hits and misses

I've grown more this year as a writer than I ever have before. The main reason for that is that I've had to tighten the reins on a lot of things. A good example of this is the Research Paper.. In no way could I be lax about anything. I had to watch for things I wouldn't have to worry about in, say, a personal narrative, or a blog post. I struggled with the Research Paper, and, in some ways, the Literary Analysis, in the sense that I had to step outside of my comfort zone. I wasn't as free.
I know that these assignments and their corresponding struggles helped me because of this Purple Hibiscus paper I just wrote. About a week after I said I was going to write it, I almost backed out and took the test. But I went ahead and started to write it, and I realized that I was using techniques I had learned in the other papers. I made an outline, similar to the one I used for my research paper. I embedded quotes. It was far less stressful than I anticipated. If I had tried to write this paper, unguided, at the beginning of this year, it would have been disastrous, but now, things are looking better.