Name: Li He
Course: Composition 2
Date: Sep 4, 2013

Response letter on Writing Freely

“ All good writers speak in honest voices and tell the truth.”(Macrorie 9). In the essay, the author talks about why some people cannot be a good writer. It is because of people forget how to tell the truth in their writings. Children usually speak and write honestly most of the time, but adults are just not quite familiar with writing honestly in their writings. “Part of growing up is learning to tell lies, big and little, sophisticated and crude, conscious and unconscious. The good writer differs from the bad one in constantly trying to shake the habit.”(Macrorie 9). So in order to be a good writer, people should know how to write honestly in their writings.

People always want to make their writings seem sophisticated and interesting. Achieving this goal, people inevitably use untrue stories. This leads them to the opposite direction of being good writers. A good writer never tell untrue stories in the writing. How to shake the habit of writing dishonestly? The author tells us two methods. One is to write freely without focus, and the other is to write freely with focus. “ Write for ten minutes as fast as you can, never stopping to ponder a thought. Put down whatever comes to you mind.”(Macrorie 11). The first one is to tell people writing the truth. Most of people do not have the ability to make up untrue stories in ten minutes. Although people write honestly in their writings, the writing is still not