I posted these blue-light glasses earlier along with everything else I employ during my writing process, but in my free write I discuss them a little more in depth. I never wore glasses before so it's a whole new thing to me. The first few days of having them I'd forget to put them on pretty frequently until I realized that I felt myself squinting or if I started to getting a headache. Again, I am no scientist, so who knows what validity there is to their existence, but, they have become a part of my writing process and, realistically, I feel like I'm a little more prepared to write when I have them on as opposed to not.
Our prompt for the free write in class was to consider what tools we employ while writing, have we tried any new ones, and if there was anything we left out of previous free writes while discussing these things.
09/30/2025
Free Write in Literary Composition Class:
The tools/technology I employ while writing, these days, is a computer and headphones. Typically I employ these things because a lot of my writing is happening in a public space. However, over time I have become used to the “background” noise of music playing in my headphones so there are many times where, even if I’m alone, I will still have my headphones in. Previously I did a LOT of writing with a pen and notebook (I still do to jot down various notes, etc., but not to full on write per se) but have found than when I put my headphones in and open up my laptop its almost ritualistic in nature, it’s as if I’m turning on a switch of “okay, now it’s time to start writing.” All that to say, I was more than capable of writing with a pen and a pad in my younger years, it’s how almost all of my writing, whether it was for school, for my band, or for my own personal writing endeavors, unfolded but somewhere along the way I adopted the laptop. Realistically, it was probably college the first time around that did that for me. As far as a part of my writing process that I may have left out or didn’t consider beforehand, I can’t say for certain. I feel as if I’ve acknowledged my use of headphones and laptop, although I will say I never really considered how ritualistic it started to feel and how, as aforementioned, it really does feel like I’m flipping a switch into “writing” mode when I do these things. After writing all that I also realized I forgot to mention I employ “blue light” glasses because I was getting headaches. In short bursts of using my laptop I don’t really employ them, but when I know that I’m going to sit and write for a prolonged period, they go on, which even then is as if I’m telling myself “alright, we’re here to do some work for the long haul,” which is just a perpetuation of that ritualistic experience I’m describing. I think the only other part that may be worth considering is a more intangible “vibe” that I need to have for certain things, while I can sit down and start writing about anything when my brain decides its a necessity, I need to be in a particular frame of mind to really call upon my more creative side, and that’s typically emboldened or inspired by movies/literature, typically if it evokes a sense of nostalgia or if I have some sort of nostalgia attached to it. On the other side of things, for my more politically motivated writing it’s typically derived from a sense of anger as a reaction in some capacity. At times where it was necessary to write more politically charged literature I would refer back to certain instances, videos, pictures, words, that prompted me to feel some kind of way and use that as a method of recalling what I wanted to say then but translating it into a current, maybe less emotionally charged, form.
Analysis/Reflection:
Considering this in class writing was me dissecting my writing process, not a whole lot for me to comment on there as far as the development of it over the last few weeks except to say there have been noticeable changes and I find myself being more comfortable with sitting down and writing where at first it felt, like most things after a prolonged break, a bit awkward.
Theory Application:
While theory wasn't discussed during the free write, I can speak a bit more to how, at this point, I had been back in school for a month. I've mentioned in other posts how I had gotten more comfortable with free writes and the idea that I could stretch my writing muscles without constraints or concerns about approach. This had started to extend itself into my more 'formal' academic writing as well. Outside of my Literary Composition class I had also been to the Writing Center on multiple occasions by this point. This all brings me to Donald M. Murray's point in “Teach Writing as a Process Not Product,” where he asks, and then answers, his own question: "What is the process we should teach? It is the process of discovery through language. It is the process of exploration of what we know and what we feel about what we know through language." I was given opportunities, through the free writes in this class, as well as my Edgar Allan Poe Seminar, to really start exploring what I knew, some of which I had maybe forgotten, but even more so, some of which I had recently learned and found to be helpful. I was continuously, week after week, confronting my inadequacies, as well as my strengths, both internally and then externally through consulting my peers and professors. I felt my strength, and confidence, as a writer growing because I was, as Murray states "... using language to learn about our world, to evaluate what we learn about our world, to communicate what we learn about our world."
Murray, Donald M. “Teach Writing as a Process Not Product.” Cross-Talk in Comp
Theory, 4th ed., National Council of Teachers of English, 2024.
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