Sometimes, you bump into the subject of your writing when you're not trying-- like in the bathroom. The classier version of this is called the "shower effect"-- it's a real thing. You only need 5 minutes and faith. Often the trying itself keeps your topic at arm's length, stiffly.But not straining in trying? And simply being available? That woo-woo stuff? It often works far more effectively. GAH. How annoying and wonderful is that? JUST FIVE MINUTES? As my mentor Rick Benjamin says, "It's really five minutes + your whole life leading up to this moment." DETAILS. Give Your College Essay a "Quick Change" in the stall This afternoon, I went to the single-stall bathroom at a non-profit where I teach personal essay writing to (some of NYC's most awesome) 7th and 8th grade public school students. The door was locked, but within minutes, my student came out, fancied up: a maroon dress over a filled, collared shirt, black knee socks, and black patent leather pointy toe shoes. She was ready for her upcoming school interview. Moments before, she'd been hunched over her math worksheets, solving equations, chewing her lip and eating her sweatshirt string nervously. (Side Fact: I haven't solved an equation since puberty settled in, so I always salute students doing such worksheets, though in my case eating strings would be more productive than isolating the variable and so on. <---WHAT I RECALL FROM ALGEBRA BUT I DIGRESS.) What's I'm recommending here is, despite the number 5, not mathematical-- but you do need structure in the end. little time, big difference Thing is, I was surprised to see my student emerge from the bathroom so changed. It struck me I'd never seen her dressed up, and her whole persona and body language had shifted with the outfit. "You got this!" I told her (likely true), which is maybe the only thing worth saying right before someone has an interview. Especially when you can assume they've already done the most Continue Reading …
revision
When (and Why) You Should Throw Out Your College Essay
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 …
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 …
Perfect Essay? Not a chance
It's Perfect, now Help! Last week, a former Essay Intensive student, T, needed help last minute help with her transfer essays, which she thought were close to perfect. It was the usual problem: I've written it, now how do I cut it down to size? T was-- and still is-- Perfectionism's Poster Girl. She will fight you, and did me, on every turn of phrase in her essay, every single preposition-- why it should stay, why the wording is already perfect. AND YET SHE NEEDS AND WANTS MY HELP. She's classy and has poise, but her affect is whisper-yelling, I LOVE IT LIKE THIS GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY SENTENCE. People who don't want to revise are in trouble as writers. T is incredibly articulate, intelligent, and accomplished-- but aiming to make your writing perfect isn't usually the way to make it perfect. In Love with the Darlings? Is she "in love with her darlings"? Yup. She's thought so hard about every semantic and syntactic choice in the essay that eliminating something feels like a liability. Familiarity can actually lessen our critical eye. Her essays sound "just right" to her-- and yours to you?-- EXACTLY as they are. And so it's nearly impossible to objectively evaluate what to cut. What's considered perfect is too precious to improve. Remember your audience, however. My advice to students who cling to their work is, "Save this version for your memoirs, I can't wait to read them!" Do your job Because we have to give readers what they want. In these essays the admissions team is not, actually, evaluating whether you've turned a phrase perfectly. They want to know that you can answer the question, and that you see your story-- expectation, disappointment, reassessment, plot turn-- clearly. And you, like everyone else who lives and breathes and hopes to apply to school, has to come in under word count-- 650. It's the great equalizer and no admissions team- or text box, for that matter-- will make an exception for you for even the most brilliant Continue Reading …