Summary on Peter Elbow

Peter Elbow starts his interview by speaking about his past experiences with writing. At college he was able to put together pieces on what the teacher wanted to hear. But, when it came time for him to put together his own writing pieces at graduate school he suffered to the point of actually leaving that school. He had such a hard time with putting together pieces and would go back and forth with scratching out so much of his writing and really didn't know how to move forward. This, ironically, is what got him so interested in writing. What he calls his "failure" to write is what led him to being an english professor at a University.

So how did he go from failure to success? He learned many strategies which changed his outlook on writing forever. One of the things he did was writing many thoughts he had on sheets of paper on when he first got stuck expressing his thoughts through writing, and trying to figure out how this exactly happened. He ended up having so many notes that he eventually comprised them into one of his books to help others try and write well.

He then goes on to speak about one of the more important lessons he learned. He calls this strategy "making a mess". For him this means that he does not start off with organizing his thoughts through an outline, but rather writing down whatever comes to mind and see where this takes him. He had trouble trying to put his thoughts together into an organized outline and then to take the outline and form this into an essay. So, he learned that the best way for him to write is to basically just write. To be able to get all of his thoughts down onto a sheet of paper; and then to go back to that sheet of paper and edit his writing.

When he did start editing his "mess" this was the step he labels, "creating and critizing". This is where he really took the time going back to his writing and truly editing and critizing his work. It was easier for him to have all of his thoughts on paper and then to later go over his work. With this, another useful tip he discovered was that whenever he had an idea for a big essay he would write down his idea. He called this idea, "sowing early seeds". He would do this several times, so that he had many thoughts written down which he then could branch into a paper. He found the best times for him to formulate his thoughts was when he was eating, showering, or doing simple tasks on his own time, where he had the time to think.

Questions

1. How did Peter Elbow start his transition of leaving graduate school to realizing he really wanted to improve his writing?
2. Was there one person that really put Peter in the right path to writing success?