review

I thought this assignment was a nice hybrid of personal and academic writing. Good writing is only produced when the writer is passionate about the subject. Sometimes it is hard to satisfy writing assignments that I just don’t care about because if there is no personal investment then there is less urgency, which leads to watered down writing. Although one problem I faced with this particular paper was a surprising vagueness of the event. Once I started writing the paper I realized I had forgotten a lot more about the event than I thought I ever would have. This forced me to dig deeper for explicit details and the temptation to fabricate certain details grew stronger and stronger. However, when comparing the event to online research it put lots of things into context for me such has the seeming regularity of occurrences like this. I never quite considered the repercussions of isolation and loneliness until I saw the minority statistics for suicide.

I thought I got my points across fairly clearly, but to some degree I was still digging for something to write about rather than letting out something that was building up inside me. I have recognized that all my best writing has been when I feel as though I need to get some thoughts out on paper. Those instances are the equivalent to a player getting an adrenaline rush during a football game, an overwhelming feeling that supercharges my writing. The challenge is getting into that zone more often, I need to find a way to wire up an on/off switch to that feeling. But this paper was still an enjoyable one to write, and a good transition for me to move on from just writing personal stories to writing something the public may be interested in also.