PART A: You, The Writer

Over the course of semester, I have learned so much more  in exploring creativity in my writing. Especially because I’ve had always struggled in english and felt insecure about my writing, and writing outside of my comfort zone, creative writing really helped me to try other forms, styles, and genres of writing that I think I would have never have tried before. For example, with poetry I never would have thought that I would actually enjoy reading and writing some form of poetry because I used to always struggle with analyzing poems, but in this class there is a lack of restriction and rules, so that I didn’t feel pressured or found that it was too demanding. Instead I thought it was a fun way to explore various ideas in broken fragments. I’ve never been exposed to poetry in this way, and that’s a genre of writing that I’m really keen on still trying and improving. I also think that I improved the way I choose to do structure now and have implemented those skills into my essays for english and noticed an advancement in my voice and ability to articulate well with precision and conciseness. In terms of grammar, I personally think it hasn’t changed too much and that’s mostly due to me practicing No Red Ink in first semester as well. For future creative writers I would just advise them to explore genres of writing and authors they’re not normally used to reading and writing about, because not only does that expand your creative flow of ideas, but it can make people ,such as myself, have an epiphany and find a new interest or even find out you have a strength or magic with a certain genre that you’ve never known before. My future goals regarding writing is to just be consistent and to keep trying to write outside of my comfort zone and really get familiar with what voice and style suits me the most.

 

 

PART B: You, The Blogger

I personally love the design of my blog and the modern style that it has. Also my blog title, because it represents an ideal that I really value in my life, which is embracing one’s imperfections, mistakes, failures, because they allow you to grow, be better and thrive which is the ultimate beauty of them. And to me that also relates to writing as well.

I know that there is no such thing as a perfect writer, and I don’t even come close to compare. But every time I get a piece back  with feedback or room for improvement, it makes me that much closer to being a better writer overall. In terms of how consistent I am with adding general posts and posts that I really wanted to explore unique topics in, there is definitely a lot of room for improvement in those areas. I should have been a lot more consistent with that to improve my blog because I don’t feel completely satisfied that it represents me.

As far as blogs that impress me, 3 that I loved checking from our class were:

Pragya: http://paromithaelleestlesluthscommencantlhymneduthepartingglass.edublogs.org/

Liam: http://vpollyon.edublogs.org/

 

Faryal: http://blissfullyunaware.edublogs.org/

I love the intricacy, complexity and uniqueness of the design and writing style in Pragya and Liam’s blogs. In Faryal’s blog, I just love how much thought and detail is associated within her writing, that it really evokes emotions as a reader and creates vivid imagery that I can picture.

I haven’t really thought about exploring any professional bloggers, but that’s something I’d being willing to check out in the future.    

PART C: You, The Student

There have been many “aha” moments that I have experienced in this class, but the one that stands out to me the most is the symbolic journey. Doing the symbolic journey for the first time was a fun and enlightening, but peculiar experience. I didn’t know what to expect or if I should believe everything that came from it, but it did further my curiosity and made me wonder/ re-evaluate my life every now and then. My personality, my choices, my views.  It helped me to reflect and see my perceptions in a unique way. It was a fun and creative of exploring the depths of the human mind and the possible imagery that can be created. 

This semester I have read,” A Thousand Splendid Suns,” by Khaled Hosseini, “Secret Daughter,” “Milk and Honey (poetry) by Rupi Kaur, and am currently reading, “And the Mountains Echoed.” I think out all of those, “A Thousand Splendid Suns” was the one that stood out to me the most. I love reading historical fiction, and on top of that, this novel was a perfect blend of showing the harshness of reality and evoking heart- wrenching emotions out of a reader that made this an unforgettable story. Reading has improved my writing in many ways.One, is that I am exposed to new vocabulary and so I learn more about proper diction and word choice. Another thing is that, reading just helped me to formulate ideas quicker. I’ve noticed when writing my essays now, whatever the prompt is , there is a certain style and structure of how I want to present my writing, and that comes easier to me than before, because of how reading just allows your brain to be exercised and for the flow of creative ideas to come naturally. 

My next step to improve as a writer, is again just to work on consistency with reading and writing. I want to explore new genres and authors that I don’t normally work with and allow myself to be open to new ideas that way.

PART D: You, The Fan

Writer Seminars really exposed me to various unique writers that made me keen on exploring. My favourite genres in reading are historical fiction, dystopian, fiction, and sometimes fantasy. For my Writer Seminar, we did JRR Tolkien. From this author I have read the Hobbit and one of The Lord of The Rings. When researching about him, and how his ideas for these books came from wanting an escape, and wanting to explore an unimaginable fantasy world, I thought it was very inspiring. Tolkien, basically created his own language for the creatures in his books to speak, such as Sindarin and Quenya, and that too me shows that there is no limit to exploring your creativity and what you’re capable of inventing. If I were to consider doing a different writer, I would definitely choose to do Khaled Hosseini. I’ve fully read 2 books of his and am reading a third one by him currently. He for sure lists as one of my top favourite authors of all time. I’m intrigued at how sophisticated but vulnerable and real his writing is. If there’s any writer that I intend to read more on, it would be Rupi Kaur because I have read her poetry books before and the topics that she covers in them, I find myself relating to them a lot which makes the reading a lot more enjoyable and interesting.

 

PART E: You, The Critic of Your Work

The piece that I am most proud of on my blog is the emulation from my writer’s seminar:

https://jijivisha.edublogs.org/writers-seminar/

Although this piece is short, it’s very meaningful to me in terms of the theme it explores. The overall jist of this piece is how everyone is born with a unique fire that is there for different reasons. I associated the idea of fire as one’s courage and confidence and how sometimes we feel that our confidence is lacking or we lose a sense of self-assurance, but that doesn’t mean that it will never come back. When we learn to love ourselves first, and  are surrounded by the people we love, as well as our passions, it’s possible for that fire to emerge again. This piece means a lot to me, just because it’s something that I can relate to, in terms of having an insecurity that I can’t overcome or having an irrational fear out of my own self- doubt or low self-esteem. Epiphanies that I had when working on this, are all the metaphors and personifications that can relate to a fire being deemed as courage, which helped to make this piece overall more creative. This was also something that I personally felt satisfied with, which doesn’t happen very often in my writing, and I don’t know if it’s because it means something valuable to me or because fragmented writing is a style that I have not yet delved into before this, and I was pretty satisfied for my first time.

 

The second piece I am most proud of is my about me:

https://jijivisha.edublogs.org/about-me/

I think the reason I felt proud and satisfied with this piece was because it was my first post for creative writing and trying a style that was very different for me. It was surprising that I was able explore parts of myself in this particular style and format. It was just a perfect way to express myself through my writing and confess feelings and emotions that I don’t usually like to talk about or feel insecure about. So the chance to have this piece and release it for it to be publicly seen was scary because I’m allowing others in to how I can truly feel versus how they would typically perceive me, but at the same time it felt like a huge weight had been lifted from me, as if it were an escape or release.