Process Writing

Andrea MacMichael

11/21/16         

Food and Travel Writing

Process Writing

            I thoroughly enjoyed writing the pieces in this class, and I found that my first drafts came more easily than writing assignments for other writing classes I have taken in the past. I think my ideas and inspiration came more easily because the reading assignments provided great examples for the type of writing we were learning about at any given point in the class. In addition, I discovered that doing writing exercises to get my words on paper helps me focus my ideas later on when I begin writing first drafts of larger works.

            For my restaurant review I relied on examples of real restaurant reviews by Pete Wells and Sam Sifton to guide me in writing because I had never written a restaurant review before. This assignment gave me the most difficulty because it was a new form of writing. I relied heavily on the comments of my peers on this piece as well because I had trouble forming my “but statement” for the critique.

            For the memoir draft, my inspiration came from a previous writing exercise. This exercise from class allowed me ten minutes to write about a particular experience about food, and it forced me to dive deep into description of the atmosphere where I was eating, the taste and presentation of the food, and how I felt about the experience in a quick, informal manner. I wrote about my first time eating sushi, and ended up using this writing exercise to help me write my memoir. A revised version of the sushi scene I wrote in the exercise became the main topic of my memoir essay. The exercise forced me to keep my words flowing, which I have found to be one of the best ways I can begin writing.

            Overall, I learned that a really good way for me to begin any writing assignment is to first get words on paper. Then, looking at related works by professional authors can be helpful for reference. For most of the assignments in this class, I began with too many ideas and found it helpful to get them all down before choosing what was important to expand on, and what could be excluded. In addition, the comments of my peers were always very helpful to me in each piece, and I mainly used them to revise the points in my papers that needed more expansion and detail. It was very exciting to find a good rhythm and writing process for myself and to learn how best I can concentrate my ideas.