My 8-year-old son handed me a large stack of papers today. They were his graded assignments from school, which the teacher sends home every few weeks or so. As I went through the stack, he commented on different things. Most were perfect with stars and smiley face marks from the teacher because (as Justin will tell you without hesitation) he is the smartest kid in Collins Elementary School.).

So the paper with all of the marks stood out. (“All of the marks,” by the way, is a relative term.) Above three of Justin’s poorly-written a’s, the teacher had modeled the correct a, and at the end of one sentence, she wrote, “This does not make sense.”

I read the sentence aloud to Justin.

“This new year was very easy to dry the spilled pop.”

Justin looked puzzled for a minute, shrugged his shoulders and said this priceless bit of wisdom, “It made sense when I wrote it.”

And all of that was just a true (and long) introduction to my REAL topic of this blog — writing and (don’t groan) my upcoming thesis defense (because, in case you didn’t know, I am very (very) close to finishing grad school).

Yesterday I attended the defense of one of my good friends, Bud. It went well. His chairman is also my chairman. And I arrived early (Yes, Steve, you read that right — early. I told you I had changed my ways.) and Giggy (another one of my good friends from grad school) and I were talking with my chair, and he was letting me know he would send me his first question to me in advance so I could think about it.

He thinks the question is going to be something to do with how I have changed as a writer during my time in grad school. He noted that he has seen the change (which is unusual in a college atmosphere), and he was thrilled by my growth. I had this particular professor every semester except one, and he is also the one who read and approved my writing application to enter grad school, so he really is very familiar with how I have changed as a writer.

So, I am going to practice my answer here in my blog. Although, knowing this particular professor, he’ll actually end up asking me a totally different question. And I can’t help but realize his question is very similar to one Shelley asked me when I first started this whole grad school process. Shelley wanted to know why I would want to go to grad school — what would I get out of it?

I think before grad school, I was a good writer, but it was more natural ability than skill. This fit in very well with my journalism training. I would compose an article in my head as I drove from whatever venue to the newsroom. Then, when I sat down to write at the newsroom, the article flowed out almost as if I dictated it. As soon as I finished typing it, the file was sent to the editor and placed on the page. It would be proofed, but the only changes made to my articles tended to be surface-level changes. I never had to do major revisions of content, style, tone, etc. I never had to craft my articles. For the newspaper, my initial crafting was sufficient because of my natural ability.

After my articles were published, I rarely read the printed version. I didn’t read it because as soon as I did, I found something I wanted to change, edit, revise, and it was frustrating because by then it was too late.

But even with my natural ability, when you write and don’t focus on craft, you get lazy. You would not believe how many horrible habits crept into my writing. I was frustrated because I recognized my writing had become stagnant, which is one of many reasons why I wanted to go back to grad school.

I used to say I couldn’t recite the rules of writing, but I used the rules. This is why I say I had natural skill. But now I know more about the craft side of writing, and THIS is why my writing has improved.

I used to be a person who could pound out a pretty decent article or text in the first sitting because I did a lot of work composing in my head before hand. I intuitively understood how to do the initial crafting, but I never went further than that. It was good enough and off it went. Now, I am really enjoying the work that takes place after that initial dump onto the page. I like the real crafting, refining of words. The work after the writing. Because without it, I look at what I wrote, shrug my shoulders and say, “It made sense when I wrote it.”

Thanks for playing.