This is a five-part reflection (the second in a trilogy spanning three years) regarding my progress and development as a person and in the different aspects of my identity, from September 2016 to January 2017. Over the course of the five months that this reflection spans, I have grown significantly. I believe I am coming out into the New Year as a better person, and I hope you enjoy reading about my development!
Part A: Me, the Writer
This part of the reflection details how I have developed as a writer.
Five months ago, my writing identity was fairly diverse. I loved to write short stories, poems, essays, and had even begun to experiment with script writing over the summer. While fiction writing appealed to me, I really took a liking to writing non-fictional pieces, especially when it came to Spoken Word poems (which I also loved to write.) My style was lyrical and abstract, with the majority of my pieces being riddled with symbols and metaphorical language. When coupled with the complex diction and syntax that was characteristic of my writing, it often took several reads and painstaking analysis for most people to truly understand my writing.
Now, my writing identity has taken on new qualities. Last year, the biggest thing I was able to overcome was learning to write with my heart and my mind instead of purely from my mind. This year, the biggest thing changing for me is that I’m working on making my writing style more accessible and relatable – and I am making great strides in this goal. I would say my writing identity has evolved in that I am now able to write with Say, Mean, and Matter – and by that, I mean I’m not starting off in an esoteric, complex place. Rather, I am starting at the beginning, planning my work, and then following through by adding in my layers of style afterwards. While, of course, I am still working towards getting better at this, I have definitely improved to the point where my writing has become significantly less daunting for my readers and has become more relatable.
As well, my writing has changed in terms of the processes I go through before I can declare a piece to be polished. I did use to edit the things I wrote, but I would go through and make changes in the original draft, thereby erasing what I had initially written. Now, I make new drafts for all of my edits so that I can look back on the process and trace my decisions between the original and the final drafts. This may not seem like a big deal – and in the grand scheme of things, it isn’t – but for me, it has really revolutionised how I write. By creating new drafts each time I go back and edit, I am able to make sure I never edit myself away from the original idea, and that my mind never gets so carried away with style that I forget the message my heart first poured out onto the paper. This used to be an issue for me and was probably one of the reasons I struggled so much last year with keeping my writing emotional instead of logical. My new editing process has helped me a lot with this and has thereby changed my writing identity positively.
Each of the areas of ideas, details, structure, voice & style, and GUMPS has developed and improved within my writing this year – some more than others – but each irrevocably and in positive ways.
In terms of ideas, I have found that I am able to find inspiration more easily than I was at the beginning of this year. Even though I already improved in this area from last year – beginning in a place where it was very difficult for me to find an idea I liked and ending up in a place where I was able to find inspiration from things like emulations and visuals – I really feel like I am now able to find inspiration from a wider selection of sources, rather than just from prompts. It’s as if everywhere I look, there is something that can be made into a writing piece. This year I have been especially influenced by nature, which has inspired pieces such as The Vanity Ventriloquist, My Nature Series (which currently consists of My Sky, My Sea, and My Landscape), Evanescence, and Porcelain Berry Vines.
I have always been a detail-oriented writer, both in the sense that my writing contains a lot of detail and in the sense that my writing process is meticulous down to the last detail. However, this year I have really been able to let go of things and relax a little in my perfectionism. While at the beginning of the year, I was entirely ruled by my adherence to specific orders and rules when writing and assessing the quality of my writing, I have now learned to let go of some of these things, allowing myself more creative freedom. In the other sense of the word “detail”, I think I have improved in the amount of detail I integrate into my writing. While I personally like to have lots of detail in the things I read and write, most other readers prefer a different sort of balance when it comes to details. I think I have improved in my ability to scale back on detail, but it is definitely still something I have to work at.
The structure of my writing has also improved, though not drastically. I used to have a tendency to write rather long, and chunky paragraphs that weren’t very engaging because they did not allow my readers any moments of pause. I have definitely learned the power of paragraphing; shorter paragraphs are an easy way to make writing more interesting because it gives the readers time to breathe and is less unappealing because it isn’t so formidable.
My voice and style would be the biggest thing that has changed. It is best seen in my poetry – if you compare a poem I wrote last year, for example, Fluid Rock (To be Shaped), to a poem I’ve written last month (Arcipluvian), you’ll be able to see the difference. I have made my writing much more relatable and accessible, and I have moved away from complexity so intense that it confuses and discourages my readers. I know that I don’t need to prove my intelligence through my writing, and I know that I can’t distance myself from the humanity of my topics, or I will never be able to improve. My voice has become much clearer now that I have been able to rid myself of excessive detail and esoteric metaphors. My style has improved too, because I have now been able to find a cleaner balance between stylistic choices and the basic elements of writing, like plot and characters.
My GUMPS have changed very little. I can say that I have improved with things like punctuation use, but other than that, I feel that I am just as proficient as I was at the beginning of the year. Overall, my GUMPS tend to be consistent in their precision.
I would describe my voice as being honest and exploratory. While I have always tried to be honest when writing about my beliefs or my character’s beliefs, I can see that the maturity of my voice has evolved. I can tell because I used to be so strong in my convictions that I would write in absolutes without leaving any room for interpretation. Now, I am better able to see that there are an indefinable number of perspectives one could take on a particular topic – and I no longer think it is right to completely restrict these points of view. That isn’t to say that there isn’t a time and a place for writing in absolutes, depending on the piece. However, it is no longer something that is consistent with me. My voice now changes depending on the piece I write, sometimes leaving things free to interpretation, and sometimes looking to control where the reader’s thoughts end up. Because I now prefer to explore topics rather than define them, I would say this has changed my voice in a positive way.
As well, I have been finding that my voice is less guarded and more open to emotion. I think I am less scared of who I am this year, and I am less scared of what people think of me. I feel more inclined to be open in my writing because I no longer feel I have to protect myself against the pathos that might come out if I don’t restrict it. I’ve really learned to let go of things this year, especially after a summer that I spent trying to control everything. This has manifested itself in my voice, and once again I think this is a positive thing.
Something that is stylistic of me is my lyricism. I’ve been able to balance it better with clarity this year, but it wouldn’t be my writing if it wasn’t imaginative and layered in this way. It’s a quality of my style that I am quite fond of because it allows me to layer in different meanings. Because lyricism is something that people tend to either love or hate, I don’t expect everyone to like this about my writing. I am definitely trying to tone it down for those people on the ‘hate’ end of the spectrum, but it is characteristic of my writing and it is something that I love – so it won’t really be going anywhere.
Another thing that is stylistic of my writing is the way I design many of my pieces. A good example of this my tendency to write dualities into my pieces. This is something fairly recent and has only really become popular with me in the last few months. You can see this in pieces like Rust and Stardust, The Vanity Ventriloquist, in all of the My Nature short stories, in Arcipluvian, and in Flame and Frost. All of these pieces either explore a topic from two different perspectives, contrast two different perspectives, or discuss the meanings behind two different symbols. Last year, I found that I wrote things in threes quite often, and now I am moving into writing my pieces in twos. The way I design my pieces is a part of my style because it is all done intentionally in order to achieve a particular effect.
The advice I would give to future creative writers is that you can’t expect yourself to be perfect right away, or ever for
that matter. I’ve spent a very long time trying to control everything so it all turns out the way I want, and I can promise you that it just doesn’t work. When it comes to writing, you have to let go of any expectations you have of yourself – and just write. Even if you end up producing something that you don’t like, at least you created something. That’s more than most people can say. Don’t expect that you’ll be brilliant every time, and don’t try to be brilliant every time. Writing is a process, and it’s a learning opportunity. For every five not-so-good pieces, there will be a good piece that comes out of it because of all the things you tried before, even if they didn’t work.
Another thing I would give out as advice is that you have to read in order to be a good writer. There is literally no way that you can improve if you don’t read because you won’t have anything to learn from or compare your writing to. When you read, read consciously. Try to notice different techniques the authors or poets use, and if you find lines that you like, write them down so you can figure out why you like them, and then use that style in your own writing.
My future goals and plans regarding writing are simple: I will keep writing. Writing has been my life ever since I can remember, and I can’t even imagine a future scenario in which I would give that up for anything. I write every day and all the time because it is my favourite thing to do (although reading is a close second). I plan to take Creative Writing and Advanced Placement English again next year, and I will continue to submit poems and short stories for publication in anthologies and on other blogs. I plan to integrate writing into whatever career I choose, and I will make sure that I write professionally in the future alongside my day-job. I used to be certain that I would become a novelist, but I’m not so picky anymore. Whether my writing takes me to poetry, screenwriting, short stories, novels, plays, or doesn’t even make it out of my notebook, I don’t really care. As long as I am writing somewhere, I will be happy.
Part B: Me, the Blogger
This part of the reflection details how I have developed as a blogger and as a reader of blogs.
At the beginning of the year, I was out of practice with using my blog. Even though last year I loved working with my blog and even though I kept up with it throughout second semester and the summer, I somehow fell out of love with blogging. Without the incentive of knowing that people were going to read my writing – and therefore being motivated to make my writing the best it could possibly be – I became less invested in my blog, and to some extent let it go. This is the place that I was at in September.
Now, I can safely say that I have fallen back in love with my blog. Knowing that my work is going to be read when I put it up on my blog makes me work that much harder to make it worthy of my readers’ eyes. Something I realised last year but have rediscovered over these past few months is that my blog is powerful. There is something enthralling about the stage, even the quiet and unassuming stage of the blog. I think the biggest reason, however, that I am so much more invested in blogging now than I was at the beginning of the year is that I am not blogging alone. I love that I am able to see the works of my classmates and learn from their brilliance. I am honoured to have my writing sit among the writing of my peers, and I feel so whole when I look at everything we’ve put up as a class. I am humbled to be a part of something so spectacular.
I would critique my blog by saying that I need to work on the images I select for my blog posts. Because I was trying to move towards making my writing more accessible and less symbolic, this year I tried to pick images that were more symbolic (to compensate) so that they would have real significance and meaning. However, often times this means that my images are unrelatable and take away from my writing more than they add to it because people don’t understand why I selected them or what they mean. In future posts, I will try to find images that are more relatable and less symbolic, and I will also limit the number of images that I use so they don’t become overwhelming in their numbers. On the other hand, I think that I have done a good job of organising my blog and of choosing a theme that allows me to do things like have Featured Posts and a continual slideshow. I consider my blog to be aesthetically pleasing and it has as a comprehensive sidebar. The overall cleanness and ease of access is something that I think I have done well with on my blog.
I will be keeping my blog running for sure. I know that last time I tried to keep my blog running outside of the first semester, I was able to do so, but it became less of something I wanted to do and more of something I felt I had to do because I didn’t want to leave my blog empty for too long. The reason that I had limited success last year when I tried to keep my blog running outside of the second semester (as I mentioned before) was because I knew that no one was going to be reading what I posted, and so I lost some of my driving motivation. This year, I will not fall into that same trap, because I have asked my parents to occasionally check my blog throughout the rest of the year to see where I’m at. Knowing that there will be eyes on my blog is motivation for me to keep my writing at a higher standard and for me to keep posting regularly.
There are a few student blogs that I will continue to follow which include:
- Emily – The Darkness Buried Within … this writer has really caught my eye because of her subject matter. I could never write the way she does, and none of the other people whose blogs I usually follow ever have anything like this. I get chills down my spine every time I read one of her pieces, and her ability to make her writing very real for the reader is something that I admire in her.
- Alysha – Melodies of a Broken Music Box … every time I visit this blog, I find myself getting lost in this writer’s poetry. There is something so honest but graceful in the way she writes, and I am constantly humbled by what she comes up with.
- Hope – Poems a Dead Girl Wrote … this writer has a series of flash poetry that has been ongoing for a while. I’ve been following the series all year, and I am always thoroughly impressed by what she comes up with. Each of the poems stands alone beautifully, but when you read them consecutively, you can also see the themes that weave themselves throughout the series. I really like the bold unexpectedness of this writer, and I am always floored by her ability to put a spin on things that seem ordinary and simple.
This semester, I haven’t explored a lot of new professional blogs, except for one:
The Purple Fig … this blog is one that I have been following since the summer but is now even more important to me because a friend of mine was recently published on it. The Purple Fig is interesting because it publishes all different kinds of material, so I am never bored by what comes up and I consistently enjoy the content.
Part C: Me, the Student
This part of the reflection details how I have developed as a student of my Creative Writing class.
The biggest epiphany I had in my Creative Writing class this semester happened when we were working on Personal Response writing. I always understood the theory behind Personal Responses – you had to use both the text and the prompt to create a piece of your own, which incorporates aspects from both the ‘parents’ to create the Personal Response ‘child.’ Despite that, I had never really been able to get the hang of Personal Responses until we did an activity as a class where we were given an already-written piece and just had to integrate the text and prompt into it. It was at that point that something just clicked for me, and I was able to do Personal Response writing from then on. Something about consciously trying to incorporate the ‘parents’ into my ‘child’ when I wasn’t in an exam setting and there was no pressure turned out to be very helpful.
As a reader, I think I have grown over the course of this first semester. My Fall Reading Ladder fell 8 pages short of 
how well I did last year, but my Winter Reading Ladder is doing well so far. Lately, I have taken to reading Robert M. Drake poetry, which is new for me because I tend to like lyrical poetry better than the raw, short poems that R. M. Drake tends to write. However, I think that appeals to me more now because I’ve been finding myself incredibly busy, and with very little free time on my hands, I can only really afford to spend a few minutes on poetry a day. R. M. Drake is perfect for this, because most of his poems are short and simple, meaning I can get through them quickly and still get my daily dose of poetry. While I would prefer to be reading the lyrical poems that I crave, I don’t have enough time to read them because they are long and take a lot of thought. In that way, my reading identity has evolved, because I never used to read poets like R. M. Drake.
My plan for what to read next comes in the form of goals and a long list of novels, short stories, and plays that I eventually want to get through. My goal is to get through at least six novels, three plays, and however many short stories I want by the end of Term 3. These novels, short stories, and plays may be selected as the term progresses or may be chosen from the following list: I Am Malala (Malala Yousafzai), Sense and Sensibility (Jane Austen), The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini), Anthony and Cleopatra (William Shakespeare), The Bean Trees (Barbra Kingsolver), All The Light We Cannot See (Anthony Doerr), Tom Sawyer (Mark Twain), The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald), Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte), Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury), Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain), The Hero’s Walk (Anita Badami), The Tempest (William Shakespeare), The Cellist of Sarajevo (Stephen Gallaway), The Importance of Being Earnest (Oscar Wilde), The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (James Thurber), On a Rainy River (Tim O’Brien),The Glass Roses (Aldan Nowlan), Flowers in the Attic Series (V. C. Andrews), Shawshank Redemption (Stephen King), and One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (Ken Kesey).
Jane Eyre is the best book I’ve read this semester; I loved it so much that I reread it twice. This story was unbelievably compelling, and Jane as a character was so complete and relatable that when I finished the novel, I 
simply could not let go of her, instead opting to reread it. While I found the beginning to be a bit slow the first time I read it, it became clear to me when I reread it that everything was set up with intention. I really loved that Jane’s growth and maturation was so tangible, making her a character who really resonated with me. The love story, of course, was thrilling – I honestly found myself falling in love with Mr Rochester to the point where Jane’s choice to leave him caused me real anguish. Other things I loved were the setting and the symbolism. It was incredibly clever, in my opinion, that Bronte had Jane change locations every time her emotional capacity matured, having her only stay in one place long enough to learn a lesson, and staying until she had grown as a person enough to leave. I also appreciated that Bronte had an indoor and outdoor location for each setting so as to demonstrate freedom vs. confinement and society vs. nature. In regards to symbolism, the biggest thing that captured my mind was the interplay between fire and ice throughout the novel. These symbols are used both to illustrate companionship vs. isolation as well as passion vs. reason – and I must say that this idea really stuck with me, even after I had closed the book the second time, inspiring me to the point where I wrote a blog post about it. Overall, Jane Eyre is undoubtedly the best book I have read this semester and has become an all-time favourite of mine.
Reading improves my writing by giving me something to aspire towards, by inspiring me to write, and by showing me the styles of different writers. Books like Jane Eyre or Frankenstein are so well-written and so intentionally designed that it would be impossible for me not to be in awe of them. Every time I open a book and read, I learn something new from that writer’s style, and so I receive the opportunity to try and incorporate elements of their writing into my own style. I believe that reading has been essential to the development of my writing identity because it is in seeing the masterpieces others have created that I become inspired to do the same.
To reiterate some things I have already touched on, the biggest things I have accomplished as a writer include learning how to balance my lyricism with clarity and learning to begin with a “Say” foundation before layering in the “Meaning” and “Matter.” Again, these are things that I am still working on and will be developing on an ongoing basis, yet my progress is undeniable. I’ve been able to see a huge change in these areas; for example, when I was tasked with writing a Spoken Word poem last year, I ended up writing five. I did this because each time I finished a poem, I realised that it was too stylistic and not relatable enough – so I continued making new ones. It wasn’t until my fifth try that Angel’s Wings was born. This year, however, I was better able to incorporate emotion and a human story into my writing. Holding Breath in a Room Full of Air is a Spoken Word I wrote this year, and its relatability and level of clarity is a huge step forward for me from a time when I had to write five poems before I could get to that same place. I found that the trick was to not become invested in stylistic elements until I had already established a simple, relatable base.
Moving forward with writing, I want to find at least fifteen minutes every day where I can just sit and write. Even if I’m not in the mood or even if everything I produce is awful, I still believe there is value in getting it out on paper. Moving forward, I’ll be putting an emphasis on scriptwriting because next semester I have the opportunity through Drama 20 to develop myself as a playwright. Script writing is something that I have only partially explored, so I am excited to learn more about it. I expect that the next thing I will write will be a monologue or a short story because I want to focus more on characterization in preparation for scriptwriting.
I will undoubtedly take Creative Writing again next year. Through this course, I have learned so much about myself as a writer and as a human being. Our Creative Writing class has become a safe place for me, where I can be myself and not worry about judgement. I feel confident when I share my writing because I know that no matter what, the people around me will be supportive. The honesty in the classroom is wonderful because I have gotten constructive criticisms that have helped me to be better aware of myself and ultimately become more mature. I love the environment of the Creative Writing class, but I also just love writing so much that I could never give it up. This class lets me do what I love, and allows me to be in a space with like-minded people who are as infatuated with the written word as I am.
Part D: Me, the Fan
This part of the reflection details how I have developed as a fan of professional writers, and explains my experience with Writer’s Seminars. (Writer’s Seminars are presentations done on various writers.)
Being able to study published writers through Writer’s Seminars has definitely changed and improved my writing. Especially because of the emulations we write, I have been able to better understand the specific stylistic devices that writers employ to enhance their work. It’s one thing to study rhetorical elements and understand their uses, but to see them in action was really valuable because I was able to see how they are used successfully as part of a larger picture. Writer’s Seminars have also improved my writing because they have introduced me to new ways of writing. For example, the Writer’s Seminar done on Rupi Kaur was an inspiration because it was the first time I saw flash poetry done in a way that I could see myself using.
Some of the style and craft decisions that have influenced my final pieces were things I picked up from Writer’s Seminars. This often happens in subtly and is hard to exemplify. However, it can be clearly seen, for example, that Laurie Halse Anderson’s stylistic choice to capitalise certain words that were of importance to her character in Speak has influenced my decision to do the same in My Landscape, wherein I capitalise the names of my four “fatal flaws.”
I did my Writer’s Seminar on R. M. Drake, a relatively unknown poet who became famous by posting excerpts of his poems and short stories on Instagram. I was introduced to R. M. Drake by my Seminar partner, but I am glad we chose him as our writer because he has really opened my mind to a new type poetry, one that is raw and simple, but beautiful and honest.
I would consider many other writers as possibilities for my future Writer’s Seminars. These people include but are not limited to Walt Whitman, Jane Austen, Madeline L’Engle, Christopher Paolini, Margaret Atwood, and Alice Munro. I am interested in these writers either because they have some significance in my life (I love or used to love them) or because they are inspirational for me.
Through Writer’s Seminars, the genres that have interested me the most are Historical Fiction and the literary genre of poetry, specifically narrative poems. It was the Writer’s Seminar for Tatiana de Rosnay that really solidified my appreciation for Historical Fiction, likely because Sarah’s Key combined the past and the present in order to create something that was relatable and engaging. As for poetry, my love for it is nothing new, but after the Edgar Allan Poe Seminar, I found that I really did like narrative poetry, which was an interesting discovery for me. I found that narrative poetry was a compelling cross between my two favourite things to write: poems and short stories.
I’ve learned lots from the writers in our Seminars. As I’ve mentioned earlier, their use of rhetorical devices in their pieces was helpful for me, and as well was the opportunity to emulate the works of different writers, which gave me the opportunity to “try on” elements of their style. Even if I didn’t like that particular writer’s style, it was still valuable for me because there was something to learn from each and every one of those writers. Another thing I learned – from writers like Rupi Kaur, R. M. Drake, and Laurie Halse Anderson in particular – is the power of simplicity. It is in part because of them that I am working towards more simplicity and clarity in my own writing. As well, I have been inspired to write new kinds of things because of Writer’s Seminars. For example, I am not a person who is deeply religious, but because of Seminars on Rumi, I was better able to understand the difference between being religious and being spiritual. This has inspired several pieces – all works in progress – that explore my relationship with God and with nature.
While I do not have a polished piece that emulates the style of a writer from our Seminars, I do have a piece that was inspired by my own Writer’s Seminar, entitled Holding Breath in a Room Full of Air.
I do intend to continue reading the works of the writers we studied through our Seminars; I have already read lots of R. M. Drake and Rupi Kaur, and I have re-read Sarah’s Key and have read A Secret Kept, both by Tatiana de Rosnay. I fully intend to read Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, and I would also like to read more from Edgar Allan Poe and Rumi.
Part E: Me, the Critic of My Work
This part of the reflection details how which I have developed as a critic of my own work, and will describe my thought processes on writing my short story The Vanity Ventriloquist, my poem Holding Breath in a Room Full of Air, and my free choice short story My Landscape.
My short story The Vanity Ventriloquist was originally titled Twin Vanities. After I revised the story, however, I
decided that The Vanity Ventriloquist was a more apt name since the entire idea of the story is that vanity is a controlling presence influencing the actions of individuals in different ways.
In seventeen words, I would summarise The Vanity Ventriloquist by describing it as an “exploration of how vanity affects the actions of individuals, demonstrated through the personification of Day and Night.”
My purpose in writing this piece was originally just to explore how I could personify Day and Night in such a way that I could find a connecting factor between them, which obviously turned out to be vanity. I have always been fascinated by the contrast of light and darkness, and a piece that is focussed entirely upon day and night has been in the works for a very long time. Originally, this piece was one I wrote for myself, to satisfy a craving I had to create characters for Night and Day. As it developed, however, my audience became more targeted. In a world where it really does seem as though vanity is a ventriloquist – where beauty is a prized quality and somehow seems all-important – this story was written especially for today’s youth. I hope it can help to highlight the consequences of putting too much emphasis on beauty before other important qualities, like bravery or compassion or intelligence.
Obvious things that influenced the creation of this piece are the nighttime and the daytime themselves. There is something so intriguing about the concept of two opposing forces living in harmony with each other, and that is how I see the relationship between night and day. Therefore, this influenced the creation of this piece. Another thing that was influential in the development of The Vanity Ventriloquist was an exercise we did in class, where we were given a list of short sayings and asked to pick one to write about. I chose one that read, “beauty visits but once a year,” and from that, the beginnings of The Vanity Ventriloquist were born, because I chose to write about the sun and moon, who were twins that both desired beauty too much for their own good.
There are a few different craft and style decisions that I made with The Vanity Ventriloquist, two of the most important ones – both relating to structure – being “mirror-image parallel syntax” and a circle effect in the design of the piece.
With regards to parallelism in syntax, the entire section of Night’s story is a mirror image of the syntax I used when describing Day. The smaller sections where I describe dawn and dusk also mirror each other. An example of my “mirror-image parallel syntax” can be seen in a comparison of these lines: “She gathers captivating curtains of serenity and silence, whose flutters dance softly among the echoes of dreamers – but she does this to seduce the drowsy so she can evade the looks of denunciatory eyes upon her face,” and “She gathers dawn choruses of flute-throated thrushes, whose songs fall mellifluously among the melodies of winds – but she does this to wake the drowsy so she can enjoy the looks of admiring eyes upon her face.” Because the sentences are thematically juxtaposed, having the same structure reinforces that there is a link between Night and Day: both of them decide their course of action based on the same motivation, despite choosing two different responses. Because this technique is used throughout the entire piece, the effect becomes even more powerful.
The circle effect I used, where I capped the piece on both ends with conversation about “the vanity ventriloquist” but also within the story where I transition from Night to Day and back to Night, was designed to reinforce the perpetuality of their cycle and also to underscore the futility of their actions. Night and Day follow the rhythm of their ever-continuous cycle, so it only made sense to design The Vanity Ventriloquist in such a way that this was reflected. However, symbolically, their cycle represents that Night and Day are unable to see the destructiveness of their actions and are therefore are trapped by their lack of foresight and understanding. Their cyclical movements are representative of how their responses to vanity are ineffective and hopeless because there will be no resolution through them; rather, their problems will continue to haunt them and they will continue to rise and set.
In the beginning, I made many experimental drafts of The Vanity Ventriloquist when I was trying to figure out how Day and Night felt about beauty. At first, I wanted both of them to be desperate for beauty, and then I changed my mind and wanted Night to be humble while Day was arrogant. I changed my mind again and decided that I wanted both Night and Day to be vain, but to have their vanity result in different courses of action, this being the concept that I stuck with. In terms of my revision process, the addition of my “mirror-image parallel syntax” was something I decided on in my second round of editing – the addition of which, predictably, was quite time-consuming. However, I think that it was a good decision that led to a more intentional and well-written story. I did not receive much feedback on The Vanity Ventriloquist, but something that one of my friends did mention when reading an early draft was that there were not enough simple sentences to balance out the complexity. To respond to this feedback, I ended up incorporating lots of simple sentences as stand-alone paragraphs or in very short paragraphs, because I felt that both shorter sentences and shorter paragraphs would result in a more engaging read. I did not feel that I had any major epiphanies during the writing process of this piece. Rather, everything was gradual and fairly controlled.
Writing this short story was incredibly satisfying because I had wanted to create something like this for a very long time. I feel that it did turn out quite well, and I am happy with what The Vanity Ventriloquist has evolved into.
Holding Breath in a Room Full of Air is a piece I am truly proud of. It was named after a line in R. M. Drake’s poem Next Time, and it is this line that inspired the entire poem.
To give a seventeen-word summary, it is a piece that “illustrates the ill-effects of body image issues & describes the pain of aspiring to impossible standards of beauty.”
My purpose in creating this piece was to incorporate my experience with body image issues into the fabric of a larger and graver worldwide problem. The intense pressure to be beautiful is terribly painful and affects so many people. I believe it is an issue that people don’t take seriously enough; as I say in my explanation of the poem, “It’s an issue… that the world hears but doesn’t listen to. Millions speak out about how the impossibility of modern day beauty can quickly become sinister, and yet magazines continue to publish photo-shop fake models on their airbrushed pages; people who are physically attractive are still more likely to be hired for jobs; the music and film industries still select only the most beautiful to showcase in front of the world, as if to say that if people aren’t perfect, then they aren’t worth taking notice of. Somehow, we never fail to dismiss body image as a social issue.” Therefore, part of my purpose in writing this poem was to help bring awareness to the seriously adverse effects of body image issues. My intended audience – while I know that this affects people of all ages – is particularly teenagers, because for us this pressure is only magnified by hormonal intensities.
My own experiences and the experiences of my friends influenced the creation of Holding Breath in a Room Full of Air. As well, to reiterate what I have already said, this poem was inspired by a line in Next Time, a poem by R. M. Drake; therefore, Next Time was something that influenced the creation of Holding Breath in a Room Full of Air. My desire to create something that could potentially help others to feel understood was something else that aided in the development of my poem.
Some of the craft and style decisions I made with Holding Breath in a Room Full of Air include my use of sound devices and my overall structure.
Because this was meant to be a Spoken Word poem, I carefully considered my use of sound devices throughout the poem. I chose mainly to use cacophony so as to reflect the painful punches of the subject matter. For example, lines such as, “to break the boundaries of her being/and bind her blemishes in bandages,” and “…and beating blood-blisters into/the blueprint of her body,” use cacophony to highlight the violence that comes with trying to be beautiful.
Another decision I made stylistically was to forfeit the use of stanzas and instead keep the poem long and without breaks in form. This was done intentionally to make to reader feel as if they had no time to breathe, because I wanted them to be able to empathise with the character who was “holding her breath in a room full of air.” By essentially forcing the reader to experience this sensation along with the character, my goal was to make the story more relatable, but also more intense so that the impact of the poem’s message would become even more profound.
When I was writing this piece, I experimented with different forms of narration. At first, Holding Breath in a Room Full of Air was written in the first person to reflect my own experiences, but I realised that this issue was bigger than myself, and I felt I needed to expand my focus. I, therefore, decided to create a character who represented everyone who has ever felt less than beautiful, and narrated it from a third-person point of view so that it could be more relatable and applicable to different people. Through revising this piece, I made a number of other changes that have resulted in the final version of Holding Breath in a Room Full of Air. For example, in the first draft, I used no punctuation at all, because I really wanted the reader to feel breathless and confined as they went through my poem. However, as I edited, I realised I could achieve the same effect by not including stanzas and that way the feel of the poem wouldn’t be entirely off-putting as it would still have punctuation. As well, the explanation at the bottom of my poem evolved a lot as I edited. At first, it was only two lines; one described the meaning of the poem, and the other declared that it was inspired by Next Time. However, the more I went over the poem, the more I felt that it – and the greater issue of beauty standards – deserved something more meaningful. In response to this, I developed a more in-depth explanation of the poem, which also related to my philosophies when it came to body image. I didn’t receive much feedback on this piece, other than suggestions to use fewer images with future posts, which I have already noted and made sure to do in subsequent pieces. I also did not have any epiphanies when it came to the writing process for Holding Breath in a Room Full of Air, unless you count the idea to change from first-person narration to third-person.
This is one of my favourite pieces, mostly because of the subject matter and because it demonstrates how far I have been able to come as a writer. When writing a different Spoken Word poem about body image last year (Angel’s Wings), it was incredibly difficult for me because I kept trying to write with my mind instead of my heart, and I would distance myself from my emotions because I didn’t like being vulnerable. Writing about body image last year was a very difficult thing for me to do. Therefore, Holding Breath in a Room Full of Air is a testament to my growth as a writer, because I was able to produce it with relative ease when compared to the process I had to go through when writing Angel’s Wings. I wasn’t afraid of my emotions this time around, I wasn’t afraid of the subject matter, and I wasn’t afraid to be vulnerable. This, for me, is a huge step forward. Because of that, Holding Breath in a Room Full of Air is a piece that truly means a lot to me.
My free choice short story My Landscape is part of a larger series entitled My Nature. With each of the pieces within
My Nature being related to one of the four elements, My Landscape is the short story that relates to Earth. I decided to go about this by making connections to the four seasons, each of which changes the appearance and mood of the landscape. Thus, I titled this piece My Landscape.
Once again, to summarise this piece in seventeen words, I would say that it is “an exploration of my own four fatal flaws by ascribing them to personified versions of each season.”
The purpose of my piece, for me, was self-awareness. I always strive to improve myself, and even though it is hard to face the truth of who I am and where I am lacking, I think it is important to be able to see where I could be better so I can work towards getting there. This piece’s purpose was to provide an opportunity for me to give myself some constructive criticism, and so my audience for this piece was really just myself. While it is up on the blog for anyone to see and read, the entire My Nature series was intended as a project of self-reflection. However, I recognise that My Landscape will be read by my peers, and so by extension, they are part of my audience, too.
I was the main person who influenced the creation of this piece since it is about me. However, I did get input from some friends when it came to revision, so they too influenced the final result. I was, of course, inspired by nature when writing My Landscape, but that goes for the entire My Nature series, not just this piece.
There were two key craft and style decisions I made with My Landscape. The first was using strikethroughs and repetition to develop two distinct voices, and the second was my use of capitalization and alliteration in naming my fatal flaws so as to make them more meaningful.
My choice to use text-enhancement to draw attention to certain points in the piece is something that I have done throughout the My Nature series. In My Sky, I used bolding; in My Sea, I used italics; in the upcoming fire-based piece, I plan to use underlining. My Landscape used strikethroughs to differentiate one perspective from another.
By using strikethroughs, I am setting up right away that one perspective is silenced by the other, and that the uncrossed perspective is controlling while the crossed-out perspective is suppressed. These two opposing perspectives represent the contradiction in my personality when it comes to consideration of my flaws, because part of me want to eradicate my flaws and part of me wants to embrace my flaws. The perspective difference between the two voices in My Landscape is well-demonstrated in the following lines: “I have four fatal flaws; four which I must embrace; four which I must accept; four which I must experience my life through. I have four fatal flaws; four which I must apologise for; four which I must shed for better attributes; four which I must mask with what I am supposed to be.” As well, in order to reinforce the perspective differences between the two voices, I have intentionally exaggerated the uncrossed perspective to ridicule that it is the “ruling force” when, in fact, it is the oppressed, crossed-out voice that it more reasonable. The controlling, tyrannical nature of the uncrossed voice is also illustrated by my repetition of the phrases, “It will shed… It will desert… It will disavow… It will abandon (insert name of flaw) entirely, because (insert name of flaw) – even tamed – is a flaw not to be tolerated, not be moderated – but to be banished.” This is a phrase that I repeat after each of the four descriptions of my flaws in order to really highlight the irrationality of this voice.
I also made the decision to capitalise the names of my four fatal flaws of Perfectionism, Pride, Passivity, and Self-Protectiveness so as to reinforce their ruling presence in my life. I truly do believe that these are my four biggest flaws, and so they are of paramount importance to me, enough that they deserve to be proper nouns. I also intentionally chose the letter “P” to begin the names of each flaw, because it is the one letter in the alphabet that I feel is both soft and harsh, and can be either cacophonous or euphonious depending on the context. This is representative of how my “fatal flaws” are both the worst things about me and the best, of how they are my greatest strengths but also my worst weaknesses.
This is one of the few pieces that I didn’t experiment with a whole lot and revised only to polish but not to make any major changes. I did get the input of some friends when it came to revision, but I didn’t receive much feedback that changed the way the piece worked, nor did I have any epiphanies during the writing process. Pieces like these – that I am just incredibly sure about and that just flow out of my pen – are rare. My Landscape was really special for me in the sense that it almost seemed meant to be, because everything came out exactly the way I wanted with very little need for change, aside from grammar and other minor fixes I noticed before and after publishing it.
My Landscape has been such a gift for me because it was easy to write and it also provided me with opportunity for self-improvement. It is a very honest piece, and as I mentioned earlier, in the past it has been difficult for me to be honest enough with myself and my audience to even show any emotion in my writing. This makes My Landscape not only beautiful, truthful, and something that has allowed me to reflect on who I am, but also a piece that shows me how far I’ve come in only a year.
This means that I have much to look forward to because there are still so many ways I will be able to grow as I continue writing for numerous years to come.
Citations:
“Creative Writing | Tumblr.” Creative Writing | Tumblr. Tumblr, n.d. Web. 14 Jan. 2017. <https://www.tumblr.com/search/creative writing>.
“Why I Write Everyday.” Odyssey. Universtity of South Florida, 02 Aug. 2016. Web. 14 Jan. 2017. <https://www.theodysseyonline.com/write-everyday>.
“Weather Fashion | Tumblr.” Weather Fashion | Tumblr. Tumblr, n.d. Web. 14 Jan. 2017. <https://www.tumblr.com/search/weather%20fashion>.
“Jane Eyre.” Pinterest, n.d. Web. 14 Jan. 2017. <https://www.pinterest.com/explore/jane-eyre/>.
Singh, Hemraj. “The Writer Is Not in the Writing.” Hemraj Singh The Official Website. N.p., 23 June 2015. Web. 14 Jan. 2017. <https://hemrajsingh.com/the-writer-is-not-in-the-writing/>.
Please see the citations from My Landscape, Holding Breath in a Room Full of Air, and The Vanity Ventriloquist.
