Essays seem to be one of the biggest banes of a student’s existence. Some students, anyway. I don’t really understand what’s so bad about them—just pick a topic you’re interested in, and you’re good. Pick a topic that makes you want to write it.
But I’m not here to suggest ways to pick a topic. No, I would like to point out to you one of the most important rules of writing: keep writing. Seems silly to point it out until you realize the way you (probably) write essays: start and stop and start and stop. Bad idea.
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I have been crafting an essay (yes, we writers will sometimes say we ‘craft’ stuff. Makes the process sound as intense as it really is) for a while. I wrote a paragraph a week ago, then put it away for later. I finally started again today and halfway through writing the thing, I got interrupted. I had to leave. But I left—of course—in the middle of a sentence. I came back after a nice relaxing swim, to this unfinished sentence: “Instead, he treats them as dumb or silly, which is one of the main ways—”… ways what? What was I going to say?
I could have wanted to end this sentence any way. It could be 'one of the main ways he proves they’re ninjas'. Or 'one of the main ways they maintain their covers as giraffes'. Or 'the main ways you can tell if the entire planet is about to jump into hyperspace'.
To be fair, none of these were probably the endings I had in mind—I’m writing about Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, so I doubt I was going anywhere in the vicinity of ninjas or hyperspace. Though, if you could write a legitimate essay on Huckleberry Finn and ninjas, I would be rather impressed. I can’t say the same for your teacher or professor, but…
You see my point, right? If you have to sit down and work on something, just sit down and work on it. Not only is it next to impossible to get back into your same mindset once you’ve left, but it’s hard to continue a thought you interrupted. Even if you left at the end of a paragraph, your entire essay should be one thought—to stop in the middle is to stop in the middle of a thought.
Don't sit and think about which word would be perfect to use. That’s the whole point of the rough draft—it’s your basic idea, written out. It doesn’t have to be good, but it has to all be there, your one giant thought. It's a rough draft—sometimes it’s so rough you could skin your knee on it, but that’s OK.
