Part A:

Before creative writing I barely wrote anything. Most of my writing was for either L.A or Social Studies. They were mostly constructed in some sort of format, like an essay. I’ve evolved into a better writer and use more literary devices in my stories and poems. Before I always finished stories by the second draft and that barely happens now because I try to make everything the best as possible. My writing has gotten much stronger I feel, but I think its gotten stronger in only some areas, like for example I’ve gotten much better at writing short stories, but my poetry still isn’t reaching its full potential. The ideas I use in my writing have gotten more explicit and somewhat more insightful as well. I don’t think I follow a huge structure my writing, it’s just whatever I feel fits in. I enjoy having some sort of stories in my poetry and that’s probably why writing short stories was my favorite in this semester. Most of my writing this semester has either been first person or third person omniscient point of view. I’ve tried to transition between the two, but I’ve found that only works sometimes depending on the context for me. I make a lot of GUMPS in my writing, which makes me have to triple check my work, and sometimes I just read over them not realizing there’s mistakes. Some advice I’d give to future writers is to read and write everyday. This is essential to being a strong writer and vice versa. Reading and writing will allow you to interpret different writing styles that you can incorporate in your writing. Personally I’m a big fan of poetry and short stories, but I can’t finish novels most of the time and I don’t write much other than in school. The only time I write during my free time is when I’m passionate about something and I feel like I need to get my opinions out there.

Part B:

I wasn’t a big fan of blogging when I started. I realized when I started I didn’t have to hold anything back and I struggle with performing to a group about my opinions, which makes me look weak  about what I’m trying to say. With blogging that is much easier to handle because there’s no obstacles that hold me back, I can say whatever I want to without having the worry of stuttering or anything like that. I feel like my blog is decent enough for a stranger to read some of my work. There’s not theme for it so I feel like people won’t like that about it. By that I mean not all of my blog posts have the same themes and attitudes.  I need to improve on writing more because when I run out of ideas I completely shut down and look for ways to end the blog instead of finding new ideas and keeping it going. I don’t think that I will be posting much on my blog after this semester, but if something happens that affects me that I feel needs more attention, I’ll write down my feelings on a blog post. I haven’t explored many professional bloggers in Edublogs, but I’ve definitely kept an eye on some of my peer’s works. I’ll check in once or twice when I have free time to see what the writers in my class this year (Creative Writing) have been writing about.

Part C:

Probably the biggest “Aha” from creative writing class was realizing how much of your writing could be better if you read. Developing your own style from reading other’s works helped me so much and I underestimated it. When we would walk to the river I had so much to write about just by walking there and back. As we kept going the same route every week I found myself bored with what I was seeing and realized that I was running out of ideas to write about. Writing in our notebooks helped me discover new ideas that I would use in my poems and stories. When Adam Dreece visited us I learned so much from his style in his stories. This semester from September I’ve read three novels. Now to someone that can read a book a week, that’s probably something that they’d be unimpressed with. For me I feel like I’ve done a good job, novels are the hardest for me because I cannot keep reading a book if it’s boring for me. I’ve switched from over 5 books this semester because the beginning was to boring for me when I was around 100 pages in. I write much more than I did 5 months ago and I go more in depth when I write. I plan to write on whatever I’m passionate about in the next year. If anything happens that impacts me personally, I’ll write about it. I’m not sure if I’ll be taking creative writing next year because my next year is my final year and I’m going to be focusing on my sciences because that’s the field I want to go into. If I think that I can handle all of those classes then I’ll be sure to take creative writing again.

Part D:

The author that I studied was Alan Moore, a famous comic book author. Moore incorporates dark and mature themes in his work and I’m trying to lean towards those as well. My short story that I handed in had a dark theme within the protagonist because he had a liking for drugs. My group and I chose Alan Moore because we feel like he doesn’t get the recognition that he deserves. Since he is a comic book author this limits his audience and it really shouldn’t. Alan Moore uses dark and mature themes and he isn’t afraid to go towards themes such as mental illness and terrorism. I learned from Alan Moore that when you’re writing a story had a back story to specific character to allow readers to connect them more instead of just describing who they are and what they look like. One of my emulations for his work: “Behind this mask there is more of flesh. beneath this mask there is an idea and ideas are bulletproof.” From this piece I was inspired by writing about Malala Yousafzai and her experience with the Taliban. “You’ve tried to take me down as much as you could and even when I was left with nothing but my ideas, I got up. My voice is spreading thorough countries, no the world. You can’t stop these ideologies, you can’t stop me. I’ll find a way to gain equality and a way to make you pay for what you’ve done to me, no to us.” Two of my classmates did J.K Rowling. They talked about her and one of her most famous works the Harry Potter series. I learned that most of her best lines and the action was in the middle of the book, and I usually quit reading books if the introduction isn’t appealing to me. I’m going to try to read the first book and everyone tells me that it was amazing, I finally want to experience her work for myself and learn about her writing style.

Part E:

Short Story: https://infinitecynosure.edublogs.org/2016/01/08/resolution/

The significance of the title is that resolution could mean a decision to do or not to do something and that’s the impression I want to give at the end of the story. At the end he has to make a decision and it ends there, to give the reader a sense of curiosity. In 17 words I would say, “New years eve, families celebrating, fireworks ascending. Someone lost, finally found. Hope. A decision will be made.” My purpose for this piece was to make the reader feel grateful about belonging into a family and not just being a part of one, which are two different things. The audience was for people in the age group 14 and over. I tried to add emphasis on some of the prominent parts of the story for example:  “Distant screeching of tires approached the man at a rapid speeds. A drunk driver.” I also made an attempt to show the reader that the protagonist didn’t care about anyone but himself in this line, “He came across a handful of nickels and dimes and proceeded to wipe the blood off of them.” I thought this piece was well written, but I could’ve added more to the story. Overall I think it was a strong piece and people who read it would enjoy it. This was inspired by The Sniper by Liam O’Flaherty.

A Poem: https://infinitecynosure.edublogs.org/2015/12/31/spoken-word-poem/

The title for this poem was Victims. I chose this to settle the mood for the poem and to represent what the poem was going to be about. I also used the word “Victim” in the end of the poem to keep that mood. In 17 words I would summarize it as, “Someone that nobody wanted to be, but was signed up for anyway without seeing the papers.” This would be to represent the victims of bullying and how they never wanted to experience what they had no say in. The audience was for kids in middle school because that’s where I feel like bullying becomes a problem, the purpose was to inform people about what could happen if they keep allowing bullying to occur. How far could they bully someone to such an extent to make them hate life everyday. This was influenced by what I’ve seen in the last 16 years in school and what I’ve experienced. “The problem with this society is you can not perceive this concealed agony who abuses me and will go to a certain degree, which will attempt to demolish, destroy and obliterate me” With this line I spoke faster all the way than normal and than paused and said me to add effect. This poem took me over 7 tries because I had to take out so many unnecessary words. I think this poem turned out great in the end and children in school should have the chance to read this.

A Non Fiction: https://infinitecynosure.edublogs.org/2016/01/02/privilege/

The title for this post was Privilege. This post was supposed to refer how we are so lucky to be living in a first world country. We are so lucky to be given a education, a home and food available to us, but these aren’t privileges. A privilege is a special right only given to a certain group of people. These are something that everyone in the world should be entitled to have no matter race, religion or gender. To summarize this in 17 words I’d say: “A lost minority that won’t be saved. Unknown to the world they live on. They live on.” The audience was in the age group of 14 and over because I want the world to know what’s going on and what can we do to help. This was inspired by when I saw this picture in creative writing, I had seen it before, but never had the idea to write my feelings about it, which lead me into a whole new perspective about this picture. This was a personal response to the picture regarding what I think about the photographer and the picture in general. I want more people to see this picture and I want them to know the story behind it and what the photographer did and how he felt taking the picture.

Free Choice: https://infinitecynosure.edublogs.org/2015/12/31/side-spoken-word-poem/

This was my attempt at my first spoken word the title of it was “Anxiety” because I hadn’t gotten too fancy with my titles because this was my first spoken word. The purpose for this poem was to show people that anxiety isn’t something you can say that you have just because you’re nervous in front of people presenting or such. Anxiety is much worse. Anxiety is worrying if you said the right thing or overthinking what you’re going to say to a person before even saying anything at all. I hear so many people misuse it and most people don’t even take it seriously. I would summarize this in 17 words by saying: “Burning feeling in your stomach, not butterflies, it’s painful. I’m not ready to be criticized, not yet.” What influenced this was what I said before, people not fully understanding anxiety and me having anxiety myself lead to that post. I used some similes and metaphors in that post for example, “Like an alarm clock in the morning, but only for me
Only this alarm is always on, even when I try to sleep” I feel like I could have portrayed anxiety much better if I had more time to work on that post, but with all the work and exams coming up, I’m not going to have a chance to revisit it any time soon.