and will only escalate the initial self-doubt and impatience that led the initial advice to be sought out. I was stumped. “Why can’t I be like them”, “when will I start writing good pieces” “is there a shortcut to circumvent all this nonsense”?

Naturally, my writing practice started to atrophy, and the initial motivation was replaced by resentment. The joy of writing started to bitter, and I started to convince myself that a more sporadic practice would ultimately produce the best results. “Only strike while the iron is hot” became my mentality, and this seemed to work for a brief period of time, but eventually, the plateau set in, and the improvement saw little to no return. I pressed on in this haphazard fashion for some time until I resolved to try the daily writing practice again. Obviously, being in school within an English department you are almost always writing, but the kind I wanted to generate was of a different function; it was for me and directed by me, serving the purposes I’d given it.

In my second attempt at daily writing, I started to identify the reason for my shortcomings. It all came down to value. My analogy was all wrong. Writing wasn’t like basketball or a muscle to be strained and regrown; writing was much more about feeling the words make connections, and ultimately, defamiliarizing yourself so that realization might blossom. I was treating my daily writing practice like a kind of rat race in which speed, brute force, and sheer will produce the most satisfactory results. Authentic, touching, and generative writing doesn’t operate within these parameters; instead, fruitful writing practices arise from slow, meditative, and intentional habits. The connection between mindfulness and writing daily started to crystalize, and I found that when I asked myself, reflexively, “how do feel about writing today?” “Why do you want to write today? Surely no one else is holding you to?” These types of mental check-ins held my formed practice in place and allowed me the comfort and flexibility to avoid gaging “improvement” on a critical scale, and rather accessing how I felt about the writing. It was important to not judge these thoughts or try to correct them at the moment. Rather, it seems to be more helpful to react gently to yourself. If on that particular day, you don’t know why you are writing, or are unsure of its quality, simply noting this feeling will avoid the pitfalls of crippling self-doubt or, adversely, self-importance.

When it comes to sustaining a daily writing practice, I believe finding the value of your sessions to be the key factor in staying healthy and motivated. Observing your modulating disposition without seizing on the corrective measure furthers this daily routine and makes the whole thing an exercise filled with patience, grace, and generosity. Now, your daily writing practice doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s and can truly be of any substance. If you start keeping a dream journal, or you have a penchant for sketching dialogue, or perhaps you find solace in synthesizing research: all these ventures can fall into daily practice. Depending on your comfort level, you can switch genres each day or begin a months-long project. For those who are just curious about starting a daily writing habit, I would encourage keeping a gratitude journal in which you jot down a sentence or two about what you’ve been thankful for throughout the day. The goal for this exercise is not only to check-in and keep perspective, but also to limit the scope so that you might work on composing the most attuned sentence to capture your thankfulness. Keep it up for a few months and look back to see not only all the many things you’ve appreciated, but also the gradually improved quality of your writing.

Writer’s Block in the Time of Covid

Spenser Secrest, Writing Consultant

One feeling that I deal with frequently during the ongoing pandemic is one of stasis. While there is certainly some optimism during this time, as COVID-19 vaccines continue to be distributed, there is still, for me, an overwhelming feeling of being stuck in one place, despite the fact that I am taking graduate courses and progressing through UofL’s English M.A. program. To be clear, I understand that being on lockdown and the precautions that are in place are for everyone’s good, including my own, but this does not mean that these preventive measures make life easy. For me, it feels as though life has been perpetually on hold. On the worst days, this static feeling can make it hard to do anything, whether it be schoolwork or something to relax, even something as simple as streaming something online. Needless to say, this feeling of stasis has led to writer’s block, both for my academic writing assignments, as well as for my own creative writing. As counterintuitive as it may seem, having little to do because of the pandemic has actually led to me having a reluctance to start academic assignments and any creative projects.

When people discuss writing, of any kind, you often hear phrases about only writing “when inspired.” For me, this has never been my own approach to writing. I’ve often found that actually starting the writing process leads to inspiration. However, with the feeling of stasis, it is easy to want to do nothing, rather than intellectually exert oneself by writing, whether that writing is for an academic assignment or for leisure. I’ve even found getting motivated to brainstorm ideas for a paper to be difficult, despite the fact that this phase of the writing process does not involve any actual writing.

I often reflect on, or else in some way, incorporate past experiences in my own creative writing. However, the pandemic has led, to me, to there being almost nothing that I would want to write about or include in my writing. I’ve found that I write best when I have reflected on something after it has happened, as events are often too difficult to process when they are actually happening. For me, it makes more sense to think about and analyze something thoroughly before writing before writing about it, as opposed to writing about something with your gut reaction immediately after something has happened. However, as the pandemic is still ongoing, any insight that can be found by reflecting on it is limited.

In terms of my writing for classes, this is something that will, obviously, have to get done, eventually. However, due to the pandemic, I’ve found myself procrastinating more than usual and not enjoying the writing process nearly as much as I had in the past. While every semester brings papers that are not enjoyable to write and that may make one more susceptible to procrastination, it seems as if every paper, even minor papers that are not graded as rigorously, take as long to begin writing as the more difficult and less enjoyable papers. I’m inclined to attribute this to the fact that the pandemic has led to there being less sense of accomplishment after writing something. For example, whether I finish writing one of the most difficult papers of the semester or the last minor assignment for the week, there will be little that I can do in my personal life afterwards, due to the pandemic limiting all of our usual activities.

Although the precautions that are in place, due to the pandemic, are for everyone’s health, they have not contributed to productivity, at least for me. While both academic and creative writing can be difficult to begin, it is worth noting that writing can be easy once the process has been started. While it can especially difficult to get motivated to brainstorm ideas for a paper, as there is no visible product after doing so. However, this part of process should not be discounted, as it may lead to enthusiasm for the writing project. Finally, if the outbreak of COVID-19 has led to other people experiencing writer’s block, perhaps there will be a plethora of written material produced once the pandemic ends, as going back to normal and the optimism that will come may inspire people to write.

What We Can Learn from Dogs: Resource Guarding and the Writing Center

Emma Turner, Writing Consultant

For the past six months, I have been raising a puppy—my “quarantine puppy,” if you will. During this same time period, I have been doing my best to read materials on how to train said puppy. Teaching and growing with my dog has been a wonderful, terrible, stressful, informative, and rewarding experience, and, surprisingly/weirdly, I have found that some of the strategies I have learned in helping her personality develop translate to understanding processes of writers who visit the Writing Center (myself included, if not emphasized).

One of the behaviors that can develop as a dog grows older, and that I have done my best to curb with my doggo, is resource guarding. Resource guarding is when a dog becomes particularly aggressive and protective around an object that they see as holding value. That object could be food, a toy, a sock they stole from their owner’s roommate (not that my dog has EVER done that), or a place like the dog’s bed. The dog sees value within whatever object it chooses to guard. It believes that it owns that item and will do anything to protect it even if this means hurting other animals or its human, but in order to train a dog out of such behavior, one must learn to engage in a practice of patience, understanding, and trading. To overcome such behavior is an act of collaboration between the dog and its owner. It is a give and take of allowing oneself to be vulnerable and allowing another to be near or a part of something of value.

Working with writers is a similar process when thinking about the development of the writing consultation. In a sense, writers resource guard their work. As a writer, even if we dislike what we have written, at some level, we are proud of it. I say we because I am a writer too, and to pretend that I would not defend, protect my own work (even the worst of it) would be hypocritical. To accomplish the feat of generating a product for an assignment is impressive on its own no matter the final quality. Because we are proud of what we have written, we want to protect it. Even if the feedback we are receiving about the draft is helpful and positive, it is normal to feel conflicted about the revision of a creation that we are already content with. But, as a puppy learns as it overcomes the habit of resource guarding, sometimes sharing the things we value most can yield the biggest reward.

Collaboration in a writing consultation is key. Although the responsibilities of the consultant and the writer may differ within a session, three manners in which a mutual performance is integral are patience, understanding, and generative discussion. Through a live chat or written feedback session, these behaviors primarily take place through discussion of the draft and the writing process as a whole. Being patient with each other—the writer with the consultant and the consultant with the writer, making an honest effort to understand the point of view and the opinion the other offers on the content and form of the paper, and engaging in a conversation that aims to create a friendly, intellectual environment that fosters further development and exploration of the writer’s project are fundamental to creating a space where writers do not feel the need to actively guard their work. Instead, a collaborative effort can yield a product unshackled by the crushing weight of self-conscious and defensive writing. Collaboration and trust can set our words free.

No Expectations: Writing for Comfort

Cat Sar, Writing Consultant

Late last night, I realized that in my cupboards, I had all the ingredients to make my mom’s pumpkin bread recipe. Naturally, today my kitchen is dusted in flour, and I may have ingested too much raw batter. But it’s not just the smell or taste of my favorite sweet treat, it’s the warm and comforting memories attached to each sensation. Verging on a year into the pandemic, most of us are still looking for comfort, and while I can’t imagine a world where I get tired of pumpkin bread, it doesn’t hurt to introduce a new coping mechanism every once in a while.

Lately, I’ve sought comfort on the blank page. In the past, after I finished writing for others—school, work—the last thing I wanted was to find more words on my own time. I’ve also never been able to commit to writing regularly. But now there is only time and journaling’s appeal grows.

Removing unnecessary expectations is an essential first step. You don’t have to be Carrie Bradshaw or Lady Whistledown—write anything! Sometimes you may feel particularly verbose and have the time and energy to really craft a story, while if you’re like me, lists, impressions, important words and phrases can also satisfyingly capture moments.

You are writing for yourself—there is such freedom in this! Write when you want and how you want. You might create a practice, or you might be scrawling notes at 3 am when you can’t sleep. Let this writing serve you where you are. We spend so much of our lives writing purposefully, which is necessary and helpful, but on your time, in your creative space, no such impetus need exist. There is no rubric or pressure, and best of all, no revision!

On the other hand, this freedom allows for as much structure as you need or desire. I didn’t conjure up the pumpkin bread that’s baking in my oven without a recipe; a prompt might be the spark of inspiration you need. Here’s a few to get you started:

Pick a big idea: love, time travel, movies based on novels about dogs, for example. Set a timer for at least five minutes and write using the big idea as a starting point.
Pick a person that you know and write about them as if they were a character in story.
Find a word in the wild: the first interesting word or phrase you see (i.e. flyers, billboards, maps, signs, ads, art) is your starting point.

The Pandemic Project offers expressive writing information and exercises and Bullet Journaling is a cute and concise trend.

Remember too, that journaling is similar to free-writing and brainstorming. You may write about one thing in order to realize or reach another, or start a thread and not complete it. The blank page belongs to you and the stakes are what you make them.

Plus, who doesn’t love that new journal feeling?

Writing in a Time of Uncertainty: Negotiating Anxious Thoughts Translating to Anxious Words

Emma Turner, Writing Consultant

Writing is hard. Most who write will tell you that. Those who say it is easy are either brilliant or lying. Writing is scary. Learning to write is often a series of trial and error, drafts, coffee, and tears (or that last part could just be me). Writing is vulnerable. When we write, we expose our innermost thoughts and feelings, and we reveal the inner workings of our mind. Writing is a process familiar to many of us, yet, in times of uncertainty, writing becomes uncertain too.

Writing is even more challenging when it is done in the midst of social and cultural change. One finding their voice can be drowned out by the uncertainty faced in daily life. Learning to cope with living in a pandemic, living in the midst of necessary and justified civil unrest, and returning to a college campus where everything feels incredibly familiar yet unfamiliar is not conducive to creating one’s strongest work. Over the past several months, a feeling of increasing isolation and doubt has begun to take hold for so many. I’ve noticed even in my own writing the insecurity of current events bleeds through when pen is put to paper (or fingers put to keys, but you know what I mean). Mental health has become a feature we are acutely aware of. It is incredibly difficult to create a divergence between the anxiety of the everyday and the anxiety of writing. Despite the stress associated with the act of writing, it can serve as a practice that moves beyond the standard social construction of the act. Writing can be a tool that is incredibly reflective of the thoughts and sentiments of its author in a way that is liberating to the writer and impactful to its readers. Because of this, I choose to see writing as a positive instrument to utilize in times such as this when expression becomes a key in communication. I think, too, that this can be shown in many ways.

Writing has many forms and functions, and there is a multiplicity of ways we can express our feelings through them. Outside of the academy, writing poetry, journaling, creating a piece of fiction you are passionate about—all of these and many more are forms of writing which can be employed. In these forms, one is able to explore their own emotional state and communicate it in a way that is legible to others whether this be through a number of poetic devices or through the experiences of a character. By participating in these artforms, one opens themselves to the possibility that others feel the same way too, and, perhaps, through expression the loneliness and fear that is ever so present can be overcome.

Academic writing, too, is an opportunity to explore the margins modern society teeters on. Through research papers, personal narratives, and community presentations, we are able to explore the complex relationship between ourselves and the world we live in. Exploration can be demonstrated by researching important social justice issues and expounding on these through academic composition. Experiences within specific communities and as a certain person can be examined through narrative. Presenting relevant, important information through presentation is a subtle form of activism too. Each strategy one may take to address anxiety in academic writing approaches the issue from a different angle. The beauty of this is that there is no ONE way to do things. Ultimately, you must choose what is best for you.

Although it is difficult to abandon our preconceptions of what writing is and how it traditionally functions, there is a certain power in the understanding of writing as a mode of catharsis and empowerment. In a time where things feel increasingly disconnected, writing is a mode that is universally linked. Largely, writing is an act of kindness. What you say when you write has the ability to impact how someone else views the world—or themselves. Be kind, and share your voice.

Feel free to let those of us in the Writing Center hear your voice too.