literacy

Lamott seems to really capture me. I feel like I am sitting down with her with at a coffee shop and discussing writing. Although she is harsh at times, I feel that she is honest on her thoughts, like a friend who sometimes tells you things you do not want to hear and keeps telling you until they are sure you heard them. There are times when I feel like we are talking about me and how I write but then we jump to how students I have watched and observe write.
This week as I read it I felt like we were talking about me as a person and how who I am affects how I write. It made me realize that if I sat down more often and just started writing I would probably do very well with it. I am often like the person she talks about in her book who stands back and observes what is going on around them instead of participating in it. I like to see what is happening before I get into something and can’t get out of it. I like to see the whole picture. I feel like I have a lot going through my mind and if I could put it down on paper it might turn out to be more organized that what it is in my mind. If I could take what I see and make it into something new that people would be able to connect to and enjoy I wonder how my writing would turn out.
Lamott talks about how writing often has a hidden message in it whether it is meant to or not. I think that this is very true however; it seems that as humans we need to find purpose for something therefore we make up the meanings and sometimes the meaning will be different for me than what it would be for someone else.
Lamott takes a look at Mel Brooks advice saying “Listen to your broccoli, and your broccoli will tell you how to eat it”. She relates it to intuition and how we need to put aside the still voices inside of us that cause us to jugde and have doubt but to write without thinking about what it is that we are saying. We are so use to being doubtful of our work and have little confidence in what we say or do that our work doesn’t turn out as well as it might if we just followed our intuition.