Eber Orellana
First draft of rhetorical analysis
“Writing Wring, From, and For Other” by Maggie Nelson
In Maggie Nelson’s essay “Writing With, From, and For Others,”, She gives examples of her own experience as a writer informing the readers about how writers face problems and judgment through their text or in the process of writing. Maggie Nelson’s essay appeals to pathos through the use of her own experience and to emphasize to their readers how her life is and It appeals to Ethos through including quotes from different professional writers.
- “For a long time, I worried there was something wrong with me as a writer, because I leaned so heavily on the thinking and writing of others.”
- “I don’t really think I have much of an imagination at all, at least not in the traditional sense of making stuff up or feeling compelled by things that aren’t there.”
- “In my mind, I don’t hear characters talking; I see book shapes; I hear tonal juxtapositions; I hear music shepherded around the page; I imagine what kind of sentence or shape could or should house a particular idea.”
- “I like this quote. I like it because I’m also into—as a person and as a writer— “self-reliance.” “I hate quotations. Tell me what you think.””
- It’s possible that my biggest act of disobedience has consistently, since I was an adolescent, been against the idea that truth comes from books, really other people’s books.
- “I hate the fact that whatever I say or write, someone reading or listening will try to find something out of their reading I “sound like.” “You sound just like . . . ,” “you remind me of . . . ,” “have you read . . . ?” I read all the time and I often believe what I read while I’m reading it, especially if it’s some trashy story; intense involvement in theories as well as stories seems difficult without temporary belief, but then it burns out.”
- In my own writing life, I’ve often found myself very interested in dramatizing this coexistence—showcasing the situation we find ourselves in, in which dependence on others–or at least relation to them–is the condition of possibility for self-reliance
- Now, when I say “writing with,” I don’t mean collaborative projects. I’m generally way too much of an autocrat for such endeavors. Nor do I mean “writing for,” as in, trying to please others with your writing; any writer worth his or her salt likely knows that one’s writing
