Boice: 'Prewriting is a kind of foreplay'

The idea of an exploratory essay seems to be a possible gateway into intellectualism for some students, but it’s also frustrating. After all, what’s the point of producing something that has no purpose? The expectation for the way that a piece will be received—either as a requirement for a grader, a scholarly article to be read by literally dozens of people (!) or a great American novel—undeniably plays into the writing process. The idea of an exploratory essay seems to de-emphasize the role of audience in favor of allowing a teacher to micromanage the writing process.

Much of Boice’s advice seems frivolous and impractical. He seems to ignore the existence of deadlines or the desire students have to enjoy life; you know, drink, carouse, set a new high score on Big Buck Hunter Safari. Moreover, it runs counter to the advice that I’ve always received on writing. In one of my writing classes, we had an assignment to describe our writing process. So, I described mine—spend a week or so really thinking about the thing, get terribly drunk and then write the thing in the course of a six-or-seven our hangover. My professor told me that this was, in fact, a good writing process for me because if allowed me to first ‘actively wait’ in formulating my ideas and then settle into a writing session that was devoid of distraction. I could use my whole mind to write.

I know my method won’t work for most students, but I’m wondering where that enters into the plan. My greatest writing has been largely experimental, and I’ve seen the same thing in other writers. They do something kinda crazy, step back and look at it, and then do the real work of writing—thinking about what just happened on the page.

As a last point, Boice likens prewriting to foreplay, which was nice. I just don’t know why he’s so focused on the foreplay, especially when so many students are actually just trying to become masters of the “quickie.”