
When I started developing this project I had a very clear vision: it would be divided into 3 parts (my intro, works I’ve used as inspiration, and my own work) and that would be it. But, as with pretty much everything in life, thing’s didn’t quite go as planned.
I started writing my introductory piece, but something felt off. I realized that in order to talk about the things I had outlined, I actually had to go back further – I couldn’t just talk about writing commercial storylines on long car rides without talking about the ad that ever inspired me to start writing them in the first place, and I definitely couldn’t talk about the significance of that ad in my life without giving deeper context. In short, I ended up writing a lot more than I expected.
Even more surprising, this project, which was originally pretty straight forward and relatively dry, has completely taken a new form. Rather than having three distinct yet related parts, I think I’m going to write one long personal essay in which all of the elements I wanted to touch on flow into each other. I’m still going to include a section which showcases my work, but I’ve realized that I want to put a greater emphasis on this personal essay.
I really have to thank Eva for this revelation; she shared her course pack with me from a previous writing class, and suggested I read a work called “Confluences.” I was absolutely blown away by the beauty of the author’s writing, and was inspired to rewrite my original piece. While my first draft was fairly dry and filled with cliches — something I’m really striving to overcome in my writing — my second draft is a piece I am much more proud of. Although it’s unfinished, I feel reinvigorated about my project, and am excited to see where it goes as I read more works from the course pack. Thank you again, Eva.
Additionally, I have to thank Sydni for her advice today because she helped me imagine what my final site will actually look like. The issue with my project, since I’m only planning to write out the storylines rather than produce them, is that there aren’t a ton of opportunities for me to include pictures or artwork. I am planning to imbed the video that inspired me to start writing, and I’m going to hyperlink any other videos I mention as well, but beyond that I was worried my page would seem pretty bland. Sydni suggested, however, that I include images of my work over the years. Even if these are pictures of abandoned projects or scribbled notes, it would be interesting to see my progression over time, and would provide the visual element I feared I would lack.
Beyond that, I don’t really have any more updates, but I’m interested to see how my project continues to change over the next couple of weeks.
P.S. I know the images I’ve been including in these posts may seem random, but I’ve just picked a couple of the ones I’ve stumbled upon through my research that I thought were interesting, so hopefully you guys appreciate them too.