安妮范文
How to become a writer
Annie
I hate writing. Writing is so hard. It is the hardest intellectual activity there is. You need to research, you need to be informed, you need to figure out the pattern and the meaning, you need to form coherent arguments and you need to come up with the right words for all that. No Olympic competition problems, no athletic hurdles, no music scores to memorize and no software algorithms ever present such a creative and analytical challenge all in itself to human capabilities. People would do everything to get out of a writing task. For example, you rather spend three hours on the phone discussing than write a simple email to explain things. You rather record messages on Wechat than composing them and typing them up, even though listening takes more of your correspondents' time; but if you write/type, they just need to glance through.
The very idea of putting down what we want to say on paper scares us so much- because, God forbids, it spells out high output standards! Speaking, on the other hand, dissipates in the air (hopefully after making an impression on the listeners' mind, but most of the time not really), while writing etches your thoughts in stone. So you have to consider carefully to be able to spew lucid stuff, which is a strenuous effort. People hate hard work in the mind.
Still, you need to be a writer. You need to write.
You are protesting now: you cannot write, you are not born to write and you are simply not a writer? Writing is a profession for the most erudite, so it is not for you, you say. Such a concept also lodged in my sub-consciousness for the longest time. One day, I ended up in a seminary school having to speak every day to a class of 200 native English speakers on profound things of life. One of my Caucasian friends who graduated with a bachelor in English Literature at CSUSF told me I should start writing, as she rated my speaking articulate and elegant. Oh how surprised and flattered I felt. English wasn't even my first language. So I could write, and write in English? I guess writing is a natural extension of improvised speaking and a stepping stone to refined and prepared public speaking. The two are so intertwined as you have to go through the same processes to bring about expressions with clarity and power, except writing takes the mental effort a step further so things can be revised.
Write often, then you are a writer.
But why do we have to write? Why do we want to write even?
No, I am not gonna list out the required exams or processes where you need to write a substantial piece in order to make the mark, for example, GRE writing or TOFEL writing or your term papers or degree thesis. To write well as a purpose supersedes the need to pass exams and to write well as a means leads to much greater ends of life.
Again, why should we write?
Before I persuade you on the necessity to pick up writing, I need to tell you about ballet. Have you ever watched Ballet? I don't know if there are any other forms of art that could present such a rich view of beauty in such an all-encompassing manner. The audience's enjoyment stems from the dancers' ability to portray beauty and strength both at once, through movements cadenced with music. The ballet training works on almost all senses and faculties: hearing the music and rhythm, seeing the stage setting and connecting with the setting and the other dancers, and flexing almost each fine muscle. When strength, beauty and music are fused together, you experience the highest and most well-rounded art discipline, when human potential gets to be intensely tapped and elaborately displayed.
Writing is exactly the ballet for our mind. Imagine your mind starts to practice ballet from now on. In a few years, your mental capacity will resemble a taut, lean, agile and beautiful ballerina, with not an ounce of flabby flesh, making harmonious and rhythmic flow of expressions that function to inspire and enlighten.
Wouldn't that be awesome? Writing exercises literally firm up and make flexible your mind-muscles so they are getting fitter every day. It combs through your sprawling ideas and distills meanings out of clouds of information. It is the most effective mental exercise albeit the most arduous. But you can't go back to mediocrity in mental sports now you have written a few times, having tasted exquisiteness of your exacting mental work. Similarly, despite injuries and probability of life-long obscurity, ballerinas still love their tough drills to death.
Writing about things you have read or observed is also active learning. You have heard about passive learning versus active learning, right? Active learning takes the initiative to make connections between vertices in the knowledge architecture, therefore creating deep and permanent traces on your cortex. Especially when you are learning a language, say English, what can be better than this intensely engaging method- writing? You write to weld words into memory (as you never could forget a word you attempted to write with), you write to think more effectively in English, to communicate more clearly in English and ultimately to produce impactful works in English.
Writing changes the world because it changes minds.
Nothing works on the mind as much as words. You can argue for the occasional advantage of graphic portrayals of ideas like movies or drawings, but words can touch a person's reasoning compartment. People follow their reasoning to make decisions; and other times, they follow their emotions. Neither do words fail to have the biggest impact on people's hearts. The best scene you remember is always a line, from a movie or a book. It is not really the tears, the faces, the actions you see but the words you hear or read that we later fondly recall, so as to cherish ourselves or encourage others.
Those dissidents politicians and officials fear the most are usually writers, because written ideas spread the fastest and can influence minds irreversibly. Now I am scaring you now. What I am trying to say is, being a writer bears great responsibility because writing is too powerful.
Last and least, yes, least, if you don't write for the above reasons, write to make money then.
Writing is the most profitable "business" activity because the overhead is minimal and the production can scale up easily. Intellectual properties are the most precious commodity on the market, because it can improve the quality of other businesses directly by working on the knowledge base of people. Sure, there is a standard for printable and publishable writing, but that could be said for any thriving business.
Writing is an elite task, a responsibility for the noble, an exercise for the high achievers, the ultimate peak of creativity and teaching有梆，all the while being the best way to learn.
It seems all I have been talking about is why to write. Now is the how. You find a topic, you think, you write, you critically compare your writing to a model piece, then you show it to people who can give sincere critiques and you rewrite.
And what to write? Well it depends on our stage of learning this craft. For most of us English learners, the easiest trap to step into is being too exam-oriented, a.k.a, you zero in on persuasive or expository essays but often not standing on a solid foundation in the narrative style. Think about how we practice writing with our first language: we did looking-at-the-pictures-and-telling-stories exercises for a while as a young kid and then started to write sentences or even paragraphs to describe what we see, hear, touch and feel. The object we grapple with was first the physical senses, then upgraded to understanding and feelings, and at last reasoning was tackled. But trying to achieve a good command of a second language, we somehow swooshed by the physical stations and the narrative hills, only clinging to the cliffs of persuasive writing. Not to mention, narrative writing is the solvent for all other writings, while descriptions of physical matters sets the stage for everything else. You never graduate from the basics.
So let's come back to the basics and start to write a bit on a down-to-earth topic every day.
如何成為一個寫作者
Annie
我最恨寫作了肤晓。寫文章真的太難了颓帝，大概是世界上最難的智力活動了：你要做前期調(diào)查研究翩隧，你要吸收信息，總結(jié)大意姻蚓，理順規(guī)律宋梧，結(jié)晶出條理清楚的觀點，最后還得找到合適的表達史简。沒有任何數(shù)學(xué)奧賽乃秀，任何競技項目，任何要背的樂譜或者計算機算法能夠給人類大腦帶來如此結(jié)合了分析深度和創(chuàng)造性的挑戰(zhàn)圆兵。人們?yōu)榱吮苊鈱懽鞫逖叮裁炊寄芨伞Ｄ阕约合胂氚裳撑欠駥幙苫ㄙM三個小時車轱轆話的討論刀脏，也不愿意靜心寫一封電郵把事情簡明扼要說清楚。你寧可在微信上長篇錄音超凳，也懶得小小構(gòu)思幾句話愈污，明知道談話的對方聽錄音要比看文字困難的多。文字可是一目了然轮傍。
僅僅想想要把自己要說的事情記錄到紙上就讓人嚇出一身冷汗了暂雹，因為這意味著對們表達的更高要求。說出來的話語很快就擴散消失创夜，無所循跡（希望那之前好歹還能讓對方聽懂杭跪，留下點印象），但白紙黑字可就讓你的想法永存歷史了驰吓。這么一來涧尿，你就非得認真思索才敢下筆，而思索本身就是一件費勁無比的事情檬贰。人們痛恨動腦子.
可是你一定要成為一個寫作者姑廉，你需要開始寫。
于是你這會開始抗議了：你覺得自己根本不是寫文章的料翁涤。寫東西是給那些深奧有學(xué)問的人準備的行業(yè)桥言，而你不是他們。這種概念也曾經(jīng)深植于我的潛意識里迷雪。直到有一天限书，我去了神學(xué)院，每天對著二百多美國人演講有關(guān)生命有關(guān)人性的深刻話題章咧，我的一個加州舊金山大學(xué)英語文學(xué)畢業(yè)的白人好友對我說："你怎么不寫作呢倦西？你講話清晰又優(yōu)雅。" 傲扪稀扰柠？我寫作粉铐？用英語？英語根本不是我第一語言卤档，我也行蝙泼？我想，寫作是即興講演的自然延伸劝枣，同時也是帶稿演講的預(yù)備汤踏，寫作和演說交織的如此緊密一致，因為它們調(diào)用同樣的思維功能舔腾，只不過溪胶，寫作更往前一步把思維記錄了下來從而使得修改成為可能。
常常寫稳诚，你自然就是個寫作者了哗脖。
但是你為什么一定要寫作呢，你問扳还？甚至我們?yōu)槭裁磿胍獙懽鳎?/p>
我是不會列出一堆你求學(xué)過程中必過的考試或者畢業(yè)要求來說明寫作的重要性的才避。是的，GRE有寫作大塊氨距，托福也有桑逝，以及我們的各種期末或者畢業(yè)論文都需要寫作能力。這不是我主要的依據(jù)俏让，因為寫作作為智力活動的目的遠遠超越了考試的層次肢娘，而作為達到目的的手段，它帶領(lǐng)我們通向的是更大更華美的格局舆驶。
然后再問一次，為什么我們需要寫作而钞？
在我就寫作必要性勸說你之前沙廉，我需要講講芭蕾。你看過芭蕾表演嗎臼节？世界上沒有第二種藝術(shù)能夠給人帶來如此全面的審美震撼了撬陵。舞者身體的力與美融合在音樂中，而觀眾的視覺和聽覺得到充分的伸展网缝。舞者們需要訓(xùn)練身體的每一塊肌肉巨税，以及他們對音樂的感受，對韻律的知覺粉臊，和周圍布景及其他舞者的配合草添。當力量，美感和音樂相融時扼仲，你就找到了最高自律性的藝術(shù)形式,體驗人之潛能最充分強烈的釋放和展示远寸。
寫作就是你思維的芭蕾抄淑。想象一下，你的大腦練習(xí)芭蕾幾年驰后，變得像一個芭蕾舞者一樣靈活有力肆资，沒有一塊肥肉，沒有一塊無用的肌肉灶芝，而且充滿了美感郑原，順著音樂翩翩起舞，流淌出源源不斷的精彩表達夜涕，開啟人心犯犁，光照蒙昧。
這是不是太美了钠乏？真正是逆襲栖秕。寫作確確實實會使你的思維肌肉結(jié)實有力。它梳理你的散漫的思路晓避，從原始的信息里提煉出意義和精粹簇捍。這是最有效的提高智商的方法，因為它也是最費勁的俏拱。然而暑塑，寫過幾段字的你，是不可能回到那個混沌的智力時代了锅必，就像芭蕾舞者一樣事格，寧可傷病，寧愿一生寂寂無名辛苦萬分搞隐，也要跳舞驹愚，也不愿中斷訓(xùn)練。你再也不愿回到平庸無奇無創(chuàng)造的"文盲"年月了劣纲。
對你所學(xué)的東西寫下總結(jié)就是積極學(xué)習(xí)逢捺。你大概聽過積極學(xué)習(xí)和消極吸收之間的區(qū)別吧？積極學(xué)習(xí)采取主動癞季，在知識點之間建立聯(lián)系劫瞳，構(gòu)建大廈，從而在你大腦皮層中形成最持久深刻的印象绷柒。尤其是在你學(xué)習(xí)一種語言的時候志于，還有什么比寫作更有效更快的使你精通此種語言呢？你寫文章來把詞語焊接到你的系統(tǒng)里废睦，來有效地思考伺绽，來清楚表達,并最終創(chuàng)造出具有感染力影響力的作品。
寫作改變世界，因為它能夠改變?nèi)说南敕ā?/p>
沒有什么能夠像文字話語這樣深刻改變他人的想法憔恳。你或許可以辯論說有時候瓤荔，圖像畫面似乎更有作業(yè)，但文字卻能觸摸到人們大腦中的理性決策部門钥组。有人喜歡依據(jù)理性做決定输硝，但也有人隨著情感行動，那么我要告訴你程梦，文字同樣也是打動心靈点把，觸及情感的利器。你記得最清楚的那些感覺屿附，往往都是一句話郎逃，無論是電影里的臺詞也好，還是書本里的一句話也好挺份。不是眼淚褒翰，不是面目，也不是動作匀泊，而是文字是我們溫暖回憶里清晰的樹木优训，在陽光下矯健生長，安慰我們的心或鼓勵他人的魂各聘。
政客們最恐懼的政敵通常都是會寫文章的人揣非。因為文章傳播速度太快，對人們的思想產(chǎn)生的痕跡無法消除躲因。是不是嚇到你了早敬？我只不過想說，一個會寫文章的人背負了太多的社會責(zé)任大脉，因為他或者她的文字力量無窮搞监。
最后一點仓洼，也是最低的一點统刮，是率挣，如果你不肯為了以上種種理由寫作币呵，那就寫了發(fā)大財吧。
寫作可是利潤最高的商業(yè)項目：它運作成本最低够庙，又最容易擴大產(chǎn)量。知識產(chǎn)權(quán)是市場上最貴的產(chǎn)品因為它直接改善其它行業(yè)的人力資本質(zhì)量，甚至直接影響社會的質(zhì)量抛杨。當然了，發(fā)表的要求是很高的荐类，但同樣怖现，任何成功商業(yè)都是有門檻的。
寫作說白了，是精英們的任務(wù)屈嗤，高貴者拾起的責(zé)任潘拨，高能人士的訓(xùn)練秘訣，既是最有效的學(xué)習(xí)方式饶号，也是教授知識和創(chuàng)造的頂峰铁追。
看起來我一直在討論為什么要寫作。現(xiàn)在我要說怎么練習(xí)寫作茫船。你找到一個主題琅束，你思考，你寫算谈，對照范文涩禀，然后拿給能夠給出修改意見的人看，然后修改然眼。
寫什么呢艾船？主題怎么找？這取決于我們訓(xùn)練寫作的階段高每。對大多數(shù)英語為二外的英語學(xué)習(xí)者來說屿岂，最容易掉進去的陷阱就是以考試為導(dǎo)向的寫作，于是就過早集中于議論文和說明文的領(lǐng)域觉义。但是想想我們母語寫作的成長過程吧雁社，很小的時候有好幾年是在練看圖說話，然后開始寫句子最多段落晒骇，來描述所看所聽到所感覺到的霉撵。我們總是從物理肢體感受開始，到達理解和情感洪囤，最后到達議論的層次徒坡。但是如今在學(xué)二外的這條路上，我們卻越過了描述性寫作瘤缩，繞開了直觀感受喇完，直接去爬議論文的懸崖峭壁了。當然了剥啤，更不用提的是锦溪，描述性部分為其它一切風(fēng)格和元素設(shè)定背景和基調(diào)。我們永遠無法從基礎(chǔ)功課上畢業(yè)府怯。
光風(fēng)霽月 暗室不欺
the dark room will not hold up the moon's luminance and the wind's lucid breeze
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Annie’s Light Chinese Classics Translation Camp
