One of the biggest issues I see in student writers is reluctance to throw out a college essay (or frankly any piece of writing) that isn't working. But this is one of the most liberating and helpful things you can do. You might object: But I already put in so much time! I lost so much sleep over this version! Maybe if I just change this ONE sentence.. swap out some vocabulary words for synonyms, add a sentence about my major..?!?!? Maybe. But if you've already worked it to death and can summon the courage to admit it's not working, the Essay Angel of Mercy might whisper: o beloved writer-- free yourself and start fresh. Because maybe you're just clinging. Sometimes just being willing to throw writing out leads you to the revision solution. A clenched fist is not agile, responsive or particularly creative, even if it is strong. Sometimes, fate will throw out your essay for you! I know the pain of letting go of something you worked on so hard. LET ME TELL YOU about the time my entire grad MFA school application, all 15 pages, crashed 24 hours before it was due? I may or may not have thrown a cup at the wall. But i had no choice: here we go again. Hefty caffeine dose. 23 straight hours of work (And, yep, I did teach after that, it was enlightening). And I swear: the next version was so much better, more agile, less belabored, more honest. It was like the computer threw it out for me to do my a favor. All ideas lead to other ideas! This is where you get to trust that all that work churned up meaningful ideas and that the paths forward are many. To make a gardening metaphor: It's like clearing old roots before you can plant something new. Even if you've never planted you can imagine old dirt impacted with knotted roots-- not much fresh is going to happen there. When you decide you're willing to throw out the old essay, you tend to be less precious in the next draft. The tracks of thinking and feeling have been greased. The Continue Reading …
college essay
First Word of Your College Essay
My baby just “spoke” her first word-- oh the joy and pain of coming into speech! (Buuuuhhhhrrrrrrr, she said, gesturing at our parrots, who weirdly said nothing back.) So this got me thinking about first words in general. And especially the first word of your college essay. In writing, every word has a relationship to the words on either side of it-- the one before, the one after. Each sentence has a relationship to the sentence on either side of it. Each idea has a relationship...and so on. On a macro level, your story has a relationship in some way to every story ever told. If nothing else they share that skeleton of beginning, middle, end. But they often share more: themes, arcs. Still, each story starts with a single first word. Sometimes, it’s that fabled first word, “Once….” (Fill in the rest: upon a time…). Sometimes, twisting the expectations the choice sets up produces immediate delight in your reader, for example, “Once...upon a dime.” That could begin a scintillating story about not having enough money for something. When you know the conventions that inform your writing, you can exploit them, and make your reader pay attention. Which is the most precious thing we have to pay, and the best thing your writing can do for beleaguered admissions officers, whose eyes are red from cliche-itis. When we’re writing, especially something important like the college essay, we can get so caught up in the urgency of what we need to do that we forget how these relationships between words are actually what is slowly building our story. A baby’s first word is a breakthrough-- cracking the code of speech, of symbol and meaning, of sound and referent, almost magical. It’s exciting. It’s also often like trying to listen to a slightly inebriated uncle explain a tech manual for the iphone he doesn’t know how to use yet: you have to really, really pay attention to the articulation. But the first word is also an invitation to each of us that Continue Reading …
When Should You Start Your College Essay?
As a college essay writing coach, I get this question all the time from parents (less so from students, hmmm): when is THE BEST time to start writing the college essay? Writing process is highly individual And my honest answer is: I don't know. That's because I believe and have seen that the process is highly individual. February? April? The Summer? Fall? The minute the Common App releases their questions? To the chagrin of some parents, I really can't tell you. Exactly how long does it take a tide to pull back? Bread to rise? Continue Reading …
What to do if you hate your college essay
If you hate your essay, that might not be a problem...you can't solve. I wrote about this topic for TeenLife Mag: "The realization might start to gnaw at you while you rewrite a draft, or slam into you while you are walking to class: I HATE my college essay! Now what? As your elementary school teacher might have cautioned, hate is a strong emotion. It is no fun to feel like you hate your college essay at any point, especially as nerve-wracking deadlines loom. And, the point of the essay is to make the college admissions committee fall in love with you and your incredible personality and distinctive writing style. Your stomach drops and you lose all hope of a bright future…. Despair not. Although it is not advisable to make any final decisions about your writing based on this feeling, you can look into your hatred to show you something true. Most often my students “hate” their essay drafts because they are posturing. The hate is actually BS-detection: They are not really saying what they wanted to, but what they thought they should. They are not using natural language, but stuffy vocabulary and contorted syntax. When they revise with honesty, the hate dissolves immediately." Read More here. Continue Reading …
Teens have always had strong BS detectors
Teens Vs. BS is Not New News! This week, the internet is (understandably) suddenly loving teen students, because of their rallying cry against BS. Some of us have always known this is true about teenagers. I have always loved working with teens because their BS detectors are so strong. The teen years are about learning survival: fit in or perish. To get through middle and high school, you have to know the real thing from BS. Sometimes you yourself have to BS painfully in order to get by, as you figure out who you are and who you want to be. This is also, by the way, what school should be for. NOT relentless tests which call for projectile regurgitation of arbitrary knowledge. And definitely NOT for hiding under desks. Teens have the clues for us I know this to be true because my students write about this all the time, unsparingly, if you give them a chance. Adults so often assume teens are clueless, shame on us. I think the opposite is true-- teens are picking up ALL the clues. It's unrelenting. So teens sometimes have to act clueless because getting hit with what life is really like, and the BS people settle for, is sometimes just too much. The classic adolescent struggle--fit in or perish-- is supposed to be psychological, not literal. This week, like many weeks in the recent history of this country, it was also literal. At Parkland, the teens who survived their classmate's gunfire, refused to accept the BS condolences that didn't signal real, immediate tangible change in gun laws, gun access, and school safety. They used their superpower to say-- we don't want your BS, we don't want your prayers, we want things to be different. And we will make you listen. And this was somehow staggering, because who knew teens could call out BS when they saw it? (Writing teachers). Aim for transformation of BS in your college essays If what the Parkland teens said and did isn't adolescent bull-headedness turned toward the light, what is? They were unafraid Continue Reading …
The college essay that got me into Brown
I wanted Brown badly I wanted to go to Brown University because all my favorite people from high school went there, many of them writers; I wanted to go to Brown because I knew there students had autonomy over course selection and I was used to picking for myself. I wanted to go to Brown because...it felt like a natural fit. And because I drank the elitist cool-aid, sorta. I didn't exactly approach the process with an open mind, more like a targeted mind that was open to me getting what I wanted most... "I can see myself there!" I said. And so said everyone else. Sometimes, everyone else's predictions for you feel annoying. But it's most annoying-- and probably also most accurate-- to imagine that all of that conviction could be irrelevant. Continue Reading …