Reflective Essay: Key Components Of My Writing

As I am currently a freshman at Longwood University, I have been through many writing assignments and essays. Starting out as a toddler or at a preschool age you get endless toys that sing your ABC’s or that implement the alphabet in some way, and with the blink of an eye you are writing 10-15 page essays. I first began to write by simply learning the alphabet. I can remember back to my mom sitting me down at the kitchen table helping me write sentences. My love for writing came from my third grade teacher Mrs.Vaden. She gave me many of my writing prompts and taught me things that I still use today. She started the long journey of constructing sentences, forming paragraphs, making topic decisions, and picking thesis statements. It is things such as this that have brought me to be …show more content…
I have learned throughout my many years of writing, and to many more years of writing, I will keep the tips and tricks of writing with me. One of the most key components I have seen about writing is to get all your thoughts down and just keep writing, not to get frustrated by writing. Anne Lamott notes in “Shitty First Drafts” that drafts are a dumping place, you just keep writing. “Just get it all down on the paper, because there may be something great in those six crazy pages that you would never have gotten to by more rational, grown-up means” (Lamott 528). If you get frustrated and stop you may never get the grade you have been working so hard for, or finish the book the editor has been waiting for you to send in. My mom always told me to find a way to relive my frustration. She allowed me to sit and let everything I had in my mind out and she would not get mad or keep any of the words I say, this led to my writing as well. Even if you do not have literacy sponsors such as my teacher, Mrs.Vaden, or my mentor, Anna Hebb, or my mother,you can be your own. Give yourself the time to practice writing and try to find resources on