Writing as Reflection of Real-life Events and Ideas

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Writing as Reflection of Real-life Events and Ideas
While all of the readings written by the seminal authors in this chapter talk about different usages, methods, and experiences in writing, what is most apparent between them is the idea that writing is not (and cannot) be separated from external circumstances of our lives. Mainly speaking this idea is reflected throughout the articles in two ways. On the one hand, authors like Murray and Alexie has noted that for the most part, writing in itself creates an almost autobiographical sensation in our lives as they serve as sensational cues to the external events that were happening during the time of writing. On the other hand, other authors like Ross, Sherman, and also Murray argued that writing is affected (both consciously and unconsciously) by the things that the writer is going through. Upon reflecting on this bilateral effect of writing, I realized that writing is indeed a reflection of life, if not a way of life in itself. Let us expound on this idea further, in the succeeding sections.
As discussed by Murray in his article, although we cannot remember the very facts of the time when we write, what is clear is that these times affect what we write about, how we write, and why we write about a particular thing. In the first chapter of his work he already emphasized on how writing is affected by the things that are happening around us. He described this kind of “autobiographical writing” as affecting one’s “thinking style and voice” (67). Thus, if a writer underwent periods of grief and tragedy, then his work would reflect it regardless of whatever he is writing about. To further this idea, he also quoted prominent authors such as Willa Carter and Graham Greene, by arguing that the experiences and knowledge that affects the writer’s voice are acquired before the age of 20, with the rest of the writer’s life just being in an “observational phase” (67). This parallelism could be seen in Alexie’s work as he discussed how a comic book and his understanding of the ‘paragraph’ has shaped how he sees the world as well as how he writes his pieces (2). In turn, however, he noted that this idea of viewing the world in paragraph...