All Writing is Autobiography – Murray
Creative Writing is a Unique Category - Cydney Alexis
I have never taken a creative writing class and have only been exposed to more traditional forms of writing. So, anything I know (or think I know) about the creative writing genre has been from the social norms about it. Because of this, Creative Writing is a Unique Category sparked my interest.
Summary
In All Writing is Autobiography, Murray uses some of his writings to attempt to explain how everything we write has autobiographical elements to it. While we think we are making things up, we are really being influenced by things that have happened in our lives. Cydney Alexis talks about the term “creative writing” and what it has done to societal standards of writing in general in Creative Writing is a Unique Category. One of the major points she tried to make was that people associate being a writer with certain genres, which limits peoples’ abilities to see themselves as writers when they do other kinds of writing.
Prompts
#6 – These readings have sparked a few questions for me that would be interesting to discuss. One in particular is: Does all writing have to be personal, like Murray states? In All Writing is Autobiography, he talks about how his life experiences have been influences for a lot of his writing, and how he sees himself as some of the narrators and characters. What I am wondering, though, is if he is talking about all kinds of writing, or just the more “professional” writing. For example, I am in an information technology class this semester and we are writing a 10-page paper about a topic covered in the class. While I enjoy writing, and would consider myself to be a writer (on most days, at least), will I really be able to make this writing personal? One could argue that I will use my own logic and format the facts to fit my ideas for the paper, however I would say that I do not consider this kind of writing personal, especially on an autobiographical level. While I am more tech savvy than most people, I do not find writing about the future of internet security enjoyable, so I know I will not be giving as much effort in this writing as I would a paper about the future of digital marketing or videography. I think that when you have complete and total freedom over what you are writing, yes it can and will be personal, but for writing that you are not passionate about, and are doing simply for a class or job, it may not be personal.
#2 – One of the topics in Creative Writing is a Unique Category that made me stop and think was that most people will call themselves readers if they read, no matter the genre or type of reading, but writers typically do not consider themselves writers unless they write “creatively” (i.e. poetry or fiction). I remember in high school being part of the Daily News Press Club, where I would write news articles and they would be printed in the local newspaper. I considered myself a writer then, because I was physically writing to a specific genre. So, since then I have considered myself a writer. But, I realized during this reading, I have been writing for way longer than that, I just wasn’t used to those genres being considered writing.
In 7th grade English, my class made music videos to popular songs. Our teacher directed, filmed, and edited these videos while we all were in them. However, I was (and still am) extremely shy and awkward, so I preferred to be the teacher’s assistant. In 8th grade, my study hall class wanted to make another one, so this time I directed, filmed, and edited the video. I had to plan the script, which I did by writing. I remember sitting on my bed with a notebook planning out the scenes and drawing diagrams, but I never considered this writing? As I have gotten older and gained more experience, I know how important it is to be able to write a script for anything you film, and in a way that everyone understands. It takes a lot of time to learn how to accomplish this; there is no reason why someone shouldn’t be considered a writer for doing this.
So, I have been a writer for even longer than I gave myself credit for. My styles of writing have just changed and improved.
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