Reflection+Letter

Brad Valentine Reflective Letter This course has been a great experience for me. I have learned so much about writing strategies, techniques, and the various types of genres. But what I have learned about my own writing is by far the most valuable aspect of this course. I have taken numerous writing courses throughout my collegiate career but feel I have come away from the course with the most knowledge. I am not attempting to underwrite the importance of my other writing courses, what I have learned about style and different disciplines in composing various pieces of text is extremely valuable and relevant to my future teaching career. But I have also discovered that if I don’t truly know myself as a writer and understand my own composing process nothing else matter. If I lack the ability to really assess not only my writings but myself as a writer none of the previous information that I have internalized is useful. This course has forced me for the first time to really look deeper at my writing process and analyze how I work as a writer. One of the biggest aspects of my writing process that I have analyzed most closely is the composing process. I realized I come up with my best ideas when I am not thinking about the writing directly. What I mean by this is I find I come up with my best ideas when I let my mind do a controlled wander. All though unbeneficial to my health I find smoking cigarettes is when I do my best thinking. The process I found that is very helpful to me is this…I will read the writing prompt or assignment over a few times so that I truly understand it, and instead of sitting in front of my computer or notepad and force the ideas out I will walk away from any writing materials. I will get my pack of smokes and head out to the porch. I found that while I sit and smoke, I have the assignment in the back of my mind but I am not directly thinking about the writing assignment thus not forcing any ideas. Then seemingly out of nowhere an idea will pop into my head. I will analyze the idea and think of what I can say about it. Sometimes I find myself thinking deeply about this idea while other times I find it a dead end. When this happens I throw it out and continue to let my mind wander. When an idea finally works I slowly follow connecting thoughts and link them into an overall idea. I then rush back into the house and feverishly write down any ideas that seem related to the topic. After this I will look at my note pad and organize my thoughts so that they make sense and follow the “paper form.” I then begin the writing. I am the type of writer who composes the entire piece at once. I do not often take breaks, and will usually write until the piece is completed. I find this works best for me because I feed off of my own writing, letting one thought lead directly into the next. I often times realize I am not following my original notes and will allow the piece to take on a life of its own. It’s almost as if the piece is writing itself and I am only the vehicle for the words to appear on the page. This process of writing was how I composed my unfamiliar genre piece. After tossing around many ideas for what genre to focus on, and coming up with nothing I liked, I was outside smoking and thinking of a response paper I had to write for another class in regards to John Milton’s //Paradise Lost.// I began to let my mind wander and thought about what would happen if Eve ate the apple willingly, and then the idea for the UFG project hit me; fan fiction for //Paradise Lost.// I completely disregarded the original assignment I was thinking about and focused my energy on retelling the epic poem with an alternate ending. I followed the process listed above as far as note taking goes and then conducted my research on the genre of fan fiction. Once I sat down to write I wrote the entire piece in one sitting. By letting one idea lead to the next, I found that my finished product took a very different direction then I had originally intended. I will be honest my revision process is and has always been very limited. Once I compose a piece of writing I will usually only change grammatical and spelling errors. This is not due to laziness, there is a reason for this, as strange as it may sound. I tend to think of my writings as a living extension of myself. I look at it as something that was created in the moment and has it’s own distinct qualities (good or bad) and I often feel like I am cheating myself when I tamper with something I have written (this has become a major issue in my creative writing, which I will explain a little later.) When I read something that I do not like instead of re working it I will save the piece and add it to my archive. Then it’s back to the porch with more cigarettes to start the entire process all over again until I write a piece that I am satisfied with. This class has taught me that this isn’t necessary. Following my line of thinking that a piece of writing is a living thing I have realized that all living things need nourishment to become healthy beings. So I realized that through revision I can provide the nourishment needed to create a healthy living piece of work. This can be seen best in my example of my expository piece. By asking for specific feedback I found that if I add onto the introduction and conclusion I can give my piece the reflective elements it was lacking. The expressive elements were already there and strong and didn’t need to be re worked. So by simply adding onto two paragraphs I made my writing more well-rounded and “healthy.” If I had followed my previous style of “revision” by just scrapping the piece I would have killed a great piece of writing that merely lacked a few elements. I am very thankful that I have realized that revision can save a great piece of writing. I began working on a fictional novella over a year and a half ago. And about one year ago I put the piece away. I felt that the story was too close to my heart for me to finish due to my lack of writing skills. The piece I am talking about is called //Viva La Gloria// and is the topic of my expressive and reflective example in this portfolio. All though I did not change this piece much the actual writing of it helped me immensely with the //Viva La Gloria// story. By writing about the agony and ecstasy of writing and focusing my topic on the inspiration involved in writing I found the courage and renewed inspiration to begin working on the story. The breakthrough I had concerning revision gave me the confidence to continue working on the piece. With the realization that it will not be perfect the first few times around as well the realization that revisions are o.k. I feel that the story will soon be completed, and this is a huge weight lifted from my shoulders. Sense I have been writing seriously (late high school) I have been aware that my strength as a writer is tone and voice. I feel this is best demonstrated in my expository piece on how to survive Saint Patrick’s Day at the bar. As my feedback notes said the tone is appropriate (serious and practical) and that it demonstrates authority. I feel the tone of the piece is also somewhat tongue in cheek, in that it offers advice for how to do something that shouldn’t really be done in the first place (binge drink.) this is a tone that I had set out to accomplish in order to give the informative piece a bit of humor. One of my biggest weakness as a writer comes about in my creative writing especially in longer forms of stories. I have always been great at creating well thought out characters as well as creating very climactic and important scenes. My issue is getting these characters and the story from scene to scene. I struggle with filler and dialogue. This can be seen in my re telling of //Paradise Lost.// The story jumps from scene to scene without much happening between the big scenes. I know that by reading more fiction this issue is often solved, but not in my case. I read a whole lot of fiction and still struggle with this aspect of my writing. I know this isn’t an issue that was covered in this class (it isn’t a creative writing class after all) but any advice or tools you have to offer would be greatly appreciated. All though I still have a far way to go to become an excellent writer I have definitely been able to see myself grow as a writer over the years. From my first creative writing class with Mr. Schnider my senior year; where I feel in love with writing to the completion of English 408 ten years later I have watched myself grow as a writer. I have developed many great skills and have shed many bad habits in regards to writing. This course has definitely played a large role in my understanding not only of the writing process but also understanding myself as a writer.