Retrieving the writer within

Lelu Lala
4 min readJun 18, 2021

There are certain things we just know how to do.

Working in artistic activities in the computer with a coffee
Source: Pexels

Are you familiar with the feeling of knowing how to do something? I mean, just being naturally good at something. I bet you are. Be it basketball, cooking, language learning or dancing, there are some things at which you are naturally talented.

For me, it used to be writing. If you gave me a topic and some time, I could come up with arguments, invent stories and parallel universes, and soon begin writing with no intention of stopping.

For this reason I believed that when I entered university, writing essays and reports would be easy. And it was, in a way. I could naturally come up with long pieces in exams or essays. I naturally understood both sides of the coin and demonstrated it in my writing. But something was happenning.

Academic writing messed up my natural talent

Entering university changed radically the idea of what I had considered writing up until that point. Now I had to be writing in a specific style, with a specific purpose and with a lot of guidelines in mind. Moreover, I had to reference all I was saying. Is there a more unnatural way to write?

I mean, I get it, you have to demonstrate that your arguments are valid, that they are sustained in things people with more experience than you have have said before you. But something was amiss. I lost a lot of fluidity and imagination, in favour of making my writing impersonal.

Writing is a craft

In reality, writing is a craft. You are constructing something out of nothing, and that is an art. You may be using what some people have said before you, but, all in all, you are creating a piece of unique content that is original and irrepetible. You are being creative with the certain tools (texts and arguments) you have been given. The piece that emerges from it is, probably, unique in its characteristics and way of conveying a message. And even the message can be unique.

Having to continuously retrieve information from other sources, while valid, puts a toll in that craftiness. Suddenly you are not creating anymore, you are a mere messenger, and a poor messenger at that, given that your only audience will be a teacher who has to read a lot of similar papers parroting the words of the same authors.

Adapating your mind to that structure is detrimental to your writing abilities

You no longer are a creator, you are transformed into a messenger, and a very boring one. You seem to only parrot back what someone else said, with little to no room to your own ideas.

University claims to have evolved from the times in which it revolved around memorizing big manuals and texts, but it continues to be based on the study and analysis of what other authors have said.

This might be necessary in the sciences, but in the humanities and social sciences, other forms of knowledge could be implemented. We are left having to study the same old texts, with no room to independent thinking. When we have to put pen to paper, we are a sea of self-doubt and auto-editing. It seems that, if we haven’t read four articles and three books about the topic, we can’t fathom to write down what we think about the macdonalization of society, whereas in highschool, it was easy: it is bad, and I am going to tell you why.

For a writing that is inspired and inspiring

Academic writing can mess a lot with your natural abilities to both learning and writing. Independent thought and study, as well as writing, should be encouraged.

The moment there are many more rules in the book than conversation in the classroom, you know your writing has to become completely different in order to become desirable for the academia. In that process, personal ability and style are lost, and essays become impersonal and a means of measuring the productivity of students.

Learning to write is a life-long project. If we put students in a place where they have to delearn to write to fit some standard, who are we really helpping?

Recover your natural flow of writing

I don’t want to sound like some listicle about ways of crafting your art. I believe that is a very personal process. A lot can be said about how the internet is shaping our way of writing.

But I believe there is beauty in a personal way of writing. In the coming days, try to find that free, energized voice that comes from somewhere within, that is free and is not thinking of being liked by anybody, it just is. How does it write? What does it have to say? What type of words does it use? What is its rythm?

Try to remember the valuable lessons in writing. But never, ever, forget of those things you learned naturally, your freedom in expressing yourself in your personals style. And for all that is loved, please, don’t make your voice out of a listicle.

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Lelu Lala

Failure by day, too tired to be anything by night