The End

Essay writing is a skill you have to practice rather than one which can be taught, but I hope there was something in the course that shortened the learning curve or was otherwise valuable. Ann Patchett is a novelist I like and she says her favourite stage of writing is when she hasn’t begun yet. The idea for the book is flying around her head like a butterfly. She says to get the book to come into being you have to catch the butterfly and use a mallet to kill it and use a pin to get it to stay still on the workbench. When you’ve finished your task you end up with a crumpled approximation of the butterfly, as opposed to the thing that was flapping around in your head to begin with. I can relate to this with essays but that’s the point of being here in earth school I guess, each time we do something it won’t measure up to the original grand design. This is where the bravery is. Let your tutor see your approximation and there will be a little bit of the original beauty of your idea left. As I said at the beginning of the course, I believe the process of writing an essay will change you and some of that beauty will make its way to the clients receiving midwifery care.