Advice4 writing assignments w/o obsessing...can't finish?!

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I've always had a problem with articulating and organizing writing assignemnts. I spend so much time trying to understand and be aware of what it is that I want to express or say and actually putting it down on paper in a way that makes sense and is organized or considered "appropriate".

I'm currently doing a very important assignment and I have to explain my experiences at school, but it takes so long for me to actually get it done b/c I keep going back and obsessing over things....or rewriting things. I'll do it to make it sound better, then I may change my mind and write something else. Then I may read somehting I alread wrote and decide it might make more sense if I moved what I said from the bottom of the page, to the top of the page.

Then I get caught up in details and don't know what is considred relivent from irrelivent.

In general, I long to appropriately express something in a general format and break it down into smaller organized parts, but I'm always jumbling and rearrangin and changing and nothing gets done. I've had 2 months to right this assignment and it's due in a week. I keep wanting it to be perfect, but then I finally gave up and said, forget it....I'll just write it and fix it later. Then I find myslef wanting to perfect the stuff again.

It's easy....you just write what you want to say and don't care.....but it's so important to me that everything is said in a way that isn't long.......man.

Sorry I can't be more helpful, but just wanted to say I know EXACTLY what you mean. I am taking a TV news writing class and it's so important to be concise and correct, and it is really frustrating and stressful for me. I like creative/therapeutic writing and academic writing is the opposite of that! What I have to do is remind myself that turning it in even if it is imperfect is better than not turning it in at all. Maybe you can check out examples of other students' writing just to see that you're all in the same boat learning and you don't have to be perfect professionals yet. GOod luck and remember getting started is the hard part, just carving out a few quiet hours (sometimes I turn off my phone/tv/radio or go to the library and set a timer and won't do anything but write until it goes off but I'm obsessive like that) of no distraction every day and tackling it in parts can help.

I had several jobs which consisted of nothing more than writing commercials and I had similar problems, I could worry over something all day, unable to come up with any ideas whatsoever, and putting certain projects off for hours until I was forced to come up with something. Usually, it worked out fine, but it helped that a lot of the more creative stuff I did was two or more characters talking back and forth and since I talk to myself nearly constantly, frequently in different voices, I found that once I broke through the wall of anxiety that was causing me to procrastinate, they often wrote themselves.

For the past two years I've been working on a novel, and the thing that's slowing me up there is that sometimes I can't proceed with the story until a specific scene is done and I can't sit down to write that scene, until I can clearly visualize it. Sometimes it takes several weeks for the picture to become clear in my head. Once that happens, though, I can sit down and start and it just pours out. Dialogue is easy for me once the Who/When/Where/How is worked out.

When I went back to school I found it really hard to get back into essay writing, so I understand your panick and frustration.

You might like something called Mind Mapping Techniques - some do some don't
I don't and it has turned my writing and structure a mess since I was shown it and tried to work with it for a couple weeks a couple times a week..

But each person is different
Now I am trying to quickly get back my usual writing ways, because I am heading to uni soon.

This is what I usually do as well. I also do not start off writing using a computer, but carry a notepad with me to write down thoughts as they happen (do a lot of self-talk)

Do not worry about it being perfect while writing it. Worry about that later.

My parts are like so and written on one page;


Page 1
Topic - experiences at school

Introduction paragraph (short)
-basically in here have 2 or 3 key topic subjects touched on (I aim for 3 or 4)
- go a bit over what you are going to be talking about..


so for yours
it could be..
topic 1 - classes/lectures/course work (sentence
topic 2 - Social interactions
topic 3 - feelings around school as a whole

If you have a notepad with you, as you come across different things that pop in your mind while at school
about any of the key points
write them down

Page 2

topic 1

Think of 3 or 4 key things about topic 1

and talk about that topic staying focused only on that topic and the key things
This should be a paragraph..

do a separate page for each topic this way
and then one last paragraph to refresh the readers memory about your intro topic, your key topics and always end with
your strongest points - for this your experiences - if you go with my topics, would be your feelings about it..

Hope that kinda helped and didn't confuse you more

Write an outline first. Something short, with numbered headings (the sort of format suggested by the previous poster, for example).

Once you have a numbered outline, work out the arguments for each part in a more detailed form, but still leave it rough (you'll have to make a conscious effort to do this but remember that you're going to fill in the details and polish it all up afterwards.

Finally polish the details, fill in the blanks, obsess about the small points.

Basically, force yourself to work from general to specific, and to work ideas out in a rough form before you work on refining them.

You explained it so much nicer.. thanks..

Yung,

Writing is a difficult process for many students. When I work with students who have indicated the type of roadblock you describe, I tell them a few things:

1) The perfect is the enemy of the good. (This phrase got me through my doctoral dissertation)
2) Make a rule for yourself. Set a timer for 60 minutes when you write. When it goes off, you are done with the paper for the day.
3) Outline (surya covers this well), but in that outline, write ONE sentence that says what you want your paper to do. Write THREE sentences about the most important parts of the paper. Every time you start a paragraph, every time you sit down to start writing, read those sentences OUT LOUD. It will help you stay focused.
4) If you need more time than a hour a day, write hard for however long you can, then put the paper away and do not re-read it for at LEAST two full days. Reread it after reading your outline and see if they match
5) The perfect is the enemy of the good. What you are writing is inherently good, because it is on the paper. Non-written thoughts are of no help on an essay.

I hope this helps. I still struggle with this on a daily basis in much of my correspondence.