Author: Kelly Crosson

After a long semester of hard work and strenuous editing, my ePortfolio has finally arrived. It was certainly a long process getting to this point but what a rewarding journey it was. I walked into the Minor in Writing hoping to find a conveniently placed haven right in the middle of my school day, a time for me to be alone with myself on paper. I found that haven and more. For the first time since I’ve truly enjoyed writing I began to workshop my pieces with other people. As we grew attached to each other’s work, it made it easier to ask for feedback in order to make my writing the best it could be.

In the simplest of ways, I have grown this semester because I can now comfortably call myself a writer. I officially study writing in school and therefore by default I am in fact a writer. It took me some time to become one with this identifier but now that I have, I fully embrace all that it implies.

Between now and the capstone, I hope to grow the narrative I created with my re-purposing piece. Perhaps maybe I’ll even find myself with a small collection of essays that can be packaged together. I want to explore submitting my work from Gateway to other publications.

So here we are, the end of the semester.  I find myself on the cusp of a new reality as I prepare to study in the UK for the next six months. On my travels I hope to keep extensive records by way of blogging. Maybe I’ll even add a blog feed to my ePortfolio.

All in all I’m beyond proud of what I’ve created.

In comparison to Didion and Orwell’s Why I Write pieces, Sullivan explores the dynamics of blogging. Sullivan describes a “spontaneous expression of instant thought,” in comparison to heavily edited and developed essays for print. Sullivan doesn’t necessarily address why he writes but more why he chooses to blog. The medium gives him a new way to express his ideas, to leave them open to interpretation and critique from all readers. He sees the instant and un-proofread process as a drug a stark comparison to the world of essays and columns he used to reside in. The value of realtime writing and interaction is extremely vital to Sullivan’s overall process of writing, leaving himself and his work vulnerable to conceptual info or all out negative comments.

While I believe Sullivan argues for a medium, Didion and Orwell describe overall motive for writing. While I didn’t necessarily align myself with Orwell’s reasons for writing he made a good point that the job of a writer is to make sure a bad mood is not incessantly penetrated throughout all works. The job of a writer is to make sure that our emotional attitudes evolve with the times, to prevent ourselves from remaining immature about the past. I think my overall goal throughout the minor is to work at my emotional attitude, to ensure that I’m not only improving in my technical skills as a writer but that I am evolving as a young adult. Despite the past that I’ve lived and the past that I’ve used as inspiration for much if not all of my work it is important that I don’t let my past define me. As I write I hope I write to an understanding where I can mature and become more comfortable in my own skin. I hope to write about the present in a way that isn’t shadowed from my attitude and reflection on the past. The storm cloud should not follow me as I continue to make my way to graduation.

Since I’ve been extremely preoccupied focusing on the repurposing draft and now the remediation mock up, I haven’t had much time to even dwell on the larger assignment of the eportfolio as a whole. In an elective course last year, I took Writing 200, in which I had the opportunity to create my very first eportfolio. This very class and assignment led me to discover my interest in the writing minor in the first place. I had never before been told to personify myself on a webpage in any manner that I please; the task was daunting and one that I worked on throughout the entirety of the semester. From this experience, I have learned what I want to keep and what I want to avoid in this edition of an eportfolio. In my initial template I wanted to focus on the words, in order to avoid other forms of media from taking away attention from what I believed to be the main attraction. From reading this section of Writer/Designer I have learned that there are actually in fact many other additions that can only help increase the message of my words rather than hinder as I had initially been led to believe.

By making my eportfolio interactive, with videos or moving images, I will be able to give a more understandable and approachable description of what my eportfolio is about—me. Seeing as my intended audience is people my own age, a generation that relies on internet interactivity, it is essential to master this balance.

In regards to my remediation project— this is where I anticipate the hardest and most extensive revision process. For my remediation project I have chosen to take on a screenplay, something I have never before explored. Typically I tend to stick within my comfort zone when writing, so this will certainly be an interesting experiment. This chapter gave me comfort in understanding that everyone will have a lengthy revision process. It is going to be essential for me to rely on the feedback of my peers in order to best achieve my goal with this project.

When it came time to submit my repurposing draft, I was initially extremely concerned about how my peers would receive my work. I usually don’t share it for others’ viewing until I’m 100% confident in my work, but I had no choice but to hand over a shitty first draft. While I knew that I wanted to keep my piece in the creative non-fiction genre, I had no idea that the ending point I ended up concluding with would have even made it into the piece. What I thought would be a distinct expanded narrative based on a five minute segment of my life turned into a reflection about what brought me to that very moment, referencing several incidents over the course of my lifetime. While I ended up satisfied with the direction that it took, one that referenced events of the past, I definitely think I need to work on the narrative aspect more. This overall was the main critique I received from my peers; while they were moved by the overall theme my narrative represented it seemed more like a personal essay than creative nonfiction.

As the re-purposing project goes on, I want to really hone my skills on crafting a narrative that is true to my life, depicting how the events unfolded in as much detail as I can muster, perhaps even including dialogue from the other players that were present. While I certainly have a overall lesson that is hidden between the lines of my writing, I don’t want to make it too obvious to prevent it from being too preachy. It is in that sense that I hope humor or perhaps just a light-heartedness shines through. It’s not this sad, sad moment of depression that I want my readers to wade through but rather to find the humor in it, or just how I personally see it after that fact. Even in the face of daunting and depressing realities I was always hung up by the more superficial of problems.

The other advise I received was about deciding whether it should be humorous or more serious. I don’t necessarily think I need to decide one or the other, I think I can find a place for both if I do it correctly. I certainly need to work on my craft, amending my typical style to include a stronger narrative while also making sure my voice stays authentic. At the end of the day, what is most important to me is that once my reader has finished they conclude that no one else could have written my story but me. Hopefully as I continue to draft I will find my stride. I certainly want to expand on the original event depicted in my first two paragraphs while also temporarily shedding the spotlight on prior experiences that foreshadowed towards the ultimate battle.

After much debate, I finally settled on a creative non-fiction short story for my re-purposing project. Trying to write my own life into a narrative and greater story line has been more challenging than expected. While still writing in the first person as I would typically do in any other personal essay, I have been struggling to finesse my language and dialogue in order to lengthen the overall point and draw in the reader’s interest. It is difficult to step outside of myself and write about perhaps the simplest of events in a more interesting and dynamic manner that a short story demands.

The other day I finally sat down and attempted to start out my first shitty first draft. It took me a while but I finally constructed a paragraph, but I spent wayyyy too much time editing the words the second after I put them on the page. I would like to try to let my consciousness flow more and edit later, in order to prevent my compulsion for perfection from censoring my creative flow. I think so far the most success I’ve found in the project is my success as starting out my piece right smack in the middle of the main event. In order to get myself there, I crafted a typically introduction and after some consultation, simply deleted the context that had come before the meat of the paragraph.

Overall I hope to continue to power through the difficulties that come with constructing a narrative, trying my best to save the editing for later in order to access thoughts that might not have otherwise been given the opportunity to sit on the page.