I very rarely write in a non-formal setting. Aside from writing essays for class, most of the writing I do is either for The Caravel newspaper or for emails. The one exception to this is that I began keeping a log of everything I do in a day for future reference, so that I can look back on it later. Since that is only meant for myself, I naturally don’t have to follow the same grammatical conventions as a more formal piece of writing. That being said, I think the language I use in my log is just about the same as I would use in a formal letter; the practices are so ingrained in my subconscious that I can’t shake them. The one place where I tend to ignore highly-structured grammar rules is in my Creative Writing class. That class is structured in a way in which each assignment has a certain theme in mind as a goal, but the way in which you are meant to get to that goal is completely free. I think my writing is at its best after 1:00AM, because I take fewer precautions in thinking about what I should or should not say. It also helps to be in silence, so that I can be focused on the task at hand. I would rather write for an audience than for myself or for a teacher. I think, in a better world, essays could be written to be performed in front of a crowd. I say this because the academic world as it is is so detached from the rest of humanity that they essentially exist for the same reasons circuses do; they occasionally provide something interesting to look at and don’t cost particularly much to upkeep.
