These are writing exercises from the book: Crafting The Personal Essay, By Dinty Moore . I am working through the book and find it interesting and easy to learn from. The hope is to be able to continue to make my way through the book. These are some of the writing exercises he suggests. Click here to read them all: Category: Writing Exercises
Get It Out Of Your System:
“Take a few minutes to scribble down any recollections of what you’ve learned over the years about the essay form..”
This is easy. I do not recall every having to refine and work on a PERSONAL essay during my school years. It was the only time when I studied English as a subject and had to read and work on the subject as a language. I do recall precis-writing which has been engraved into my memory, but I do not remember personal essays. We wrote essays in History, Geography, English 1 and English 2 and in Psychology during college, but nothing more.
I believe the blog and posts within are the closest that can ever come to personal essays. I would qualify them more as recollections, memories, or stories and not essays, so there’s that. Then again, I do have a few published on a few internet magazine sites, and they were personal in nature. Back then, it was more of a journal. A space for pouring words and emotions and acts of the day and week. Just so it was entertaining and coz it seemed like a good way to express oneself. I didn’t think beyond the blog. Neither did I think of the form of writing, plus it wasn’t coming from a space of conscious learning
Things are different today
I want to write, express and share my story (or whatever I come up with) as a personal essay, as a memoir of sorts even, so I can refine the writing. It has been a few years since Ive written for the sake of writing. Instagram has taken over as a micro-blogging site, and as much as I do not like typing on the phone into small palm sized windows, I do so because the world has shrunk into our palms. It’s disappointing as much as it is amusing.
I sincerely hope I will be able to read, absorb and can learn how to write a good personal essay by the time am done with the book.
