Katie Pak
Why I Write
To be honest, this is one of the hardest assignments I've been given to date - as a college student or otherwise. It doesn't seem like it would be that hard of a question - why do I write? I'm a writing minor; of course I love to write. But I've never thought about why I liked it, really, besides the fact that I love to read and that I'm good at writing.
At first I was defiant. Do I need a reason? Isn't it good enough that I like it? For some reason, I couldn't separate my frustratingly ineffable love of writing from the process of writing itself. I suppose I was learning that, at least for me, it's not about the end product as much as the journey of getting there. This is why, though I didn't realize at the time, I got tangled up in the concept narrative during my brainstorming process.
But as I kept slogging through, everything became incrementally clearer, including the reasons why I love to write. Lo and behold, there it was, slowly manifesting itself with each word I chose. I don't want to spoil the end product, because it is kind of meta in the way that it details my process and how I figure problems out (i.e. why do you write?) by writing about them. I was so sure I was going to hate whatever I turned in, but I was very pleasantly surprised by how proud of this draft I was, and how genuine it truly felt.
The final product didn't really change much from the first draft - as I alluded to, I was actually quite pleased with its first iteration. However, I've never made something worse by revising it, so I knew it couldn't hurt. I spent a bit more time in this one detailing how the thoughts in my head go through the transformative process to words on the page, and how things get lost in translation along the way.
Otherwise, it's pretty much the same draft - but slightly upgraded.