Writing to Deadline - Chapt. 1 (Advanced Journalism)

If there was one thing I had to specifically pick out from the text that helps me as a writer today, it would be:

"I learned to get out of the way of the story and allow the story to tell itself" (8). I think this also goes along with Murray saying he learned to get out of the way of information. Almost like he let the information and story come to him.

That is one problem I always have as a writer, creative or otherwise. I fret and worry so much over getting and writing the story perfectly from the begining that I don't allow the information to come to me or the story to tell itself. I think that this is a problem that most writers have in every writing field. And Murray basically helped because he was saying that the story is there if the writer would just let it come to them. I shouldn't be so worried about perfection in the first draft. I will most likely always have the opprotunity to fix or rewrite parts of the story. If I am too caught up with that in the beginning, before the story is ever written, I won't be able to tell it to the best of my abilities. This basically said to me: write first, fret later.

In the interview with David Mehegan, I like how he said that he did not outline or organize before writing because those types of things are only "rituals that delay actual writing" (12). I agree, and think that those are perhaps things that writers do because they are scared to start their actual writing. I, too, am guilt of this, especially with creative writing.

I also enjoyed reading about Murray's take on the many voices of writing and how most writers have many differnt writing voices. I do think that a writer has a prefered voice, but that many writers find it hard not to at least dabble in other voices and forms of writing.