Monday, February 15, 2010

Essay: On Writing the Essays

Note: This is the afterword in my essay collection made up by On Tolerance, Haunted by Memories, and Journey Back Home

On Writing the Essays

I would never have known the joys of editing if not for this compilation of essays. If a lesson is in order after such a wonderful and tedious experience, then it is this: Writers write in white heat and edit in cold blood. Once inspiration and ideas hit, writers just jab on the keypad keys letting them all flow. As the moment of delirium subsides and the writing comes to an end, a writer feels both the ebbing away of ecstasy and the sinking in of reality: This piece must be perfect. Then the writer takes out his red ball pen and starts whipping his essay bloody. With the dripping paper of corrections, he retypes the final product of his efforts, offering his heart and soul’s masterpiece to the first reader interested to scrutinize it and shout bloody murder over a proofread mistake. He humbly takes his attacked art back and broods over the ‘corrections’ day and night. Once the writer recovers from the shock and the grief, he takes out his pen and writes another one again. Such is the life of a writer.
In preparing my bread and butter, I wrote ‘On Tolerance’ with the initial presumption that my professor’s favors the scientific approach to essays and as hard as it was on me, I had to pretend stiff to come up with it. Initially dealing with smoking, the essay grew to be focused more on the way the majority now willingly compromises its welfare for the cries of the minority, an issue of freedom and rights. A lot of thought and brainstorming went into it, more so that I kept putting it off until I had no choice but to edit it. The writing process was painful but rewarding.
Now, in arranging my appetizers, I wrote ‘Haunted by Memories’ with much more ease. I did not feel the need for false pretenses anymore and so I wrote luxuriously on this one. Writing it felt like being back in my old waters again, familiar and enjoyable. With much disappointment, it was returned to me with a much lower grade than the one I expected. After a chat with my professor, it turns out I left a lot of grammatical errors in the text of this essay. My, I guess I’ll just blame it on familiarity. I realized then how important editing was. When I started editing for this compilation, this was the first one I did right away. I knew in my heart I could have done loads better and knew which ones I’d correct, which ones I’d take out, and which ones I’d need to add from the heart. I had a great time editing it, and I really hope that readers will like it just as I do.
Lastly, in serving the bomb out of the shell, the main course for this meal, I wrote ‘Journey Back Home’ with pretty much enough experiences from the first two essays to tell me I should write with both the heart and the mind. It was hard at first, having written something to start with then right in the middle, stopping, looking over what I’ve got and closing the window of this document numerous times before I finally got what I wanted and stuck to it. I knew from the start I would be writing about my trip to China, but I never knew just how to start or just what experiences to tell, or which trip I’d focus on. When I finally got the ball going after the fourth ‘unacceptable’ trial, inspiration started hitting me again and the words just flowed like red hot lava out of my mind and into the computer screen. Editing it was no simple task; going over descriptions that I would have loved to include in the essay but decided to delete (because it ended up contributing nothing to the general output) broke my heart. Anyway, I got over it about an hour into editing the last essay so everything’s fine now.
In dishing this last part of the meal, the dessert, I just let my heart bleed out with ‘On Writing the Essays’ as I think is quite obvious. I do hope this adds a sweet tang after the tough things you’ve had to chew. I hope this time somebody likes my cooking!

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