"Pretzels: Desperate for Inspiration." I was slowly metabolizing mustard-flavored pretzels as I scrawled this poem, desperately managing to reach the number of lines required for my poetry assignment. As I vainly searched for words to rhyme I wondered how I had come to stand at this precipice of hopelessness. This is a prime example of my often incomprehensible writing process. Despite my rather haphazard manner of preparation, I am usually able to produce a sound piece of writing.

According to any standard composition textbook, the first step in penmanship is the Prewriting Stage, or, as I prefer to call it, Frantic Search for Ideas. I employ numerous techniques in seeking inspiration, including repeatedly pounding my forehead with my fist, yelling at my bedroom walls, and binging on ice cream. Majestically an idea will formulate in my cerebrum and I immediately set out to develop it. My preferred method of expansion is a tangled conglomeration of webbing, with each point branching off to several subpoints having no significance whatsoever to the subject at hand. Out of this muddled mess I am able to construct a thesis, and so the creation of my essay begins.

My favored writing habitat is my bedroom, deep within the bowels of my house. I usually abstain from writing at school due to the noise factor severely interrupting my precarious concentration level. I securely latch the door to my dungeon and bask in my computer’s iridescent glow. I detest fabricating works of literature with pen and paper, for many reasons. The ink or lead used will rub off on my hand, due to my habit of pressurizing notebook paper. Also, I fail to see the point in writing out an entire essay when I will later have to type it into some fancy machine that knows more about proper composition than I do anyway.

Music plays an important factor in aiding my creativity, and does not disturb me in the slightest, unlike noise distractions at school. I will often pick three drastically different compact discs, insert them into my carousel player, and set it to shuffle mode. "Let’s see...tonight’s selection will be The Essential Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Dirty Boogie by the Brian Setzer Orchestra, and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition." Not only does this allow my mood to shift with the various genres of music and thus exhibit new emotions in my writing, but it also aides in convincing my parents that I am crazy.

Ah, my parents. As an only child they are the only human interaction that I am faced with while composing. The most common perpretrator is my father, who will randomly feel the need to bust open my door and inquire, "Now what are you working on???" I usually offer the official teenager reply of "Nothing," which mysteriously seems to satisfy him. My mother has the potential to be even worse. She will occasionally sneak into my room with all the stealth of a B-2 bomber and scare me with a greeting sure to launch me into the ground floor. She then proceeds to have me carry out some mundane task such as trying on clothes or feeding the monsters living in the backyard that we believe to be dogs.

As aforementioned, I prefer composing on a computer, although that does not come without its fair share of problems. The frequency of brownouts in our fair city has forced me to repeat a great amount of typing. I view computers as a necessary evil, and hardly a day goes by that I am not cursing my machine out because of one crash or another. If I do miracously manage to get the hardware to work, formatting problems with any Microsoft product will surely arise, and my hatred for the world dominator will deepen further.

Upon completion of the rough draft, I enter the Revision Stage, also known as Will You Please Read This? I have an extremely difficult time revising my own essays, as I often strive to make the rough copy perfect, and therefore am burned out of ideas when the time for editing is at hand. I enjoy having my parents and peers evaluate my work and then proceed to rip it to shreds. Perhaps if I actually listened to them my writing would improve.

Length requirements of essays are an incredible burden on my ego. Although I may find it challenging to begin writing, once I do start it is nearly impossible to stop. I always have so much to say, as my opinions are very thoroughly detailed and documented to be correct at least 85% of the time.

My other writing weakness is my complete ineptness with titles. Forming a title is such an abstract process, and always my last one in the creation of an essay. Creating an earth-shattering headline is usually completely out of my grasp. I am rather proud of myself if the title has even the slightest relevance to the subject. Whereas "See Pete Run" could grab your attention, I severly doubt that a professor would accept it as a title of a graduate thesis.

Once all processes have been completed, I yell at my printer until it obediently produces a neat copy of the work I review my paper with satisfaction as I marvel at the ability of my completely unorganized and irrational writing technique to create an interesting essay. I proudly carry it to school and pray that my instructor will enjoy it. The task at hand has been finished, and I am free once more. I throw my bookbag over my shoulder and prepare to strut out of the room as the teacher announces "Class, for your next assignment..."