Can somone help me please......???

Question

I have just started a media studies course.i am interested in everything in it but one subject i am having problems with is journalism.i have a basic interest in it.i dont think i would ever go for a career in it but for myself i would like to complete it.my problem is when asked to write out things in class on the spot i go blank.now i can come out with any amount on my own and when i dont feel obligied.i like my thoughts to come and go freely but when i am specifically asked to come up with something on the spot i go blank.i am a musician and i feel the same way about that.i cant write anything when i try to.its almost a panic state i go into and my mind freezes.can anyone relate to me and if so give me some advice.it would be very much appriciated.thank you very much

i can come out with any amount of stuff normally.its not writers block as such.its just the pressure on me to come up with something on the spot and be expected to share with everyone straight away makes me panic.any ideas????

It is not the on the spot thing in itself.i can do on the spot things pretty ok normally.its the situation.a full class of people to share it with and to feel obliged to do so.thats what makes me freeze

Answer 1

The sense of panic is real, in that you are aware of what your MIND will allow you to experience. Behind the sense of panic is a fear that is deeply repressed within your MIND. The fear is a misperception, taken-on by your MIND in early childhood, at or near birth.

Since what stimulates this fear is you being asked to write something spontaneously, the fear is likely a fear of exposing in your writing, something of what your MIND holds hidden within itself. If you were to write something that your MIND could control and censor, then the fear and anxiety would not be there, or at least would not be so intense that you become aware of it.

First realize that you have a fear within your MIND. Accept this. Also accept the fact that this fear is a "misperception" and although your MIND believes it to be true, it is not true. It exists simply to make it difficult for you to easily access the skills or abilities you seem to have. Several explanations for this, but without your participation, to suggest these would be just conjecture.

To overcome this, without effective psychotherapy is possible, but not easy. My recommendations would be:
1. Begin keeping a diary, and write in it every evening. List all the negative feelings you experienced during the day. Then go over these, and see if you can identify any hidden emotion in any of these. If you do, sit down in a comfortable chair, close your eyes and try and get in touch with how this emotion fits with the fear within yourself. If you can touch it, you will feel like crying... do so, and really get into it, and if possible, get into deep sobbing with grief.

Grief experienced at this level is like an eraser of misperception. It's very effective in eliminating the hidden misperceptions within our MINDs.

2. Begin to focus on, and take to heart the fact that who and what you are at your Core is a Perfect Soul. To the degree you can accept this, your MIND will be dissuaded from continuing its attachment to the misperceptions held within itself. Continue this belief process [which is True, by the way] and you should begin to experience a reduction in the anxiety experienced in spontaneous expression. This should be a relief regarding both your writing and your musicianship.
Peace

Answer 2

Funny you should ask....

I've been using Yahoo Answers as an exercise in being able to write on the spot. I select a question and try to come up with the best possible answer I can, and that usually involves a fairly "essay-like" answer.

I don't know if this "tip" will help because maybe you already do this, but if you kind of picture the subject in front of your eyes and then start looking past the subject to "see" what other thoughts or ideas or related topics are kind of circling the main subject. I find that from there I have trouble deciding which of those "floating around and related" ideas I'll go for first.

I think its a matter of really focusing on the subject and not on the writing. Just take a little while to fix that image of the subject or the words that describe the subject in your mind and kind of "turn a switch" to see what related ideas start showing up.

If the subject is a tree. Picture a tree, types of trees, history of trees, good things about trees, bad things about trees, life-span of trees, how any trees many have had some impact on you in some way, where trees grow, what makes them grow, etc. etc.
Somewhere in this selection of related ideas something will grab you - maybe there was a tree in your yard when you were a kind, maybe you hated it when someone cut down a tree somewhere, maybe there was a tree that was a landmark, etc.

If you go for the related idea that most grabs you or that most takes you in the direction of the aim of the assignment you then have your angle. Now you can use all those other related ideas as either a resource for your remarks or as (I hate to say this) padding for the written material.

By taking the angle or approach that grabbed you when you were scanning all the related ideas you have no probably created a spark for you topic that you didn't have before. Also, selecting your favorite related idea (even if you had to first make sure you screened out ideas that didn't fit the assignment) you will have a direction.

Once you have organized (even if only in your mind) all the usable ideas you have in your head about the subject, and once you have taken a direction, all you have to do is to complete any research and give references if these are necessary. If there's no research needed and your piece will be something like an essay, once you have the "meat" of it all you have to do is add some comments to either give it human-ness or power or else to drive home your point.

One other thing that helps is this: If you're asked to do a piece on trees you obviously have enough experience in life to come up with a number of ideas about trees as your "related ideas". If you're asked to do a piece on something you have no experience with or exposure to, let's say, aluminum siding (and let's say you're not allowed to research). All you can do in a situation like this is to focus on aluminum siding, see that you have no related ideas floating around the subject in your mind, and break the subject down into something like either "aluminum" or "siding". Now that you're treating each as the subject (separately) you may come up with some related ideas. For example, you could talk about how you believe siding on homes should be made of natural materials or you could talk about changes in buildings over the last 100 years. In other words, you would have to place "aluminum" and/or "siding" within a larger context of something that you do have something to say about. Usually, though, you aren't expected to write about something you're not allowed to research. I'm just pointing out this other approach because there are times when its obvious it is needed.

There is also the last-resort approach: If you have something like the aluminum siding subject, and you have absolutely zero coming up no matter how hard you focus on it it means that it is an entirely new and foreign subject to you. Last resort: Talk about how unfortunate/fortunate it is that so few people have any understanding of aluminum siding these days. Discuss why there may be a lack of interest or why trends have moved away from this particular thing. Talk about how someone like you has remained ignorant of this subject and assume others are as well. Consider any social implications in the lack of interest or information about this subject. Talk about how some things are just taken for granted. Essentially, what you need to do is make the subject a "negative subject" and write about any aspect of its being non-subject. You're turning the subject inside out when you do this, and while an inside-out jacket may show a different side it still does the job it was intended to do.

If you find some questions on Answers that you know you could answer but that aren't necessarily subjects you're interested in it can be really good exercise for exactly the task you've having trouble with.

Writing on demand is a skill. The more you do it the more you polish the skill, and the more (at least I think) you learn to visualize the words and the related ideas and to even occasionally turn what you see inside out and write from an even more unique perspective.

You could also - when you're not doing anything else - look around and see some object and imagine the beginning of an essay on it. You don't have to do the whole essay in your head - just the beginning of it and just to the point where you have either your angle or else have figured out whether you'll be breaking the subject up or turning it inside out.

Answer 3

Despite others observance that this may be beyond your capabilities, or even your own misgivings, I would suggest that, like here, you just write what you feel.
Many feel like when they are under pressure, that they are expected to exceed the normal value in which they survive, or surrender.
You need only recall a memory or instance in which to relay by pen and paper.
I am sure you have sufficient life experiences to develop an idea of what others may want to hear, or even live again, through your words.
Good luck.

Answer 4

Maybe practicing to write "on the spot" can help you. As part of your personal study habits, make a time of day every day where you make yourself sit down and write for 20 minutes or so. Make up some slips of paper similar to the topics your professor asks you to write about, draw one out, and go for it.

Unfortunately, writing on the spot is sometimes required of people in media and communications, even if you don't go into journalism. I'm a former newspaper reporter, who was promoted to editor. Now I work in corporate communications. At the paper, it was a constant flow of, "We need a story about so and so for tomorrow's paper," which meant it had to be written and ready to print by 5 p.m. that same day. Even now, on the corporate side of things, it's not uncommon for my supervisor to ask me to prepare a statement for someone or a press release by the end of the day -- often on a topic I know nothing about and have no interest in.

Writer's block stinks -- I know. The best way to get around it is to train yourself out of it. Like I said, practice making yourself write every day about all sorts of topics. If you make yourself write "off the cuff" like that, it'll be easier when someone else asks you to do the same.

Answer 5

Since this is apart of your studies that you are interested in then you should write about things you know. Write a list down of things you know and things you like and always go back to it when you're asked to write about something, It can be a reference log.

Answer 6

just forget about the studies, and do something ya know about, this just isnt ya thing good luck anyway, sorry i didnt give ya the right advise ya needed but i just dont have a clue, enjoy it and have fun!!!!