When I was an undergraduate, we had a class called Advanced Composition. I was most excited for this class at the outset of the semester, as I enjoy writing and figured I'd develop a natural rapport with both the professor and the material.

Oof. Was I ever incorrect.

The main focus of Advanced Composition was on grammatical history and usage. Don't all gasp in excitement at once. I had an extremely hard time getting interested in the course work, as I found it very dry and banal. That's why I found this chapter in ARCS so hard to delve into. Things were often broken down into the sentence level or smaller, which was difficult for me to gel with. Things like the antistrophe and an isovolon were very tough on me not only to understand but also to stay interested in. The example on page 337 describing the compound-complex sentence in particular gave me fits. This wasn't what I expected from a chapter on style, to be sure.

It's possible such concepts are difficult for me to enjoy because I don't entirely understand them. I don't know where I was mentally when grammar was taught in my formative years, but it certainly wasn't in the classroom. I have no idea what articles are, prepositions/prepositional phrases are foreign concepts to me, and generally I wouldn't be fit to teach writing to a third grader.

To me, writing has always been just something that happens intrinsically. I don't draft, I don't brainstorm, and I don't have a process. I sit down in front of a computer and just let my mind come out through my fingers. Maybe it's because I was in therapy a bunch when I was a teenager. I didn't really start writing (well, at least anything of value) until afterwards. But I did read a great deal when I was young. I even fell asleep to audiobooks around the age of six, something I still do to this day, much to my fiancee's chagrin.

I really don't know the rules of the game we call writing. I just know internally what sounds/looks right to me. If something looks or seems awkward to me, I can tell it's probably wrong. I know not to overuse punctuation and to vary my vocabulary, but most of the rules of writing I'm familiar with (either via instruction or immersing myself in the medium) are stylistic. Or at least I believed they were.

That's why my difficulty with this chapter was so vexing. I love style. I suppose it turns out I love arrangement more. Based on this definition of style, it's hard for me to plow through the pages, let alone have my mind absorb (even rougher: to understand) the concepts Crowley & Hawhee present in this chapter. It's one of those things I've shirked for so long that I think (unfortunately) that my brain is too set into its rigid pattern. What sounds right likely is and what doesn't isn't. I can't explain why rationally. Jaclyn always asks me how the hell I can write without basic knowledge of the building blocks of writing. She can't wrap her head around the fact that I don't even know what said blocks are called, let alone how they function, and yet I can be a decent writer.

I never really have an answer for her. I just can do it. It makes me wonder: Is writing better served as an intrinsic function of expression, as mine seems to be, or something that can be broken down, quantified and taught systematically?

I'm not sure of the answer to that. I know how I lean, but I'm obviously biased. It'll be something I hope comes up in class discussion this evening, that's for sure.