Reflective Essay

Here's what I have so far...enjoy!

“Out of Thyme”

It’s five o’clock in the evening, and my stomach voices its hunger. I won’t be able to go home until 6. I already know what meal I want to cook. I try to make a mental checklist of the ingredients I need but would have to refer to the recipe. Writing is much the same.

In a creative nonfiction class, I composed a personal essay on my experiences at my family’s lake house in the Finger Lakes region of central New York. I settled on this topic quickly. But what method would be best to convey it? I spent at least some time up there each year. I have so many experiences tucked away neatly in my memory. Yet, for this assignment I had to choose the most relevant to my focus.

But what was my focus? I still had no shopping list for my essay. I chose the meal but had many recipes from which to choose.

I arrive at my girlfriend’s apartment and consult the magazine that has a recipe for butternut squash pizza. The ingredients listed are refrigerated pizza dough, one medium butternut squash, ricotta cheese, half of a medium onion, and thyme. I purchased almost all of the ingredients, except for thyme. I jot down some other items for future use and leave to go to the grocery store.

As I drafted my essay, I decided to create a travel essay. My journey started in New Jersey and finished at my family’s cottage in New York. I knew what I wanted to describe, the rolling hills surrounding the Finger Lakes and the sanctuary they created. Everything seemed to line up, but something was missing. The writing seemed flat and disjointed. There was no spice.

I handed my first draft in and received comments from my professor. She said the themes were good but developing coherence and focus would be paramount for making this piece stand out.

I enter the supermarket and head straight for the baking/spice aisle. I search the racks for thyme. Oregano, basil, and parsley crowd the shelves. Thyme is very stealthy. I come across cilantro and bay leaves, then rosemary and sage. I must be heading in the right direction. I finally come across a bottle with its label turned so that only the manufacturer’s address is shown. I grab the bottle and exhale deeply as the word thyme appears on the opposite side.

After receiving her comments, I set up some time to visit her during office hours. I was able to flesh out ideas on how to tighten the piece. I used her comments as a starting point, and I articulated my concerns with the piece. The meeting proved productive as my focus slowly began to form.

I arrive back at the apartment with all the ingredients inside. The butternut squash and onion roasts in the oven. I prepare to knead the dough into a rectangular form. The dough is ready as the squash and onions exit the oven. I sprinkle them onto the pizza dough and dab ricotta cheese in vacant spaces. I throw the pizza into the oven and wait to sprinkle thyme.

With most of my writing, I need to take a break. Usually, this comes right after a draft or a long editing session. This is my baking period. There’s not much I do with a piece, in the physical sense, during this time. Plenty of ideas cause many neurons to fire. I can see a final outcome of my work, yet I have to read its words. I only conceptualize the final piece.

Freewrite for Exploratory Writing

Here's what I freewrote in class:

Was there a point in your writing where you almost forgot it was an assignment?

The one essay where I found myself writing with no pressure is during my memoir. However, this is completely unfocused and has yet to be polished. I feel such a connection to what I wrote. But there’s so much to tell that I would be the basis of a book rather than an essay.

I did, however, find joy in writing about my family’s cottage and the Finger Lakes region. Again, I have a strong connection to this place. At some points, I felt like I was searching for material, yet at other points I was not.

It was only a matter of time before that piece feel into place and was highly readable. Is it perfect? No, by no means. Though, I feel this has some potential to capture something important.

Describe a point I got stuck?

I found writing my nature essay was the most difficult. It wasn’t that I was stuck. It was that I had this great idea but did not know how to communicate it.

I still love the idea, but the method of which to attack is still unclear. I wrote shit. It wasn’t disjointed, but it wasn’t clean. I felt like I filled the page with words that carried no weight. Yet I still loved the idea.

It wasn’t until I met with Dr. Chandler that the idea began to blossom into words and concepts that I could capture. Instead of focusing on the idea I initially had, I refocused the idea into a slightly different concept. I was only a matter of perspective that made this essay much easier to write. The hardest part is getting past the “Great Idea” that you conceived in your head.

What did you learn about yourself?

With all the essays I had many neurons firing. These neurons, at times, proved to be beneficial. Nevertheless, they also proved to be a nuisance. They often distracted me with new ideas that weren’t necessarily relevant to the work I was writing. The hardest part was focusing on a particular topic. I still find that I have trouble with focusing. Is it an inherent flaw or something that can be overcome?

I believe the latter. It is not that I can’t focus, it is that I focus in a broad sense. Dr. Rich told our senior seminar class to “land the helicopter.” It’s nice to see a broad picture, but then it won’t be clear. The reader won’t know what you’re writing about. Like Annie Dillard, the key to focusing is to describe your object in great detail. After doing so you can draw your conclusions.

Has anything has changed about writing as a craft/gift?

Writing as a craft is a balance between intellectual and emotional. I would be the first to admit that it takes work. But anyone can do it. Writing is not an elitist art. It is an art for the masses. As long as you have the basic knowledge of grammar than you can be a writer. But it’s not only the knowledge. It’s the heart that’s put into it.



After all of this, I realized I'm learning more through my unfinished pieces, one of which I recently finished. So my focus will be on...

What did I learn from unfinished work?