Writing Process

            When I began thinking about how to write my Personal Journalism article, I wasn’t sure of where to start.  Picking a topic was difficult, because I didn’t want it to seem like I was trying to put myself on a pedestal, bring sympathy, or sound whiny.  Once I had arrived at my topic, I didn’t find it emotionally hard to write about, which was encouraging and unexpected.  However, forming it into a story that others should care about was different; the event did not directly impact my readers, so I tried to put as much emotion and life into the story as possible so they felt like they were there with me as it was happening.  I have trouble structuring and writing my personal essays, and they usually end up sounding like they belong on a college application, which was my biggest struggle for this piece.  In my rewrite, I need to work on making my piece come to life more through structure and dialogue.  I outlined the events that occurred (it was tricky when some were simultaneous events) and needed to decide which events were significant to my message and story, and those that could be left out.  That was hard because, in my opinion, every aspect was important and played a large part in the story.  This made staying within the word limit difficult.  Concluding took a lot of thought because it required a message, which I still have to figure out.