Authors Forward

When I first started writing I didn't have any "techniques" that I knew except the basic ones from previous English classes. I was writing for fun and also to clear my head from all of these ideas. After creative writing 2, some strategies that I've used were writing a random sentence and passing it around the table for others to continue writing. I like this strategy because it brings new ideas that I didn't know existed.

I liked how they are really different from each other. It gives a different vibe to each story and I really like the switch up from one technique to another. It makes it so that I wouldn't get bored using the same strategy. This course really helped me with my writing but also helped me get feedback from other writers that weren't teachers.

I struggled a lot with the campfire story because I wrote it in a non-fiction writing format instead of a fiction format which is what my profession is. I realized after writing it that it didn't seem to fit. So I turned it in and got some feedback telling me that it wasn't the right genre.

I then went back to reread it and allowed myself to think of ways to make this piece fiction without destroying what I had already written. That was the hardest part of writing this piece is writing a totally different story on top of my head. So I did write what came to my mind and it wasn't necessarily bad, it just had a lot of work. I kept thinking of summer 2014, how hot and humid it was and how fun it used to be.

At one point I did reread it but the deadline came and I didnt have a choice but to submit it and hope for the best. It did turn out good but I did have a lot of feedback which I knew I needed. This was by far one of the hardest stories I had to write.

My favorite writing that I did was probably the first one we did when we first started the course which was the visual essay. We had to pick 3 different photos that we took or had on hand and write a story using something in those pictures and go from there. I pickled 3 very sentimental photos one was me when I was a baby, the second one was a very old car that we still have till this day and the last photo was a photo of me and my family minus my dad (who took the photo) of us standing under a weeping willow tree.

I of course don't remember much from my childhood but looking back and writing a totally different story from those pictures really reminded me of those missing memories I had. It took me back knowing that I would never experience those fun memories again now that I've grown up. I used this technique a bunch of times in my tracks and it really helped me with expanding my writing and it also helped me understand how to change up my writing by using different techniques.

After this semester of writing and learning different styles of writing helped me grow as a writer and also helped me grow as a person. This course has helped me understand that there isn't a perfect writer or author, not every story will be published or be looked at, but at least you're improving and not giving up.

This course also showed me the different styles of writing that my fellow classmates have and safe to say all of them are different but in a good way. Like Paloma being the only one in poetry, her writing tells a story in only little words and rhymes. Elizabeth using the weather into her stories makes it look cool and kinda interesting. We all have different writing styles and this course only expands it more which I really love. I really didn't know how this course would change my writing but it improved drastically.

After using the visual technique, I realized it made my writing stronger than it was when I first started writing. I used more ideas in my head than other ideas from other resources I had and with the photos it made me think harder. This strategy helped me write a stronger and more interesting story than some of the ideas in my head. If I think of an idea in my head I would write it down but pieces of the idea would go missing and which means I would have to think of a different idea. Whereas with a photo it's always there in front of me and I wouldn't have to think, I could just look.