Quote Response

What Lauren Slater describes in the beginning of her quote can relate to us all. "I picked up my pen again, and began to write..." We all have wrote numerous papers, stories, poems, or simple blog posts. We write to unleash anger, write for fun, or because our English teacher requires us to. However, not all writing is always seen. "...began to converse, showing, telling, pausing, contradicting, setting the frayed contents of my mind down on plain paper to be plainly seen by anyone who cared to look." Anyone can sit in the comfort of their home, write down several stories, blog thousands of posts, but what is the writing if no one cares to read it? It is there, written out for any eyes to see but sometimes it is not. Some writing can take years of perfection, every sentence thought out perfectly, hours of a person's life contemplating ideas, characters, facts, but what is all the work if no one reads it? Another thing that Lauren mentions is that essays are often misunderstood, and often confusing. It is not only hard to define what an essay is, as we have all tried to do in class, it is hard to classify it into a genre of writing. As Lauren puts it, it is non-fiction, but it is not always based on facts and just purely informative. Essays have opinions, reflections, and contradictions. Essays can tackle issues by voice of opinion, but are only read if someone is looking for it to be read. The main quote which initially attracted me to Lauren was as follows: "Essay writing is about transcribing the often convoluted process of thought, leaving your own brand of breadcrumbs in the forest so that those who want to can find their way to your door." In all of my reading of definitions of essays, this is the one that helps me understand essays the most. What I took from this quote, and her whole writing, is that an essay is a piece of writing, in which you incorporate your own thoughts, style of writing, and opinion, and then present it to people so that those who truly care and want to find it, will indeed, find it.