PART A: You, the Writer
As a person, I’ve always had a passion for the dark and disturbingly morbid. I enjoy making people cringe or feel uncomfortable with what I say, so I thought, “Hey, what’s a better way to traumatize people than through short stories!” From this, I developed my interest in writing, short stories especially. Prior to this course, I was only interested in these such short stories. My previous style consisting entirely of psychological themes and vivid descriptions. Since then, with the help and guidance of Creative Writing, I’ve evolved my literary identity to something far more open minded and complex. I no longer fear opening up through use of poetry, it, instead, has become one of my greatest strengths. I can now write about a multitude of topics with ease and tasteful, well placed descriptions. I still have my same fascination with the macabre, however I have made all areas of such topics available to me, as a writer. Through practice, I have learned more effective ways in which I can disclose details, instead of throwing it all out there in a massive slur of description. My structure, paragraph and sentence wise, has been improved, in my opinion, as I have since become aware of the many types of complex sentences and proper ways to split up paragraphs. My voice, written, of course, I feel has become much more confident and metaphorical, my style showing the same effect, that of metaphorical, encompassing a multitude of literary techniques. To all the future writers out there, I would definitely encourage them to take Miss. Hunnisett’s Creative Writing course. I entered very close minded as to what I would achieve, now I leave an entirely new writer.(No exaggerations) Never pass by a word that you do not know the meaning of, and practice makes perfect! Honestly! In the future I would love to actually have a book published containing my many short stories. In the nearer future, I plan to come back to creative writing next year, of course.
PART B: You, the Blogger
Specifically as a blogger, I have developed in the sense that I have become much more selective with the things that I post and share. Over the last few months, the novelty of blogging has worn off so now I simply rely on my ambition as a writer. I would say that I am very proud of my blog aesthetic and how well the themes and moods of all my pieces intertwine. I do, however, need to improve on the regularity with which I post new pieces to my blog, and my confidence with each piece as sometimes I feel they are not as good as I could have written given the proper attention. After this course, my blog will become more expressive of myself. Thus far, I have greatly censored myself for the appropriateness of school, so now I will experiment with the darker topics that I have previously deemed too insensitive or inappropriate. (Ironically, people already know my censored self as a dark and morbid writer.) Honestly, I do not believe that I will continue to follow any of the student blogs I do now. It’s not that I don’t believe these people are fantastic writers, it’s more of the topics and moods they convey in an average piece. I admit that I have not followed many professional bloggers. I am far more drawn to artistic blogs rather than literary.
PART C: You, the Student
Though I did not experience many of these moments, I can honestly say my greatest ‘Aha’ moment was Miss Hunnisett sharing the story of a student that writes poetry as planning for essays or personal responses. Since then, I have used this technique, myself, and my writing has benefitted greatly. This year I have noticed myself gaining a whole new respect for written work, as compared to before where I even went as far to say that I hated reading. I plan to stick to psychological and horror type genres, my next read being American Psycho. The best book I have read all semester I believe to be A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. This book incorporates a spectrum of creative ‘futuristic’ slang and very mature subject matter. It is one of the only books I have ever found myself actually relating to the main character. (Although, that might not be a such good thing judging by the type of person that character is…) Reading has improved my writing in the sense that I now consider my reader’s perspective rather than just my own, as a writer. H.P. Lovecraft’s work has personally influenced my writing with his detailed yet gruesome descriptions. Before, I had trouble describing an entire scene with as great of detail as I would a single object, which I thank Lovecraft for. My writing has become far more mature, in the sense that it sounds more like an actual book instead of some high school girl telling the tale. Next, I plan to write a short story I have already designed in my head titled Nutjobs Anonymous. Despite its playful title, this story will begin my experimentation with the greatly morbid subject matter. Despite all the computer and network problems I faced this year regarding blogging, I do plan to take Creative Writing again in grade eleven. I’m very excited to continue on with my creative side and develop myself as a writer, further. If for some reason I do not take Creative Writing it will probably be because I am taking AP English instead and don’t want to overwhelm myself with homework. Either way, I will hopefully still be taught by Miss Hunnisett, again.
PART D: You, the Fan
For my Writer Seminar, my partner and I chose H.P. Lovecraft. I can honestly say that the studying of Lovecraft’s work has influenced me as a writer. Lovecraft possesses a very descriptive and ornate basis for his writing, that I have also incorporated into my own writing. Simply trying to understand his themes and messages has improved my vocabulary greatly. We chose H.P Lovecraft to study because we believed that he was ‘one of the greats’ up there with Edgar Allan Poe. I was personally very intrigued to discover more about what led to his dark obsession with horror and his unique ideas and perspectives on almost everything. Genres for his work typically include cosmic horror, dark fantasy, gothic horror, and he even inspired an entirely new genre: Lovecraftian Horror. From him, I learned that it is desirable to project your own thoughts and feelings into your work. This makes your writing more realistic and relatable to your readers.
From a piece Lovecraft wrote called The Window I emulated the following short poetry piece:
Confessions of dust,
Congregations of the unknown,
Compacted ideas to which night only told.
A creature stabbed through heart, poisoning rust.
A creature summarizing its longing with a shrieking moan.
A creature binded to roots, encased in old mould.
Individually bombarded the view through the window.
From a few of my classmates, I was introduced to Alan Moore, a famous comic book writer. I’ve read some of his works before, not even knowingly, as I wasn’t paying attention to the person who wrote these works. I learned from Alan Moore’s story that you can’t always tell an author simply by looking at them. Before, I assumed authors always fit into a single category of people and categorized them at perfectionists with an undying love for the entertainment of others. I now realize that authors like Alan write for themselves, which is a technique I plan to follow. I definitely will read more of his work. I’ve actually been searching for one of his more famous works The Killing Joke for nearly a year.
PART E: You, the Critic of your own Work
o A Short Story
I would suggest reading the story before reading my reflection, however, I know that may not be possible considering how long the story is.
https://1awayfromthez0mb13s.edublogs.org/2016/01/17/this-is-my-mask/
The title of This Is My Mask actually has a deep meaning to the story and me, personally. To the story, it means that what the character Abraham Benedict sees on the outside if not who is on the inside, which the audience won’t actually realize until the last few lines in the story. Within the story, it is an external force that has put the mask on Kurt Vansinne(Abraham Benedict). For me, it is internal. For the story, this title takes on quite a literal sense, for me however, the mask represents myself hiding myself from the rest of the world. I know that there are many other children that feel they need to put on a mask to not show their weakness. To hide how vulnerable they are. For me however, and this may seem a tad narcissistic, the mask is used to hide how vulnerable I’m not. I don’t just use the mask to fake happiness, I use it to fake anger, sadness, sympathy, loneliness, embarrassment and anything of the like. This Is My Mask in seventeen words: Through a conversation with his therapist, coma patient shares a tale of horror and reveals a tragedy. The purpose of this piece was to share a piece of myself through deep symbolism and metaphors. Though this was written for a grade nine project, I truly wrote it for myself, not considering my audience. The inspiration/influences for this piece were mainly from the music I was listening to at the time. References include ‘disarmed her with a smile’ from the Smashing Pumpkins song Disarm and ‘watched the light behind her eyes fade’ from My Chemical Romance’s song The Light Behind Your Eyes. As for style, the story is told entirely through dialogue. I used quite a bit of foreshadowing and symbolism. Notable foreshadowing can be seen in these lines, “There is another room… But I don’t go in there. It’s where I keep all my damaged books, broken furniture, assorted purposeless possessions. It’s cluttered. I hate clutter. I hate that place and I can’t do anything about it because I refuse to enter. I don’t go in there. It’s infectious. No one goes in there.” This foreshadows that the room will eventually be opened. Out of all the symbolism, the most significant is how the character’s apartment is a reflection of himself seen in the lines, “My apartment possesses very few items. It’s easier to keep things symmetrical and orderly that way. You see, I view my apartment as a reflection of my mind. If my apartment is precise, so are my thoughts.” In my final thoughts, I would just like to point out that the scars he began to see appear on his skin was symbolic of the abuse he suffered as a child, and that his alter ego’s last name, Vansinne, is actually Swedish for insanity.
o A Poem
https://1awayfromthez0mb13s.edublogs.org/2016/01/18/wendigo/
The title of Wendigo was named after the mythological creature also by the name of Wendigo. I discovered what this creature was in grade six, and drew an instant connection between it and myself. So, of course, I had to spend the next year traumatizing my friends talking about this horrific creature. In seventeen words, this poem is: Connections between myself and the starving, gluttonous, Wendigo versus humanity and embracing our instinctive nature and impulses. Again, the purpose of this piece it to just share a piece of myself, written only for me. If it wasn’t already obvious, my inspiration was the Wendigo. These creatures are typically said to represent gluttony, as they have an undying urge to consume human flesh, however, they are simultaneously said to represent starvation in the sense that they, “grow in proportion for the bodies we consume,” meaning they will be forever hungry. I see myself as a Wendigo, the hidden monster sitting in the back of the classroom surrounded by my prey. (Deep, I know.) As for style, I consciously chose to once again include a lot of symbolism and metaphors. I found as many connections between myself and the wendigo as I could, different aspects representing different things. For example, with the line, “The consumption of a corpse to not become one ourselves,” I am comparing the wendigo’s need to consume human flesh with my need to protect myself before others. As my only final thought, I just want to say how difficult it was for me to actually write a poetry piece with some emotion behind it as in real life I rarely actually ever show real emotion.
o A Non-fiction
https://1awayfromthez0mb13s.edublogs.org/2015/10/29/narrative/
The title of this piece is actually just another song reference. The title Blood, Blood, Gallons of the Stuff in a lyric in a song called Blood. The song itself has a disturbingly happy tune for something of that subject matter, just as this piece has an unusual sense of humor about it. In seventeen words: How I made Red Rock Canyon Fit its name, that of Red. Childhood trauma and extreme clumsiness. Unlike many of my other pieces, this was actually written for others. I wrote it to make something seemingly tragic, turned humorous, my target audience being people like me that can actually laugh about stuff like this. Being non-fiction, this piece was inspired by real events that took place during my childhood. As I said, the style of this work is mainly humor and description. I took a step away from all my metaphors and symbolism
o A free choice
https://1awayfromthez0mb13s.edublogs.org/2016/01/17/auditory-time-desynchronization-experiment/
The title of Auditory Time Desynchronization Experiment is meant to be purely scientific, like a report of observations, which is what half of the story is about. In seventeen words: death row convict subjected to undergo scientific human perception experimentation loses his sanity and gains new abilities. The purpose of this piece was to draw attention to the experimentation animals are subjected to every day, while creating a story comparing the perspectives of multiple characters, again being written for myself as it is just what I felt like reading at the moment. The influence is quite strange. I first got the idea for this piece almost a year ago when a TV show had a line about a tickle in the back of the mind. My brain then decided it was a ticking sound instead of tickling, from there my brain decided that it could be used as some sort of torture device, then it decided that it was an experiment, blah de blah. I included two main styles. The first, is the style of the scientist, Patrick Dux. This style was highly formal and objective, no interference with emotion, purely inquisitive. The second style, that of Anderson Semotus, the subject of the experiment, is highly pessimistic and even a bit sadistic. As a final thought, I just wanted to draw attention to all the character’s last names: Dux, Cognito, Observare, and Semotus. I chose these names to reflect who they are as a character. Dux is latin for leader, Cognito meaning research or learning, Observare meaning to observe, and Semotus meaning removed or taken apart.