Composition writing

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I seem to have some trouble writing compositions. I seem to ramble on a lot and beat around the bush. Here is an example of my writing that needs improvement.

I had to do an article analysis paper for government class. It told about an issue that really stunned me. Rumor has it, the New York State Labor Department wants to investigate some Wal-Mart stores in the nationwide chain. They want to do this because of child labor laws. I should say, they are questioning whether to do an investigation. Also, employees of Wal-Mart who have Medicaid for an insurance company are having bad luck. Many people disagree with the Labor Department's decision.

I wrote that I disagree also, but I rambled on and on about things that would normally take me a few seconds to verbally say.

Does anyone else have this problem? Is it because we all have AS traits?

I feel that the autism spectrum produces
this to one degree and another. For
example, Civet would write G.H like
as 2nd nature(or 2nd nature flowerly
words, pictorials) but not 1st nature.
She may fall into AS

I on the other want to write flowerly
words, but will show constraint and
write flowerly-technical words(still
flowerly and descriptive). I would
fall under HFA

Thus, we all experience wordiness,
be it flowery, or pictorial(1st and
2nd natures) and be it for creative
writing and technical writing.

Then you have Pyraxis, the flowerly
in AS, yet the technical in Autism.
It seems she writes as she thinks,
or HFA, yet is able to differenciate
flowerly, from technical with the ease
of a pen to a fountain of infinite
wisdom. Is she AS, HFA, Autism
in general? Who really knows?

Sincerely,
Ghosthunter

Yeesh, I don't know whether to be flattered or embarrassed...

I'm not sure how closely writing difficulties or abilities are linked to the spectrum. Personally, writing's my preferred mode of communication and I would have had a harder time connecting to people without it. I was always buried in books as a kid and I actually finished my first novel at 13 (though sadly never found a publisher). I do have several modes of writing though: the analytical, which I mostly figured out from writing school essays, and the emotional, which is my preferred mode for fiction/poetry and the same vibe I pick up in Ghosthunter's writing.

There are plenty of NT's who have trouble writing. What do you all think - are writing difficulties usually related to the spectrum, or are they a separate problem?

I really don't know if writing is a autism thing
since there are many great NT writers.

I glad you enjoyed my using you as a example.
I also say thanks for the compliment back.

Hmmmm? Fascinating?
Ghosthunter

P.S...What do you think of my avitar?
You have already seen my picture, so
Hmmm? My favorite radio characters
were the Shadow, the Green Hornet.

That's kind of funny. I have the complete opposite problem. I guess you could say I follow the all-killer-no-filler philosophy, but it's really more like being stuck in it. It's always been hard for me to fully expand on anything since I consider any facts that don't directly contribute to the main topic to be useless, and working them into a composition seems to totally wreck it in my eyes. This has been true for as long as I've ever written, even going back to short papers in elementary schools all the way up to the fiction I write today. I hate minimum length limits.

Yes, this is true.

Actually, I recently recieved all my short papers back from one of my teachers. Our papers were summary and responses, so half was supposed to be a summation and analysis of what we read, and the other part should be our personal thoughts and feelings. I should share something she wrote on one of them, as I believe it pertains to the discussion:

"Your summaries are always articulate and fact-filled, but when you add personal responses- experience, they are usually only suggested and not explained. What happens to you?"

She is utterly correct. I never realized how "concise" I am until last semester, when my roommate handed in a paper to my psychology class for me. My paper was 5 pages long and hers was only 2 1/2 (it had to be 2-3 pages). She said to my teacher "Mine isn't as long as [Civet's], I hope that's ok," and my teacher replied to her "[Civet] is very... specific with her writing."

I believe this is because I work backwards from the way many people seem to write, they formulate an idea on a subject, and look for evidence (seeing the whole to the smaller parts) whereas I gather the evidence to form an idea (building the smaller parts into a whole).

When I write about my own experiences in my mind, however, especially emotions which do not have a concrete basis in the experiential reality, my writing becomes as amorphous as the subject matter. Unless I am speaking completely in specifics, I go into "poetic Ghosthunter mode." Possibly related to a problem with generalization, I think.

I also have this problem with speaking, but more often I head into the vague and less concise mode of speaking, unless I am with someone I am comfortable with. I write far more clearly than I speak, it is easier to order the thoughts in my head because I have the time to pause and think about what I am going to say next when I write. With speaking, my brain runs either too slowly or too quickly for my mouth.

I am taking WR121 right now, english comp UHHG. I have found the easiest way to find something to write about that interests me is to think of things that piss me off and them b***h about them (Including real facts.) After I have all that on paper I go through and organize it all into a real paper. Hope this helps.