Week 8 Reading and Writing
Looking back over the reading and writing assignments of the past few weeks, I'm pretty satisfied with my progress. I noticed that my stories have gotten a lot more confident; I'm more willing to tap into my literary side and bring some writing elements of my favorite kinds of books into my own writing. At first, it felt very strange, and somehow almost egotistical, to write and publish fiction for all the world (but in reality probably just this class is reading this, and maybe a couple of other people) to see. But the more I write, the less strange it feels. I've always liked writing and reading; my favorite class in high school was freshman year English, and to this day the teacher I had for that class is one of my favorite people (hey, Mrs. Gross!). When I came to college, however, my writing ended up being either school-related, and therefore decidedly non-fiction and mostly research-based or just me writing for myself in my journal. It has been a great experience so far stepping out of my comfort zone.
My favorite reading for this class so far has been the Jewel of Heart's Desire: The Quest, for which I wrote my story last week. There was just something so powerful about that story to me, and I found Tamatori a really compelling character. I try to use my notes to help me write these stories, and my notes are normally focused around either elements of the story that I loved or elements that baffled me. I think so far I've been pretty good at incorporating those elements, either writing the story to fill in gaps I thought were missing in the original, or to emphasize a character I thought didn't get enough attention, or to bring out the details that I loved. I've noticed a big theme in my writing is the characters' inner emotional processes. I like looking at a character and trying to figure out their motivations, and then in the stories I try to emphasize those potential motivations by bringing in a lot of introspection from the POV of the character.
So far, I'm very happy with the reading and writing assignments for this class, and am grateful for the opportunity to explore another side of myself, the fiction writer, which had previously been totally unexamined on my part. I think going forward in this class, I should continue pushing myself to try new styles and perspectives in my stories.
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| Artistic rendering of St. Cecilia. I choose this image because I just think it is so beautiful, and because she's my namesake. (Source: Regina Magazine) |
My favorite reading for this class so far has been the Jewel of Heart's Desire: The Quest, for which I wrote my story last week. There was just something so powerful about that story to me, and I found Tamatori a really compelling character. I try to use my notes to help me write these stories, and my notes are normally focused around either elements of the story that I loved or elements that baffled me. I think so far I've been pretty good at incorporating those elements, either writing the story to fill in gaps I thought were missing in the original, or to emphasize a character I thought didn't get enough attention, or to bring out the details that I loved. I've noticed a big theme in my writing is the characters' inner emotional processes. I like looking at a character and trying to figure out their motivations, and then in the stories I try to emphasize those potential motivations by bringing in a lot of introspection from the POV of the character.
So far, I'm very happy with the reading and writing assignments for this class, and am grateful for the opportunity to explore another side of myself, the fiction writer, which had previously been totally unexamined on my part. I think going forward in this class, I should continue pushing myself to try new styles and perspectives in my stories.
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