Response to: Why I Write

I found that I agreed to a large extent with many of Donald M. Murray's statements and suggestions for becoming a better writter and I also felt that many of his suggestions could be easily used in a classroom to motivate students to write.

Time and time again Donald Murray says that the best way to get yourself to write is by forcing yourself to sit in a seat and write. It doesn't necessarily matter what the subject of the writing is just so long that you are writing. He cites many colleagues and uses quotes from several famous writters from many different fields and of many differing eras. I did feel that he belabored his point a bit excessively; however, the many different examples and views of how one can write best did help generate many ideas for combating excuses to not write.

I agree with Donald Murray's assessment that writing is a necessary act that every person engages in and that the only real difference between people who write are the reasons they engage in writing and the benefits they recieve from writing. He includes many examples for writing such as: To lose myself in my work, to testify, to avoid boredom, to share, for revenge, to exercise my craft to slay my dragons, to discover who I am and several others. Each reason is unique in its own way and each reason demonstrates both the versatility and the necessity of writing in people's lives.

I couldn't help but draw connections to my own writings when I read the section about "Writers Who Don't Finish" and Writers Who Don't Submit For Publication". I, sadly, am guilty on both accounts. I have started and completed probably over a hundred pages of writing for my own personal reasons very little of it is "finished" and even less of it has ever been submitted to anyone for viewing. Instead it sits in a dusty folder locked safely away in the archives of my computer. But I would argue that not all of it has been writen for publication and, while I wont deny the that the idea of publishing some of my work has crossed my mind, I can't imagine someone else finding it much interesting or original. However, Donald Murray's devotion, enthusiasm, desire, and his love for writing have inspired my to once agian pick up the pen and "use the tounge as an eye".

Towards the end of the reading I began to fade the burdensome amount of examples began to wear on my mind and I started to tune out. I have a writing style and system of my own and hearing about others was interesting for awhile but soon couldn't hold my interest. I did finish the reading but by the time I reached "Talent Is Common; Energy Is Rare" my energy was scarce.

I enjoyed this article and I'm sure I'll be able to use many of the ideas is contains to motivate myself and my future students.