Sustained by Fiction While Facing Life's Facts By ALICE HOFFMAN

Choose one of the archived articles from Writers on Writing and create a blog post that describes the author’s perspective on the writing process. Do you agree or disagree with the author? Has your thinking changed throughout this course regarding a writer’s perspective in the social media environment? Explain your answer by providing examples.

Sustained by Fiction While Facing Life's Facts

By ALICE HOFFMAN

This article was written during a stressful time in the writer’s life. The writer was going through a time where her mother and sister in law were battling life threatening diseases. Her sister in law lost her battle to a brain tumor and her mother suffered from a stroke and breast cancer. The author soon found herself fighting for her own life when she found out that she too was diagnosed with breast cancer. The author’s perspective in this article felt self-reflective to me. In trying to discover who she really is or who she is meant to be while fighting for her life the writer realizes that she is a natural born writer. The author found that her battle allowed her to discover her soul. She realized she did not chose the craft of writing rather; she needed to write to find peace. Even at her lowest point when she was not able to physically move about, she always had writing. Writing gave her hope and strength.   

I agree with the author that writing for some is an art form and can be as natural as breathing. Writing is a way to communicate and to express oneself. I think writing can be used for different capacities for different people in various situations. In this particular situation the writer was stripped of everything and realized that in the end as long as she could write she would have the strength to get through even the toughest of situations. Writing for her was power. Writing was not only her identity, but her purpose in life.

In terms of my opinion on a writers perspective in the social media environment I would have to say that my opinion has changed dramatically.  I had always thought that new media and social media allowed audiences to participate in communications and essentially gave the audience the ability to be considered a writer. I always thought that because of social media, everyone can be a writer. I do not believe this to be true anymore however. There is so much more to writing then simply broadcasting a thought or idea. Writing is an art form that requires responsibility, discipline, and ethics. It is because of this course I have changed my mind on the perception of writers in the social media environment. Just because someone creates a blog and discusses their thoughts and opinions does not make them a writer. This person has chosen to use the platform of social media  to broadcast their thoughts and opinions however, they could be broadcasting information that is inaccurate, unethical, or offensive. Even though there is freedom of speech, this type of writing is not artistic or professional. It is simply a means to communicate and nothing more.