Facing a fear

This weekend, I did something that always filled me with great fear and dread in the past: I got my car inspected. (Even fictional characters have to obey the law.)

During my fictional undergrad, I had several cars. They were very old, and they were not in good condition. Inspection time for me was a time of being roasted over the coals of inadequacy. My cars never passed the first time--and usually not the second or third, either. I would have so much anxiety over this yearly activity that I would offer to pay people to bring my car in for me. I would sweat and shake and pray. Then, the mechanic would tell me why it failed, and I would have to do it all again in a week.

I remember having to replace a muffler, and since I didn't have the money to have it done, I had to do it myself. Some people are good at that, but not fictional writing coaches. I was crawling under the car, getting covered in pine needles, trying to figure out what a muffler was and how it gets replaced. Even after I accomplished it, it still failed inspection twice. It was a time of weeping and wailing. Thankfully, grace has washed most of the memory away.

However, this weekend was different. You see, I have a newer fictional car. It is only about 3 fictional years old. I brought it in to the fictional dealer, and I worked on my fictional laptop while I waited. This time, there was almost no fear. This new emotional state was due to one thing: I knew that my car was in good shape. Thus, I didn't have to worry, fret, and pace the floor. (I did have to wait almost 2 hours, though. Even fictional mechanics can be slow.) My car passed inspection. I went on my way, thinking about nothing except whether I wanted to go to McDonalds or go home and have a hot dog.

Writing is very similar in some respects. I used to have a lot of fear when I turned papers in to professors. Part of this was because I was never sure of what the professor was looking for in it. However, some of it was because I didn't know if the paper was that good. Actually, I shouldn't limit it to papers . . . it counts for any assignment. I would stress when I was trying to decide what to do. I would stress when I was putting off starting it. I would stress when I finally started it much later than I should have done. I would stress while I was trying to put thoughts together. I would stress when I was typing it up. By the time I had finished the first draft, I would be so emotionally exhausted that I didn't want to proofread it. Then, after turning it in, I would stress until I got it back. It was not fun.

Then, I spent an entire semester working on my writing skills. I learned how to use my style manual and what a paper should look like. I proofread every sentence to make sure I was using the rules of subordination and coordination correctly, and I checked the punctuation chart for commas, semicolons, and dashes. When I wrote a paper, I would read the first line of every paragraph to see if they fit together to form an outline my paper. I revised my assignments to make sure that I stayed on topic and that it made sense.

After this semester, I noticed something. I suddenly didn't have to proofread my sentences for coordination or subordination because I was recognizing the rules as I wrote the sentences. I remembered the punctuation rules while I typed, and I had a feel for what construction would work best. I spent four months forcing myself to do it, but it became part of my writing.

Now, I rarely have to worry about those things in my writing. Now, I just worry about wording, spelling, and typos. It really is worth the trouble to get in shape.

Pandora's Box

Suppose there was a box that one could purchase which would format papers into the correct style. Would that be worth something? No more looking through the Turabian, MLA, or APA style guide to learn how to format a paper--one simply uses the correct software, and it's done!

This is a tempting offer for many, but beware! Those software programs simply are not reliable. When one opens the box for that software and uses it for a paper, a whole slew of errors may have just been opened along with it. The only sure remedy is to use the manual and actually learn the style. The Writing Center can help students navigate the style guide so that it is manageable and easy to understand. In addition, the Writing Center resource page has numerous aids to format papers correctly: http://www.regent.edu/admin/stusrv/writingcenter/Resources.cfm

So steer clear of formatting programs offering more than they can give. They may just be a "Pandora's Box" of software escorting pain, despair, and sadness into the life of a student as the papers return full of red marks.