Inspiring Quotes from 3 Famous Writers
by Michelle
Finally, the big moment is here. Time to start on your college essay.
You’ve cleaned up a good writing space for yourself, making sure you have your essay prompts and water and snacks on hand. You’ve pondered for a long time over experiences and events from your year during COVID, carefully considering what kind of meaningful stories you can write about.
“How hard can writing this college essay be?” you think, looking at a blank document.
You type a sentence. Type one more. You backspace and delete one sentence. Delete two more words.
Did you spell that word in your first sentence correctly? You look at a thesaurus. Pick a fancier word. No, wait, the original wording sounded better. Change it back.
You close your document. ‘Do you want to save your doc?’ the screen asks you mockingly.
This should be a scenario that many Essay Narwhals can recognize, even if they have not yet started on a college application essay.
However, there’s no need to beat yourself up over for feeling that writing is hard. Feeling unmotivated and despondent? See what these 3 famous authors have said about their own writing!
“I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within.”
—Gustave Flaubert (X)
Narwhals can ‘see’ with sounds and echolocation in the ocean. Humans, however, often hate the sound of their own recorded voice, since there’s a gap between what their inner ear hears versus the actual sound of their voice when it vibrates over air waves.
If the famous French novelist, Gustave Flaubert, felt annoyed by his own writing in the 1800s, then it’s absolutely understandable that you would be too after looking at your own first drafts.
So, how does an Essay Narwhal get the ‘sound’ of your college essay closer to the sound of the song you are hearing in your head?
“You don’t start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it’s good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That’s why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence.”
—Octavia E. Butler (x)
A child doing their first drawing of a beach might use blue squiggly markings to depict the water, a simple orange circle for the sun, and golden lines for sand, and think of their work as a flawless masterpiece. As an older artist however, they might paint the same beach with a deepened understanding of elements like lighting and color palettes, leading to a more complex piece of art.
Something similar may come into play with your writing. You might think your first draft looks great, but end up uncovering more flaws and weak spots when you reread it a second time. That’s okay and a normal part of the writing process!
The most important part is getting the words out in the first place. You can’t make bricks without straw, after all. Even if they thought their words were clunky or they were using too many cliches, I had always found it easier to work with past students who were not afraid to bring in messy drafts.
As long as there were words on the paper, improvements for things like structure or details could be pointed out afterwards. The first drafts could then slowly become more polished and stronger final drafts in the student’s hands.
“I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see, and what it means. What I want and what I fear.” – Joan Didion (x)
Afraid that you’re not that great in writing?
That actually doesn’t matter so much for your college essay! What’s really important—are you showing to your readers what you have experienced? What you have felt? What things you want out of life? If you’re able to get these things across and answer the essay prompts while revealing something about the kind of person you are, you’ve achieved the goal of your college essay.
Famous writers of the past have also struggled with their own writing but were able to write their own individual masterpieces, nevertheless.
Get inspired by their different approaches—as an Essay Narwhal, keep patiently fishing for the right words from your head and heart to show through your own essays!
