Part A: You, the Writer

Before this course, the only serious creative writing I had done was in the same class the previous year. I don’t think I really knew what I was doing. I was able to get some good ideas but I wasn’t able to properly transfer them into my writing. I was also dealing with my writing confidence which definitely impacted how well I wrote. I am still working on becoming more confident, and I think I always will be, but I think I was able to grow in many ways. I’ve started developing my own writing style and voice more this year and am slightly more willing to try new things. Although I have improved a lot, I could always work on my GUMPS and try different genres. I think my style is very descriptive with lots of imagery, and I somehow ended up writing a lot about nature this year without even planning to do so. For future creative writers, the best advice I can give is to not care about what others think and to write about whatever you want, and to of course practice as much as possible. For my future writing, I hope to continue to read and write lots over the summer. I’ve found writing can be a very comforting way to let out all your emotions and stress without laying those feelings out bare onto the page. My writing this year was a kind of way for me to share those emotions in a more understated way, and I believe it to be very helpful since I’m not the type to be very open about myself or my struggles.

Part B: You, the Blogger

I am much happier with my blog this year than last year because I was actually able to make it look appealing and stick to my theme. I really love its overall appearance and the black and white that contrasts with the nature themes I’ve been writing about a lot this year. I would also like to make it a bit neater and more organized and take some time to edit my menus some more. After this course, I hope to continue to write and add to my blog, but if not, then it probably won’t be opened again until creative writing next year. I don’t think there’s any one student blog I’d continue to follow in particular, but I would check up on my friends’ blogs and anyone else’s I was just curious about. I’ve never explored a professional blog before, but I think I’d like to start.

Part C: You, the Student

I think just hearing what other people had to write in class really inspired my writing. It was interesting to see how everybody else interpreted a piece differently and how all kinds of topics could be covered. As a reader, I think I definitely could have read more. I was hoping to make it at least halfway through my book wish-list but I just kept on adding more and didn’t read as much as I should have, which made it difficult to do so. At the moment, I am working my way through House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski and  The Divine Comedy by Dante. I plan to take my time reading both of them since they both have so much to tell and I think it’s important to take breaks to take in what I’ve just read. After I finish those, I hope to read either Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, Blue Laws by Kevin Young, or Pilgrim by Timothy Findley. This semester, I have completed around 8 books. My favourites have been The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde and Bone by Yrsa Daley-Ward as well as the two I am currently reading. I feel like these books have shown me a new way of writing and just how important style is. Reading, in general, helps me improve just by exposing me to proper grammar and sentence structure and all the different ways words can be used to create something beautiful. As a writer, I really want to improve on my writing because its something I only recently fell in love with. I am taking creative writing again next year because even though I complain a lot about the amount of work, it really helps to strengthen writing skills.

            

              

Part D: You, the Fan

Writers Seminar: As I mentioned above, The Picture of Dorian Gray was one of my favourite books that I read this year. It was a very unique and interesting story and the abundance of metaphors and imagery allowed me to become even more engrossed in the book. Reading this book also taught me the importance of those two factors and how my writing could be taken to a whole new level when adding them, although I still have to work on my metaphor usage. I’m glad I was introduced to Oscar Wilde and I do hope to read his poems soon. Another person I would be interested in researching would be Vladimir Nabokov, the author of Lolita. I don’t know if I really enjoyed the story, but I enjoyed the book overall and I would like to see Nabokov’s process and purpose for writing about such a controversial theme. All of the writers we covered put a huge emphasis on writing the kind of story you want to read and that writing something small, whatever it may be, every day can lead to massive improvement.

Blogger: There isn’t one particular blog that I often return to check up on their work for inspiration. I think that the blogs of everyone taking this course can be a source of inspiration in one way or another. For example, Liam’s blog is always great to come back to see all of his crazy visuals and artistic pieces. I also really love Jade’s blog because of her beautiful purple theme and, of course, her amazing writing. Both of these blogs really show the personality of their authors and have taught me to try to be a little more adventurous with my work. I am always inspired by anyone’s blog I randomly choose to comment on since they’re all so different and cover all kinds of themes. Through commenting I am able to explore all these blogs that introduce me to really interesting stories that I never would have been able to think up by myself.

Part E: You, the Critic of Your Work

Q is for Quay – https://kayla824.edublogs.org/2018/05/04/q-is-for-quay/

I simply left the title of this piece as the title of the assignment because I felt like that it suited the piece well enough and it was easier than making up a new one. The prompt for Q is for Quay was to write about a person who changes as they enter different elements, so I did just that. My character is nameless and formless and the only life its ever known is the four elements and how its body is affected by them. I think I was definitely inspired by The Picture of Dorian Gray because of all the amazing imagery Oscar Wilde was able to create. I initially struggled with how this person would be able to flow from each element naturally. My original ending was supposed to be the fire that it wasn’t able to control and ended up burning up everything and losing the scenes it was able to witness every day. I wasn’t sure how to transform from earth to fire and I had already written everything else, so I just decided to start with fire instead and keep the piece more simple and low key. My favourite element to write about was water and I think it was the easiest to write about too. Overall, I’m really proud of myself for writing this and I believe its one of my best pieces that I have written this semester along with Passing Time.

Passing Time – https://kayla824.edublogs.org/2018/06/04/passing-time/

I’m usually bad at coming up with titles so I leave them pretty simple. This piece was inspired by the book I’ll Give You The Sun by Jandy Nelson using the line “losing years like coats falling from our shoulders”. The feelings of actually realizing that I’ll be graduating next year have started to settle in and I just can’t really believe that I’m here. I know that many others can relate to me and the feeling of losing time too quickly. This poem was super easy to write and the words just sort of came out of me in the 10-15 minutes we had for this Writer Seminar. I didn’t have to do a lot of editing but I wanted to play with the formatting of it in order to mirror how hectic life and growing older is. I know some may think it to be a little much but I think it’s okay since everyone deals with their time differently anyways.