Writing a college essay is hard. Not because I don’t know how to write, but because it’s hard to come up with ideas. The effect of writers block is multiplied by the fact that you know that this essay may matter a lot. It could be the difference between whether you get into a school or don’t. Unlike some people this thought process doesn’t weigh on me that heavily because I figure that things will work out no matter where I go. However I still want to try my best, and that means I have to try and make a good essay that gives the admission officers a good idea of who I am.
I’ve ran through various essay ideas, if they weren’t typed on documents, I’d figure that I would have a trash can filled up with ripped, crumpled pieces of paper with various sentences and phrases that encompass my ideas that I’ve thought of
Here’s the thing though, none of them were full essay drafts. I have only made one draft of an essay and that’s the one i plan to work with. In that one draft I decided to not overthink and just type. Various disconnected ideas jumped to me as more and more ideas poured in and I let my fingers do the thinking. It was like talking without thinking before saying anything, which I find that I am particularly good at.
Eventually something discernible came out of this mess and I’m slowly turning it into something that works. And hopefully works well. Writing in response to something that doesn’t have a prompt, or a clear defined one is hard. It can be hard to be creative, because I think that we are so used to not trying to be.
