End Of Year Reflection

Look back at your midterm story. Compare it to your final story. How have you
improved? Support your answers with evidence from your work. (Or, to put it another
way, point to the differences.)

I personally think that I have improved in my writing between my midterm story and final
story, but not in a way that is easy to see. I have figured out that this class has helped me more
with my process than the quality of my writing. Maybe the quality of my writing has improved,
but the content and even structure of the stories are so different that it is difficult to compare
them. One major difference for example is that my midterm story is a screenplay and my final
story is a more traditional short story format. The actual place where I see improvement is in my
mindset and time management. The final story is the piece that I took through the revision
regimen, which means I spent multiple days looking at the writing and considering it from
different angles. My midterm story was very different. I had difficulty finding motivation to write
the piece, so I ended up scrapping the entire thing and rewriting it in a different format the night
before. This meant I had no time to revise.

What moves did you steal from stories that you read this semester? Point to some
moves you made in your final story, and tell me what story they came from.

Two stories that I stole from this semester were The Lottery and The End of the Civil
War Days. The move that I stole from The Lottery was the basic structure. I typed the entire
short story into my journal, then went through and highlighted key plot points that I thought
moved the story along. I wanted a similar plot twist effect in my story, so I kept track of what
hints the author gave and how frequent they were. Then, in my Camp Arktos story, I
implemented this structure. For The End of the Civil War Days I included a much smaller move.
I tend to have an issue with writing too much dialogue. When I was younger, adults would joke
that my stories were really just plays, because they were entirely dialogue with the occasional
scene setting detail. Because of this, I tried to replace some of the shorter dialogue with
mentions of the speech. For example, in my Final Story I said “Cayla shouted back that she was
ready, and used her new dribbling skills to slowly walk over to Ashley, incredibly focused on the
ball” instead of showing Cayla actually voicing the “I’m ready!”

Tell me about your self-concept as a writer. How do you feel about writing? How has this
changed from the beginning of the semester?

My self concept as a writer has changed a lot since the beginning of the semester. I
used to have the mindset that I loved writing since I had done it so much as a kid, but in reality I
didn’t realize that I had fallen out of the habit. Because of this, when I started back up, it was
very difficult and not entirely comfortable. I was getting frustrated not only at the lack of words
on the page, but at myself for “losing” my ability to write. Over the course of the semester, it’s
started coming back to me. Maybe there hasn’t been lots of improvement in my stories, I’m not
entirely sure, but my love of writing has slowly been returning.
How (and where and when) do you work best on creative projects? Describe your ideal
process & routine. Any changes or discoveries since the beginning of the semester?

I tried many different how-where-and-whens throughout the semester, but none really
clicked until the very end. This is because I have been told constantly since coming to college to
never do homework in your bed. If you do homework in your bed, you will associate work with
sleeping and you will either not do good work or you will not be able to sleep when the night
comes. Because of this, I tried the library, I tried the business building, I tried a hammock, and
most other places on campus. What I didn’t realize is that viewing writing as homework was the
problem. What I needed was to be comfortable and relaxed, so I finally found out that I write
best when I am in bed with zero distractions. No snack, no phone, no music, no anything. Just
my bed, my computer, and me.

How do you think a "good writer" goes about writing? What does it look like for that
person? (And how has your answer changed since you thought about this at the
beginning of the semester?)

I think a good writer goes about writing in any way that works for them. Something I’ve
learned over the semester is that every writer has a different method. I studied methods of
different writers and tried them out, but none stuck for me. Even for you (Furuness), as a writer
your method didn’t stick for me. I don’t think that there is a specific method that a good writer
uses besides just their own. The only sign of a “bad writer” (and I hate even using that term) is
trying to blindly use the method of another writer thinking it is correct. Instead of “bad writer,” I
think “learning writer” is more accurate. My answer to this question has changed through
discovering my process. I believe that I haven’t even discovered my process fully yet, but I sure
am closer.

What's next for you—as a writer, a storyteller, a creative individual? How will you apply
what you've learned in this class?

I found that spark for writing again in the last couple weeks of this class, and I don’t want
to let that die. Luckily, I will be taking another writing class next semester (a screenwriting one!),
so I am not worried about it too much. This summer, I will get to help make a short film with an
Emmy nominated Butler alum. Not only this, but I get to help write it. Projects like this are what I
think will help keep my creativity flowing.