Free Writing Response

Olivia Nyhammer

September 7, 2014

English Prof

English 110

Response to Peter Elbow “Freewriting”

1. The difference between editing and free writing is that editing is something you subconsciously do while writing a paper to ensure its quality. We edit in subtle ways like stopping to think about how to spell a word correctly to perfect our writing and make it flawless for the reader, although in some cases one may over-edit and lose their voice in their writing. Free writing is an exercise that gets you out of the habit of hesitating so much while your writing causing you to lose your voice, and the authenticity of your work. While free writing, one must not lose focus or stop for anything. You just write whatever comes to your mind without any hesitation, even if that means writing the same word over and over again. 
2. In response to the quote, “The habit of compulsive, premature editing doesn't just make writing hard. It also makes it dead” written by Peter Elbow, I feel he is referring to the tragedy of a writer losing their voice, which is the one thing that sets us apart from one another. Over-editing your work causes the writing to become robotic and uninteresting. Most audiences you will be writing for appreciate a little humor or corkiness and those are the things we often edit out because we do not feel confident in them. In his quote, Elbow was referring to a writers voice and the importance of never losing it through overthinking. 
3. Peter Elbow once said, “..trying to get the beginning just right is a formula for failure.” Your opening paragraph gives the reader a brief insight of your entire paper. It should be strong and captivating. After your audience reads your first paragraph they should be hooked, but sometimes that is a lot of pressure and getting it perfect is such a priority that we get frustrated, and lose our patience to continue. To save yourself from the dreaded first paragraph try just jotting down whatever comes to your mind, because after your paper is completed you can always go back and make proper adjustments in a more conclusive way considering you have throughly explained each of your points and therefor, can paraphrase them much easier.