How I Write | eelennon

Hi. My name is Erin Lennon. I am a student at the University of Michigan, an assistant sports editor at the Michigan Daily, a proud native of New Jersey — the greatest state in the Union — and a writer.

The pieces you will find in here, this website as a whole, really, are rough cuts of some of the work I've done as an undergrad at the University. Some of my work is published, fully edited four times over, but more still is waiting patiently to be glanced at again. I figure if life is a series of drafts and revisions, they too will eventually be rewritten.

Some of my work, well most of it, revolves around sports. In sports, I've found a way to combine two loves, to give my unwanted opinion on the beauty that was the buzzer beater or the penalty shot, to get to know the athletes behind the plays, to see the emotions that haunt sports fans and players once the clock runs out. Much of the rest of my work, then, asks myself why sports and why not something deeper. Is there something deeper than sports, really? Philanthropy and equality come to mind, but then there are sports to bring those two worlds together.

Applying for the Minor in Writing has to be one of my better school-related decisions. The minor will certify me in a specific skill that says more about my ability in a professional setting than a political science or English minor might, and provides (well, forces me to provide myself with) an archive of those skills and a way to market myself to those unnamed employers. What’s better? Most of the curriculum is not graded, but gamified. The word alone implies fun — points are assigned for completion rather than quality, so courses like the Gateway to the Minor are quantitative in the sense that the amount of work put in yields a letter grade. The program is designed to improve writing in such a way that student are challenged to write in different genres, but not to master those genres. From it comes beautiful works of writing that are both visually pleasing and emotionally moving pieces. Students get to take work they’ve done in the past, adopt it for a majority of the semester and mold it into something completely different and utterly up to themselves. Revisions and due dates, too, are at the fingertips of the writer. There is a freedom in deferral and something soothing about knowing what you hand in is far from complete.

Here, though, is where I interrupt myself with some honesty. I am not one of those people who have produced emotionally moving, visually beautiful pieces, and I don’t say that out of modesty. For me, no due dates and no grades were a challenge simply because I adore getting things done ahead of time and am motivated by all of the wrong things in life, grades being one of them. I started off on the wrong foot by not beginning on a project that made me excited to change and revise. I was happy, thrilled even, with my first project — Why I Write. That, I believe, is how I’ve progressed as a writer, and is an example of why the Minor has and will do for me. The essay, a series of journal entries that described a time in which I was cyber bullied, was everything I had wanted to say in so many words for similar assignments in the past. Finally, I had told my story without telling it, and I’d done so in a genre I’d never worked with before. I was getting away from journalism Erin. With hindsight at 20/20, I should have taken my college application essay, could I have found it, and turned it into what was my “Why I Write” and then remediated that into a physical journal or a campaign against bullying. With hindsight at 20/20, I wouldn’t have told myself that making a video — a task I’d never taken on before — when I could have made a poster, I wouldn’t have chosen a paper that reminded my of a terrible GSI or a topic that simply didn’t interest me enough to turn it into a goddamn poem.

I wouldn’t have told myself, “what does it matter anyway, it’s not graded.”

This semblance of an essay isn’t to critique the format of the Minor in Writing or to throw myself a mid-finals pity party. I’ve always struggled with being given feedback, even if it is the gentlest form. I like to finish things, to tuck them in a drawer and hope that no one else wants to comment, and a grade truly does shove it shut. So instead, I’d like to apologize to my classmates who’ve put in so much work even when it wasn’t required, to my teacher who was always there to absorb that work and provide feedback for the sake of feedback . I’d like to apologize to myself for having the kind of work ethic that says getting it done is good enough. Perhaps acknowledging that fact is enough to save some pride, but then again, I’ve done nothing to alleviate the situation and haven’t revised anything. Here’s hoping the next two years of college will teach me better than that. If not, well, good luck to me because those fictional employers will really be nothing more than mythical creatures.

I am, however, half pleased with my E-Portfolio. To me, it represents the way the Minor is supposed to be done, and the successful work that can come out of it. I began working on the website about a month ago, simply because I figured it would take me that long to figure out how to make things go places and look pretty. I was able to play around with things, to work on them when I had time and to take moments to revise. It was pleasant and even fun to click save, navigating through something I’d just created. It was through this website template that I figured out what I wanted my website to do. The title of the template was Investigative Journalism, and the first thing I added to it was a gallery in the “articles” tab it had preset, a gallery that featured my proudest moments as a writer, my work for the Michigan Daily. I wanted to sell myself to an employer in a field I hadn’t nailed down, but found out that, since I was happy with very little of my work, that I was really trying to sell myself to myself. If the assignment was to create an E-Portfolio that embodied me as a writer, and I wasn’t quite sure who that was yet, or if I wasn’t quite sure I liked that person, then this would have to be an investigation into myself, an investigation I’ll now leave open for others to interpret in the way that readers are left to interpret what should be unbiased journalism. In that sense, the website allowed me to come full circle — journalism to journalism, by any other name .

My sophomore-year journey has been one of great divide. I have decided that sports journalism, and journalism as a whole, is not my gig — I'd much rather be on the inside than poking my head through the window. I have been trying, then, to find my identity as a writer and a person that is separate from sports. This website, then, was supposed to be my attempt at separating myself from “Daily Sports Writer,” but I find that there is no replacing that identity. This website, then, will be an investigative journalism piece, this time into myself. Journalism takes the bias away from the writer and leaves the opinions to the reader.

As best I can, using my best investigative skills, I've tried to provide the facts about myself. The judgment is up to you.