Believe it or not, I haven't really written anything big since I started college. The biggest paper I wrote was last (also my first) semester and it basically stood as my final. The paper was supposed to be at least 12 pages long to get a C and 20 pages to get a B or an A. I thought the professor had not done a very good job teaching us in class and that he was being ridiculous for making us write such a long essay for basically only two topics that were simply not that extensive. I decided the best idea, which turned out to get me a C in the class, was to write close to the minimum (I wrote only 13 pages). This essay was really hard for me given that I had not written an essay that long before in my entire life and also that I had not written an essay in it's sense since May before I took my AP tests Senior year in high school.
My only approach was to simply start writing based on the little knowledge I already had about the topics. After that, I realized I really knew nothing about anything, so I did a little bit of research. My research was not great because I didn't really know what the professor wanted me to write about. He had simply given us a paper that had the two topics and a couple of questions. In drafting my essay I did not really think about the topic I just wrote down fact after fact I had researched online. In terms of getting feedback, I didn't even have a clue where the writing center was at and didn't bother to ask for help because I thought the professor might not even entirely read 30+ people's essays. I hated the class, it was my first semester and I didn't really find the assignment relevant to the class, which he cancelled basically every other week. So, writing a paper for the class was dreadful.
After I realized that I was not going to put in the hard work for the paper, I just decided I would write about a page everyday for a week. I mostly sat around my friend's house and asked them to help me as much as they could. They were the only editing I got done for that paper. I ended up writing half of the paper totally last minute (two days before it was due), that's probably also why I got the grade that I did. I know I should have researched the topics more, I was being lazy and I didn't want to get any help because I didn't really want to do the assignment. I know now that you must really take into consideration the different steps to writing a piece.
That sounds like a tough writing assignment for a freshman to do. And your experience shows how important motivation is to writing. If you're not interested in a topic or don't feel challenged or don't care so much about a grade, it's hard to be motivated to write.
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