Reading and writing have been embedded in my life for so long that it’s difficult for me to recall what some of these “earliest” memories are. For writing, I have scattered memories of doodling words on shapes in kindergarten and figuring out how to spell my name, but the first thing I wrote that I would consider a “narrative” was a story about my weekend with the class pet, which was a stuffed alligator. I was in first grade, and I wrote about how I brought the alligator with me to sell Girl Scout cookies outside of the Kroger by my house. The teacher collected our stories after everyone had their turn and put together a book for us. This book sat on my shelf for many years because I was proud of what I made.
My first memory of being taught to write formally—or perhaps informally—is from high school. My senior year, I took AP Language with Mr. Henry, and he was the first teacher I had that scoffed at formulaic writing. He talked about the five-paragraph essay, and he said it was fine “if that’s all you’ve got,” but his attitude about it being basic spurred me to be better. Over the course of the year, he gave the class the tools we needed to go past what we knew by explaining the purpose of paragraphs and structures. After knowing the why behind these templates, I was able to figure out how to achieve my goal without relying on them too much. I learned from him that templates are training wheels and that as we developed, we should be able to write without them.
This lesson is something that has influenced my writing ever since. When I was in Mr. Henry’s class I moved from thinking about the writing process as a checklist to viewing it as a toolbox. I had strategies to approach writing that I could use in whatever way made sense for me and what I was writing. This was freeing, and it allowed me to find my own way through the writing process as I moved into an English major in college. As an undergraduate, I spent a lot of time inventing and outlining. I created a skeleton with my argument thesis and supporting points. Then I would add some flesh to the bones by researching and finding my evidence. Those quotes would go directly into my outline with my reasoning behind it. For drafting, I’d remove the bullets, add transitions, and spend endless hours tinkering with language until the deadline was upon me. This process prevailed through my graduate studies, and I still use it today when I’m writing formally. My creative writing process is another story that has been largely influenced by what I read.
I didn’t grow up in a bookish household. My parents weren’t big readers, and we didn’t really do bedtime stories from what I remember. We had one sad bookshelf at the end of the hall with glass sliding cabinets protecting a dusty encyclopedia set and the few mystery books that my dad read but that I wasn’t old enough to read. Despite that, I remember being interested in reading when I was young because I felt like it was a secret language my brother and parents knew, but I didn’t. I was eager to learn, but I didn’t get into reading for fun until I was eight. That summer, my cousin Christina read me the first Harry Potter book, and I loved the world so much that I read the others in the months after she left. I missed her character voices, but I preferred reading on my own because I could go at my own pace and imagine the world in my mind. This series was the start of my love for storytelling because it convinced me that writers were basically magical beings. They created worlds brimming with mystery and adventure, and I wanted to be able to do that too.
I tried my hand at creative writing a lot after reading Harry Potter. I wrote bad rip-offs of my favorite books, shows, and movies that never saw the light of day. As I got older, my stories got slightly more original. They starred characters based on my friends and were set in some of my favorite writers’ worlds. These were only shared with very close friends who all lied to me to protect my feelings and encourage my passions. When I got to college, I finally built up enough courage to take a creative writing class. There, I learned about craft, world building, and the importance of feedback and audience.
As a creative writer and as a composition instructor, I rely heavily on and stress the importance of feedback above all else. No one is writing into a void. There is always an audience that needs to be identified and understood. When I taught ENGL 1101, my classes always discussed who that audience was, and they had a peer review component that was weighted heavily, much to my students’ dismay. For my own writing, I am a member of a writing group that has helped me realize what my strengths are and what I can work on. It has helped me reflect and gain self-awareness that, despite the blows my ego has taken, has helped me improve.
My revision process mostly involves me talking to myself. I have ADHD and do, in fact, have an inner monologue that is always running at hyper speed in a million different directions, so I have no idea what it’s like to think wordlessly, but I use my inner monologue and talking to myself to improve my writing. I read aloud as I write, so that I can hear the tone and rhythm of the piece and hopefully avoid repetition and catch grammatical errors. I do think this has helped in developing my dialogue, and it has certainly helped me find my voice, both academically and creatively.
The recent rise of AI programs like ChatGPT and Copilot have created an interesting climate for writers today. I’ll be honest, I’m not much of a news follower because I find it along with the state of the country and world pretty depressing right now, but when it comes to AI and composition I’ve heard two stances: it needs to be banned because it’s going to ruin writers and writing education, OR it’s a tool that can do a lot of the leg-work that needs to be embraced. I find myself in the middle of these polar points of view. I have used AI, and I’ve used it frequently to get me started on trivial things like email blasts or social media captions for promotional materials at work. My boss knows that I do this, and she also knows that it only serves as a starting point. I always revise what AI gives me by refining the prompt and adding my own voice, but it’s easier and faster to start with something. As the saying goes, “it’s easier to revise a bad page than a blank one.”
That said, I think student use of AI is murkier because they don’t know yet how to go through the writing and revision processes in the same way that I do, and they don’t seem to know the distinction between appropriate and inappropriate use of AI within their writing process. If they are supposed to be writing something uniquely and originally for class, then AI shouldn’t be a part of the drafting process. If they want to use it to help them find a topic or get some background information on the debate surrounding their topic, I think that’s fine, but they should stop using AI once they have enough information to start forming their argument. The rest of the research and writing process should be their own work. Once the draft is in place, if they want to use AI again to help with grammar and polishing, I think that’s fine too. It’s all about knowing what’s appropriate.
I’ve also used AI to help with my creative writing. Nobody panic though. All my creative pieces are written by me. No AI generated content is in any of my manuscripts. I’ve only used it to help me generate prompts for brainstorming. My creative writing group does a short story exchange for holidays, and sometimes I’ll get a story request that is wildly outside of my typical genre and voice, so I need a more detailed prompt to help the ideas flow. That’s where AI comes in, but once I have an idea of what my story is going to be, I’m done with AI for that writing project. Everything else is me.
I feel like AI is a tool that can help with productivity and idea generation. It expands what people can do, and it’s not going anywhere—unless of course it the world implodes because of the environmental impact it’s having, but that’s a different issue. I think writers and educators need to embrace AI, but I do think that it would be dangerous to forge ahead without an outline of sorts. Fair-use laws need to evolve. More jurisdiction is needed to protect intellectual property. Schools need to get on the same page about how to handle it because they’re inconsistent at best when it comes to the policies currently in place. AI is evolving rapidly and writers, myself included, need to evolve with it, and that may also involve rethinking the definition of literacy.
I did my best to answer the questions as smoothly as possible, but for those that I couldn’t weave in, here they are.
- Do you have an opinion about the present state of the economy?
- Not one I would feel confident enough to share or defend because I’m not an economist, but there are multiple generations struggling, and they need help. Also, as stated, I find the state of the world depressing currently, so I’m trying to avoid the news for my own mental health.
- Do you have an opinion about NATO?
- No. I had to google the acronym to make sure I knew what it stood for. I did, but I don’t have an opinion on it because I don’t know enough about it or its purpose. I’m sorry.
- Do you have an opinion about the relationship between sacrifice and faith?
- No.
- Do you ever use words you can’t define?
- Not on purpose, but I’m sure I have thinking that word meant something else.
- How comfortable are you with saying, “I don’t know.”?
- Very comfortable. I enjoy research and exploration, so I’m willing to admit when I don’t know something, but I will also immediately look it up so that I have some kind of context.
- Is there a difference between rationalizing and thinking?
- I think so. Rationalizing is justifying something that might not be logical. It persuasive in nature. Thinking is just that, it can go in any direction. It might not have a purpose or be persuasive. It’s just stream of consciousness.
