JB's+Reflection+on+Expressive+and+Reflective+Writing+Submitted+Draft

When I think about how far I have come on this essay, I can only say that the story being told has been taken to its logical linear boundary. It is, after all, an exercise in communicating a specific series of events—taking a test and basically reporting my reaction to the results. However, when assessing how far my writing skills have advanced from the first to the final draft, I think it is clear that they have only mildly improved. If I am being honest with myself, I have to admit it is a little disappointing—not because I failed to adequately describe a set of events, but because when I objectively read my essay, it’s boring! I’m not the type of writer who easily writes with flowery descriptions, rich with vivid imagery. Why, then, should I be disappointed? The reader in me got exactly what she expected from the writer in me. I don’t have a precise answer for the big why, except to say that I see the merit in trying to make the reader feel and see my accounts rather than merely process information.

As a writer, I very much struggle with the art of balancing enhancement words against needless words. Some of the work I’ve heard or read from my peers is very descriptive and detailed, more so than mine, but it seems to me that often times the paper’s points are redundantly made and many of the adjectives are questionable and vague (if you really spend time thinking about them), which begs the question in my mind of whether or not there is a specific adjective count requirement in the broader genre of essay writing! I want to work on describing feelings, sights, and events with more indirect language; however, the problem I face on this front is in weighing the disconnect between how much of my narrative voice is really me and how much is the pretentious (that’s what most fluffy writing sounds like to me) front I would be creating to write in that way. To what extent do I—or should I—write the way I speak? Perhaps if I could answer these questions I would start to like writing more.