Authorship 220

By Cole Zingas

 

As I stare at the movable pixels in front of me, I see a blank page, surrounded by a plethora of Microsoft Word options that have the potential to transform this blank screen.   My paper supply is endless, and my pen will never run out of ink.   But what motivates me to rearrange the electrons on this screen to form something that has value, something with worldly meaning, something that others will care about?

 

It’s difficult to tell exactly—the answer is not a simple one-line response that comes to my mind every time I write.

 

I can tell you one thing, however.

 

If I sat down seven years ago and was asked the same question, my answer would be entirely different.  Yet, strangely enough, consciously I feel like the same writer I was when I was twelve years old.   I don’t think that I write with a different purpose, or with a renewed vigor, or anything like that.  But in my writing it is evident that so much has changed.

 

There are a few things that could contribute to that.

 

1. I’ve developed a sense of audience. 

2. My writing style is not different, but more experienced

3. I can adapt to new environments

 

But for some reason, it feels like the way in which I write has evolved much more than that.  It’s evolved much more subtly, much more profoundly.   My writing has changed because I have changed, and my interpretation of the world changes everyday in ways that are near impossible to notice.

 

When I was six years old, my parents would take me downstairs to our dusty, unfinished basement every week – “Don’t forget to put your shoes on!” – and set up colored pencils, dot markers, and paint.   There, in the basement, we had a giant, endless roll of paper with which I could do anything I’d like.   Anything.  And my imagination, like any child’s would, took off, and I created pictures, stories, and too many failed attempts at drawing tiny stick figure boys and girls.   

 

When I was fourteen years old, my parents bought me a MacBook Pro.  My very own computer with which I could do anything, create anything, or write anything I wanted.    Yet with the same blank screen I face today, with the same blank canvas I faced as a child, I chose to write bland, boring stuff throughout much of high school.   I’m not saying that my work wasn’t “good”, because for the most part I received good grades.   But the structured, laboring paragraphs and dry repetitive messages I tried to convey didn’t exactly jump off the page.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Say you meet someone for the first time.  They say hello, and meander along, not doing anything particularly distasteful or out of the ordinary.  A few minutes later—wait, what was his name again?

 

My high school writing did something along the same lines.  It didn’t take any chances, or have a distinctive character.  It wasn’t something worth remembering.

 

So as I reflect on my writing career, there’s a distinction that I want to make—between a writer, and an author.

 

Writer- a person who can write; one who practices writing

 

Author- an inventor, founder, or constructor of something, a creator

*Originally from the Latin word auctorem meaning “one who causes to grow”

 

Before college, I considered myself a good writer.  My teachers always congratulated me on my vocabulary, and I had no problem writing lengthy essays and stories from a very young age.  However, being a good writer doesn’t mean that I knew how to use this skill.  

 

Rather, it meant that of all the fifth graders who “can write”, I was “good”.

 

An author does more than simply “practice writing”.  An author asks questions that nobody else thinks to ask.  An author is able to seek difficult answers, and come up with innovative ways to apply these answers.  An author takes the lead on his work; letting his ideas direct it—not those of any outside influence.   An author’s work raises eyebrows, and has extrinsic meaning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I arrived at college, the amount of different personalities, novel ideas, and unique perspectives present in a single dorm hallway was astonishing to me.  And unlike high school, at college intelligence is appreciated, respected, and reciprocated.  So, in the past year, I have joined in on more intellectually stimulating conversations than in my previous nineteen years combined.  I finally started to express my opinions and think outside the box without feeling out of place. 

 

Also, I’ve acquired the curiosity necessary to help transform my writing.  Rather than being told to learn, I have a desire to learn.  And doing things I’m actually interested in has triggers a much higher level of thinking.   I’m much less prone to simply regurgitate words on paper—self-generated motivation has led to self-generated creations. 

 

So although I’m using the same brain cells and the same fingers to pluck away at the same black keys, twelve-year old Cole Zingas didn’t know that it took such innovation and critical thinking to craft a notable research paper.  I didn’t know how to look at things from another perspective, and think to read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with context and intended audience in mind.  I didn’t know how to apply media in order to give my writing multiple dimensions.  

 

As a nineteen year-old student, I have the independence, and I have the creative freedom both in my schoolwork and outside of the classroom to make things my own.   This ePortfolio has been my opportunity to show that.  

 

In my repurposing and remediation projects, I wrote because I care about health and fitness.  In this exciting and exploding field of fitness advice, I had to find a niche where I could jump into the conversation. 

 

In this situation, as a good writer, I could have written something logical that used sources and had good prose.  Something similar to what I did in my original piece on creatine supplementation.   That piece was good writing, but here I had the opportunity to create something that meant more.   To do this, I had to consider my audience—college students.  Busy college students aren’t looking to read long research papers that involve detailed explanations about the history and science behind nutritional supplementation.  Also, I had to consider that in addition to my own blog, thousands of other opinions and pieces of health advice are constantly being thrown in their faces, so I had to make my voice unique and intriguing.  I had to think critically about my writing style, layout, and design in order to author a website that can stand out as my own.

 

My remediation project is even more exciting to me than the repurposing blog because I feel that I’ve found something that can have immediate impact.  There’s thousands of health and fitness blogs, and surely many of those are directed at college kids, so I remediated my website into the much more uncommon medium of an email newsletter.  Using this novel form, I have had the opportunity to express myself— because at this point, the email newsletter is not tethered to a set of defined genre conventions, so I can take this and run. 

 

These projects have given me the freedom of an author.  It’s exhilarating.   I am finally coming to a place in my life where I can stop echoing the words and ideas of others in my writing, and voice my own opinions—and know how to do that in an effective way. 

 

Creative freedom and unique ideas, however, can only take an author so far.

 

George Orwell is correct in “Why I Write” when he says desire to push the world in a certain direction—political purpose—is always present in effective writing.  In the same way, Joan Didion’s “Why I Write” emphasizes the importance of the “secret bully” in writing that persuades the reader in a near-hostile manner. 

 

Successful writing does not only generate unique ideas, but it also forces the issue.  Taking this next step, being able to push the world and truly convince the audience, requires something else in addition to intellectual creativity.  It requires the author to take ownership of their work, and shamelessly broadcast their ideas to others.  Ownership is hard to attain, but it is an essential aspect of authorship.   If you aren’t confident in your work and taking accountability for your ideas, are they truly yours?

 

I am constantly maturing, and it’s had a visible effect on my writing.  I’m becoming comfortable at generating thought-provoking questions, and exploring the answers for myself.  No longer am I strictly adhering to style guides.  I feel that I have gained enough knowledge of how to write in order to shape my writing in my own way.   As showcased here in my ePortfolio, I’m well on my way to becoming a creator of distinct work.  The next step for me in this process of transition to authorship is to learn how to truly own my work.

 

Writing without political purpose, or a driving extrinsic motivation, is not inherently bad—writing for writing’s sake has plenty of benefits, and I do that a lot.  But as I move along in life, the tools and knowledge I have gathered, in college and in Writing 220, have motivated me to become more than just a writer.    

 

If I did have to sum up why I write in one line—I write to be an author.