Reaching the end of a semester of school should bring on a thrill of excitement for anyone. No more books! No more studying! No more schedules! The winter break should be used as a time to let your brains relax and recharge for the new year of classes. However, there are some students who have a hard time getting back in the swing of things after they have had several weeks of doing absolutely nothing. Sleeping in and staying up late is a hard habit to break when you go back to school. For those who have a hard time restarting their brains for the new school year, here are some activities suggested to help you feel relaxed while keeping your minds from completely shutting down during the whole winter break.
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The college admissions essay. High school juniors: it’s looming on your summer horizon. This is your summer to figure out what you’re going to say to convince colleges around America to let you through their hallowed halls next year. For those who still have a few more years of high school to go, the stressful prospect of writing college admissions essays is imminent and forthcoming whether you like it or not.
College admissions essays are a strange concept. When you have your academic record, your extracurricular involvements, and your teacher recommendations going for you, why do you still need something so subjective, so seemingly inconsequential, as a 500-word personal statement? The college admissions essay is one of the most difficult pieces of writing you will ever face, not only because the assignment itself is so open ended, but because so much depends on it.
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Writing can be torturous. Let’s face it, when it’s a beautiful day outside and the weather is perfect and all your friends are out and about, the last thing you want to do is sit at home and complete a writing assignment on a deadline. Speaking of which, this is precisely what this blogger is going through right now on a gorgeous (with clear blue sky) Thursday afternoon in San Francicso. So how do we do it? How do we motivate ourselves to write when its the last thing we want to do? When you’re on the verge of seppuku, here on some tips on how to make those untimely writing assignments more bearable.
5. Understand that you have no choice.
There is an internal monologue that probably reads as something out of an existential Samuel Beckett play. But why? But why me? You should probably stop asking yourself those questions, because “Why do I have to write this paper today” makes about as much sense as “But why does organic food cost more money” and “Why do we start wars with other countries” — let’s face it, these are certain facts of life. The sooner you accept that your existential crisis isn’t shaving any time off your dismal assignment, the better off you’ll be in finishing it and getting it out of the way once and for all.
4. Get yourself in a groove.
Instead of taking a million breaks (in my case, that means no more trips away from my desk to anxiously raid the fridge), get a hold of yourself. Work until you find yourself in a groove (i.e. a place where you have most of the fundamental ideas of what you’re planning to write in your grasp, where you have fleshed out your ideas to a point where all that’s left is to transcribe them onto paper), because it’s really just smooth sailing from there on in. The hardest part about writing is starting to write. After you motivate yourself to start, keep going until you find yourself in a place where the uphill struggle is behind you. A groove is a plateau! You can rest easy once you hit that stride.
3. You are a machine.
Whatever it takes to convince yourself that you are a machine, do it. You are a machine. For me, convincing myself of my automaton powers of mental fortitude is aided by the loud playing of German industrial music from the 1980s. If listening to music, drinking tons of caffeine, talking to yourself, pacing up and down the length of the room, or eating candy nonstop serves to help you be more productive, by all means do what you need to do. Rather than telling yourself, “This task is insurmountable,” tell yourself that everything is well within your control and that all you need to do is harness your mental powers in order to succeed at whatever you set out to accomplish.
2. Trick yourself into believing that you aren’t really writing.
Psychological trickery can get you far in life. Philosopher Slajov Zizek (who is extremely prolific) has a really interesting method of forcing himself to write: “I hate writing. I so intensely hate writing — I cannot tell you how much. The moment I am at the end of one project I have the idea that I didn’t really succeed in telling what I wanted to tell, that I need a new project — it’s an absolute nightmare. But my whole economy of writing is in fact based on an obsessional ritual to avoid the actual act of writing.” Basically, Zizek tells himself that he isn’t really writing, that he’s merely getting his thoughts and ideas down on paper, and then proceeds to write with the acceptance that it’s not really writing. Of course, he actually is writing – but because he hates to write, he needs to lie to himself in order to get any writing done whatsoever. Self-deception is a great tool in motivation and writing (seriously!).
1. Reward yourself for finishing what you set out to do.
The carrot and stick method really work. Whether it’s in driving a mule to plow a field or driving yourself to plow your way through a writing assignment, rewarding yourself with something at the end of the tunnel is a good method of getting yourself in the mental state to actually be productive. So go ahead! Think of something you like (really, really like) and tell yourself that it’s yours – so long as you finish your paper.
Creative writing is often thought to mean fiction or poetry writing, specifically the kind of creative writing taught in workshops at liberal arts colleges where people sit around and ask each other questions about character motivation, symbolism, and whether you’ve earned your cliche.
Actually, creative writing is so much more than that. You can approach any writing creatively, be it a research paper, an essay, a journalistic article, or even a blog entry. I like to think that I’m approaching this blog, even now, from my own creative angle. All ‘creative writing’ means is that you are infusing your writing with your personal creative spirit. That the creative energy of your writing comes from you and you alone. Not only is creative often confused with ‘fiction,’ but it’s also confused with the false idea that in order to be creative, what you are doing has to be a completely isolated work that lives on its own, outside of what anyone else has ever done. That’s simply not true. Writers are often influenced by other writers, and part of being creative is letting yourself be inspired by the work of others. There are many myths to being creative, and the purpose of this post is to encourage students to find their own routes to creativity. We are all endowed with the creative aspect; it’s just up to us to access it!
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