Drew Felt
UGA Undergraduate Student
What is your writing process?
Usually I like to wake up relatively early, go on a bike ride, and then sit down and start writing. This usually puts me in a good mood, which makes it easier to get into whatever piece of writing I’m working on.
What do you enjoy about writing?
I really enjoy being able to explain myself as clearly as possible. I frequently get tripped up in my words while speaking, so I like that I’m able to take my time and really think about what I’m going to say.
Based on your experience, what is the value of writing? Generally and in your classes?
I think that writing helps us ground our thoughts in a way that we aren’t always aware of. In our everyday lives, we can have a very strong understanding of an idea or concept, but putting that understanding on paper is a whole other process, and I think that doing so helps us have a more holistic perspective of understanding once it has been written down. In classes like Syntax, I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t fully understand a topic until I’ve explored it in my writing, and I think that’s really improved my abilities in the field.
What does getting published in the The Classic Journal mean to you?
It’s a real honor because writing used to be the area that I was least confident in, so it feels really good to know that I’ve grown enough as a writer that people actually want to publish something that I’ve written.
What have you learned? How have you grown as a writer?
It used to be like pulling teeth in order to get me to write more than the bare minimum; I used to assume that certain aspects of the points I was trying to make were too obvious to be worth put into writing. Now I’m able to more effectively describe things with enough detail so that (hopefully) my reader will be able to follow me from start to finish.
What would you like for other undergraduate students to know about publishing their work in The Classic?
It may seem like a scary or daunting task but everyone involved was super helpful and made editing my paper a breeze. I highly recommend trying to get work published if you’re interested in writing in any area because it’s always a good thing to have more than your own eyes looking at your work, and you’ll come out the better for it.
What’s up next for you writing-wise, school-wise, down the road?
After graduating in May, I plan to work on getting ESL and Medical translation certified so that I can explore both fields and decide which one I’d like to pursue a career in. Although I’m not sure that I’ll do much more academic writing, I have been working for a long time on several fantasy stories that I hope to publish one day.