learning to write

Not everything I know I learned from my years at Cornell, but I did learn lots. For one, I learned that writing well is very important - not just because it communicates more effectively, but because sometimes, what you write, what you create, will be read many years into the future. It's often the most direct, intimate thing you leave behind. Writing is inherently a means of communicating with the future* – with people in the future, unlike phone calls, instant messages, emails - usually. *not necessarily only after you're gone, but you most likely won't be able to discuss, edit or otherwise modify what you've written. So it's important to get it right when you write, because you won't be present when the reader is reading your writing - usually.

So what does it mean to write well? Is it just spelling and grammar? I confess that that is what I thought before Cornell. Freshman year, writing was a requirement. But I nearly flunked out of my first writing course - creative writing. I thought it was the instructor, who clearly seemed to favor the writing of one or two students over others. Perhaps the instructor was just putting their work up as examples of good writing, but it doesn't really help the other students struggling with their own writing. Writing is clearly not a learn-by-example skill - after all, there are clear boundaries like plagiarism that makes examples less helpful. I didn't actually "get it" until the next semester, when I took "philosophy of mind." Unlike "creative writing" - which seemed to me at the time to allow one to write about anything - any subject - philosophy required rigorous logic and reasoning. All of a sudden, there was a clear and present pupose to writing. I had to compose my thoughts into coherent series of explanations, paths of reasoning. Reading other examples of philosophical writing, paying attention to the reasoning and arguments, looking for flaws in logic, etc. - all helped my own preparation for writing. I learned to write effectively, paying attention to nuances in meanings of words, and the context in which they are used. While it was a challenging course, I was profoundly rewarded with my newly developed writing ability. I got it.

These days, the ability to write effectively is still a rare skill in the larger world. Many people write as if they were just transcribing their speech – as in speaking, not a speech. Speaking relies so much on nuances and inflections in the manner of how things are said, and of course the person(s) one is speaking to. It is, of course, far more intuitive than writing. Children, at an early age, learn that how you say it is often as important if not more important than what you say. Writing is a skill acquired at a much much later stage - when even the most rudimentary sentences are heaped with praise and accolades.

I sometimes believe that like many things, writing improves with use and practice. But alas, in my efforts to encourage my son to write - a blog - I think he does not yet "get it". Writing is a counter-intuitive means of communicating.