Part A: Me, the Writer
Over the course of the semester, one thing I improved on is formulating my ideas in an organized way. Part of that was the journals we were required to keep. The journal writing time everyday provided an ample amount of time to gather my thoughts and write them down so I don’t forget. By writing them down, I also had them so I could come back to them if I ever wanted to expand my thoughts on a certain idea.
If I had to explain my voice, I would describe it as using a character’s voice. Since I like writing creatively so much, I usually prefer writing first person. Through my voice I try to convey the character’s thoughts and emotions in an articulate way that makes sense to the reader.
As a mentor writer, I would suggest just word vomiting onto a piece of paper when given a prompt. Over the semester, whenever we had prompts, I learned that instead of sitting there and trying to think of full, complete ideas and then writing them down, It’s better to just write down everything that first comes to mind. This way, I have everything laid out in front of me and I can sew what I have work and I can start formulating a creative piece looking at it.
My future goals as a writer involve reading as much as I can to expose myself to different writing styles. I want to read different genres as well. Also, I want to keep a daily journal where I can write about my day and about whatever I want. I heard that keeping a daily journal really improves a writer and I think I’ve seen it firsthand over the semester.
Part B: Me, the Blogger
When the semester first started, I was really conflicted as to what I wanted the aesthetic of my blog to be. At first I wanted it to be dark and starry, then I wanted to have the Eiffel Tower in the background and have it travel themed. In the end I settled for pink and purple smoke. While I liked it then, I am not entirely sure it fits the writing I have up now. If I could change the theme and colours and overall aesthetic, I would. But I really like the general layout of my blog (the location of the menu bars, how my posts are laid out etc.) and I don’t want to change that.
The student blogs that impress me the most are the following: (Sorry, I couldn’t find out how to put them in my sidebar or footer)
The professional blog I visit all the time is a cooking/baking blog. Since I absolutely love cooking and baking, I go to this blog all the time to get new recipes and to get tips and tricks on recipes I already know to better improve my cooking and baking. The link is below:
Part C: Me, the Student
To be perfectly candid, when I learned that we had to do weekly No Red Ink assignments, I was disappointing as I didn’t want to take time out of my week to do it. I was so against it that I put it off for the longest time. By the time I told myself to snap out of it and to just do it, I had 17 assignments I hadn’t done. After a few hours of sitting down in front of my laptop and doing non stop grammar, I realized that even though a lot of the grammar I was doing was grade 10 level, I didn’t know some of it. The night before the English diploma, I went into my No Red Ink account and I actually reviewed what I learned and I think it really helped when it came time to write my personal and critical essays.
As a reader, I’ve accomplished reading more than used to previously. I used to read quite a bit in middle school but I stopped once I got to high school. Creative Writing forced me to start reading at the very beginning of the semester. After that kickstart, it was easy to fall back into a old routine of reading as often as I could.
My next steps to improve as a writer, is to, as I mentioned before is to keep a daily journal. I don’t think I’ll ever put my writing on the internet after Creative Writing is done. I want to keep my writing private but I think I’ll keep writing in my journal and I’ll buy a new one when I have run out of pages. I also want to read frequently. Not only to improve as a writer, but I’ve found that reading is as therapeutic and relaxing to me as cooking or baking is.
Part D: Me, the Fan
One of the biggest guest speakers that resonated with me was Sam Beavers. I’ve wanted to travel for so long. Every time I get a break from school, even if its as short as Fall Break, I constantly beg my parents to go somewhere. Travelling to me doesn’t include Banff or Waterton, which is usually where my parents usually insist on going. I long to go to the airport and fly somewhere. I don’t need to go somewhere exotic and expensive, I just want to go somewhere. So Sam Beavers coming in and eccentric was eye opening to me. Even though I knew there were so many people who chose not to go to university right away, I didn’t really notice up until that point. It was inspiring. Even though my parents definitely wouldn’t let me travel like he has, I definitely want to do it at some point in my life. I want to make plans to go after I graduate from university before I go to med school. Also, Sam started his travels in Australia, which is where I’m going in a few days so hopefully I’ll get to experience some of whatever he has experienced.
My author for Writer’s Seminar was J.R.R Tolkien. I am so glad I chose to do that writer. I’ve been a huge fan of Tolkien and Middle Earth since we read The Hobbit in English class way back in grade 7. While most of my friends moaned and groaned, I absolutely love love loved reading it. We even watched the movies in class, which was a huge bonus. While fantasy is usually something I’m not that interested in, having not read Harry Potter or the Chronicles of Narnia, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings is an exception for me. The biggest inspiration I got from J.R.R Tolkien was that he didn’t sit down and just start writing; he had ideas in his mind for years and years before he actually started writing The Hobbit. This is inspiring to me because it is nice to know that I am not the only one who can’t formulate thoughts in my head. I follow the same thought process as Tolkien in that I take a while to find inspiration and ideas and even longer to actually write them.
My emulation for my Writer’s Seminar is below:
I definitely intend on reading more of J.R.R Tolkien’s works. He has many different book aside from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Specifically, my goal for the summer is to read The Silmarillion and Beren and Luthien.
Part E: Me, the Critic of my Work
My first piece of writing that I am particularly proud of is my poem, Sky High. As explained in the explanation of the poem, the poem is about one of my best friends who I travelled on an airplane with and I realized that I actually thought of him as more than a friend and he thought of me as more than a friend as well. The poem starts off with us in the clouds, in an airplane, of course and slowly progresses to realizing we were more than friends and then eventually to us as lovers. But then the poem takes a step back to us becoming strangers. It was kind of an emotional process writing it just because every time I tried to think of a line to write, I would get a new flood of memories rushing back into my mind that I couldn’t shake. This was one of my biggest obstacles writing this piece and also why it took way longer to write than it probably should have.
My second piece that I am proud of is The Crude Carrier. The idea for this short story actually came in one of my dreams. The dream, though, was much more violent and sinister, but I toned it down a little for the short story. Since it was a dream of mine, while I was writing I could visualize the characters, what they would say, what they would do in certain situations etc. My biggest challenge with this piece is that I had a whole plot line mapped out in my head, but the reality was that this piece could only be a short story, and obviously not a full out novel. Because I had to rush the details of my story and actually had to omit sections and pieces that were unnecessary. This was kind of disappointing to me as a writer because I had worked so hard making the details just right as to how I like them and I had to end up deleting them. The story ended up being short and kind of choppy, in my opinion. I still think it was one of my best pieces of writing on my blog though.
Evaluating my Writing Skills
The piece I would like to evaluate is The Crude Carrier. The significance of the title is that the ship Captain Rogers is steering is a Crude Carrier. The piece is about the main character, Captain Rogers, who is somewhat of a coward and his second in command, Leonard Stowers, who is portrayed as brave. Their job is to deliver cargo of crude oil to the United States, however, the waters they are in is known for pirates. When the pirates inevitably catch up to the ship, Captain Rogers enlists the help of a crew member, Jorja. However, it is revealed in the end that Jorja is actually one of the pirates and had infiltrated the crew members of the ship to make taking over the ship easier. The main of the story I had in my mind as I was writing this is anything along the lines of: Betrayal can come from anyone. Jorja was supposed to be a loyal crew member of the crude carrier, dedicated to their cause of safely delivering the oil to the United States. Captain Rogers had put his trust I Jorja, but ended up being betrayed in a major way. When writing this, I didn’t have a specific target audience in mind, and I still don’t have a target audience in mind. I guess anyone who wants to read it is the target audience. The influence for this piece, as mentioned before, was a dream I had a few weeks. The dream I had was much more intense and gory. I guess you could say it was more of a nightmare than a dream. One of the style decisions I made was to contrast the character of Captain Rogers with the character of Leonard Stowers. Captain Rogers I tried to portray as a coward. This is shown when he first comes to find out about the weapon on board and he visible shivers. The other part of his cowardice is when he sends for a crew member to get everyone to hide rather than him going himself. One of the main roles as a captain is to look after the safety of everyone on board the ship. Captain Rogers neglects this duty due to his fear and puts the responsibility that is supposed to be his own into the hands of a crew member be is not even familiar with. Eventually, when he does get over his cowardice and leaves the secure control room, he is killed. In stark contrast, Leonard Stowers is quick to volunteer to leave the control room and go out and investigate and ensure the safety of the crew, even though it wasn’t his job. Ultimately though, he gets himself killed as well.
My final thoughts about this piece is that I actually really like it. In the near future, I would like to go over it a few times and really comb through it and edit it and add to it as much as I can. I would to put back all the details I omitted and make it longer. Since I feel it is kind of choppy and the plot line is moving too fast, I would like to change a few minor details to make the story flow better. Overall, The Crude Carrier is my favourite writing piece of the whole semester.