Writing Process in High School

To start off, I am a mediocre writer at best so there isn't any particular part of the writing process that is necessarily easy to me. However, I would always immediately brainstorm what I could possibly write about when we would get writing assignments in high school. My mind would skim through every possible situation, text, anything that would constitute a good representation of the topic. We were always told to make an outline and it would help tremendously in our writing an essay which I thought was true but rarely practiced. My outlines never helped much to me when I did make them though. I could come up with the general thought that I wanted to write about but I was never able to elaborate easily on that general thought. The introduction always seemed by far the hardest part of the whole process. I knew what needed to be said but could never seem to introduce it and leave room to elaborate on it. Repetition was a problem in a lot of papers because I would explain the same thing over again in a different manner. If I can write a well thought out introduction then the rest usually just comes to me. I'm sure that's the case with most people and I'm one of them. Then I'll get to the conclusion which is just as difficult as the introduction. I always think to myself, "How am I supposed to end the paper without repeating everything I just wrote?" I like to listen to the calmest music I have while I work, Jack Johnson, Jimmy Buffet, etc., even though it doesn't necessarily help except those few times where I just hear something and it makes something click. I always have to have some kind of background noise or else if I'm in silence my mind will start drifting to any and everything. This is usually how the process of procrastination begins for me. Eventually I do get my papers finished, though, and I always get someone else to review it for me because if I, a terrible writer, review my terrible writing it can only be bad.