"Writing down the Bones"

In the book “Writing down the Bones”, Natalie Goldberg discusses a first thought technique. To better understand how she sees writing, check out this link:

http://nataliegoldberg.com/books/writing-down-the-bones/

 She gives six rules to follow while using her First Thoughts technique: 

When my Professor introduced this to me, I was so confused at first. It is so liberating that it became a hobby for me. You write with no restrictions. When something is bothering me, instead of taking it out on the world, I just sat down and write. This gave me free space to reflect many things. It was as if I was talking with myself: the uptight judgmental me and the free spirit me.

My experience with the Journal’s routine was a very successful one. It was hard to forget about the spelling, punctuation, and grammar but I got used to it by the second week. I can say that the thing that most gave me difficulty was going not this, but rather going for the jugular. Usually I don’t open up to anyone about my personal issues, so I pill them up until I explode one day. The journal became my ally, I had someone to talk to. Someone, who at the end of my writing, helped me see how to solve the problem. That someone was me, I calmed myself down. Now I know how to deal with certain things that bothers me. I enjoyed writing about things that I wanted, not those that I’m assigned to write about. I don’t have the problem that anyone would read my notebook. It was personal, a one to one connection. Also, I liked that I would completely, seriously, disconnected from the world during that 10 minutes.

At the beginning of the project, I was very uptight with what I wrote. I remember how in the first essay I had to hand in for this class I had no idea what to write about. Now I can say that I am able to write about almost everything in an open way. When writing, I just let my emotions flow and guide my pen. I write more and with an expanded vocabulary than I did in High School. Instead of pausing my writing in order to overthink about what I’m writing, I just keep writing and at the end I let my editor’s side do her job. Now instead of considering an assignment I see it as an escape from reality.

            

When I started this project I was just a Freshman in the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras campus. The journal helped me with the transition and the adaptation to this new routine. I notice that now I have more positive vibes, I’m not mad at the world all the time as I used to be. Instead of snapping on someone, I stop and think about what I’m going to do or say before. I definitely learned how to deal with my anger. Exercise and writing helps me on a daily basis. Now I’m able to understand myself better and I also got the opportunity to set my goals, at least for this academic year.

            

A side of me, that I didn’t knew existed, emerged. That is my writer side. She was able to come out and write about things I couldn’t imagined I could do. So yes, I feel more engaged in writing than I used to. I will continue to write and use Natalie Goldberg’s technique but I don’t see myself writing for the public. I have noticed that I express more my opinion and start commenting on Facebook or Twitter.

            

The interdisciplinary goal of this class helps you learn about everything. I selected one of the journals that connected with Psychology. In overall, I talked about I why is the human mind so complex. There’s no book that states how to analyze or understand it. We, the humans, are still very ignorant when it comes to this topic. The mind is the most complex machine that has the power to influence upon the brain, the nervous system, the body, all of the organs, and glands. It is a part of our soul, who we are as a person. It is through it that we reflect how we live and how we function in the world we live with. This connected very much with what I was doing in this project. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much time to continue my analysis but I used the few minutes I made them count. After I was done, I decided to continue to write about this another day and I made a little research so that I could continue that line of thought.

So, I encourage you to give it a try.