communication capstone

            This being the second time people came to class with Creative Writing Capstone presentations, I felt like now is the appropriate time to react to them. 

First thing, I’m not sure exactly what the Capstone project entails of. I have already completed the Communication Capstone, and from what I did with that, and from what I saw with class, I’m assuming that it just entails of one big project.

            Some of the presentations were interesting. There seemed to be ideas all across the border, poetry, prose, and the little trolls who live in a grocery store interactive book. Honestly, that one I thought was pretty cool, although I have no idea how someone could do it. I’m hoping to see some of these projects when they are done, as I will have to do Capstone soon.

            For my Capstone I’m hoping to write and direct a short movie (or a long one if time allows it). Considering I am triple majoring in Communication, Creative Writing, and Electronic Media and Film, I’m really hoping to combine them all to make something cool. I’m hoping to the creative writing program will help me with writing for media, even if their aren’t very many classes that actually are used for said profession.

            Looking back, these creative writing classes have guided me into writing for media. They have given me story and dialogue ideas, and even though not much directly for the media is there, I still hope they will give me something. I really don’t want to think about the possibility of graduating with all these majors and doing absolutely nothing with them.

            Hoping things work for the best.

critical response 2

BEFORE RESPONSE 

            So, I decided to look and analyze the poem “Beauty’s Standing” from City Eclogue for a few reasons. One, I found that it would be impossible to analyze a whole book (Event Factory, or The Transformation), and I would get too picky trying to find a segment of the book. Second, I didn’t really know how to analyze the Hejinian essay, so that kind of left poetry.

            City Eclogue is not my fondest of poetries, but I don’t find it unbearable so that’s what I analyzed. I found that Beauty’s standing was short enough for me to analyze the whole thing but long enough for me to come up with a clear concise response towards it. So that’s why I chose that poem.

AFTER RESPONSE

            So, I just finished critical response 2, and I have to say 2 pages are not enough to put all I needed in it. I had a lot to say, and I worry that my thoughts were condensed, although I feel like they were organized. I did accept a fondness for the poem that I had not previously had, as reading and analyzing something enough you kind of develop Stockholm syndrome with it.

            I do say that I made a good choice for my critical response, as this poem was just short enough where I could write something that was somewhat intelligent. I  hope it was good enough.n

creative project 3 peer review

            So I should probably mention that I was only in one class in the last week considering I was pretty much unable to get out of bed on Monday due to sickness, so for todays blog I am going to discuss the editing process in association with creative writing project 3.

            First thing I should mention, I find it difficult to edit other peoples papers. Of course, the day I was peer reviewing other people’s assignments in this class was the same day I had been peer reviewing other peoples assignments in my two classes before this class. So by this time, I was kind of peer reviewed out, luckily I broke out my second wind and kept on trucking.

            I find it difficult to peer review for several reasons, number one being I’m not sure how to be a complete jerk when I find someone has an assignment that needs a lot of changes. Another issue is when I’m reading something that I just purely don’t know how to edit like poetry, where what I read sounds good but is something I’m purely not skilled at in giving advice in. Finally, I find it awkward as well to give praise, as I feel like the author of any work really shouldn’t want any praise, as praise doesn’t do anyone any good.

            This being said I also find it awkward to get peer reviewed, purely because I worry when the person who peer reviews my paper doesn’t notice the giant problem that I noticed the second time reading it. This being said, it is useful to be peer reviewed, it just gets hard for me after a while.

            The peer review process is overall a positive one, it is very useful to have your papers read, and other people can give you an insight that you probably can’t figure out for yourself. I do like having my stuff read, and I have a general curiosity for what is going on with the rest of the class, so these definitely link in with the positive aspects of this process. Hopefully everything turned out well with the peer review process on my postcard story as I’m going to turn it in tomorrow.   

creative project 3

            Just a few comments about Creative writing project 3:

            I decided to do this project on the postcards. Frankly, I couldn’t refuse after seeing a very cute one with a squirrel and a very bizarre one with a puppet. Simply putting them in the middle of sin city seems like a very appropriate setting.  Imagine two puppets in sin city fighting over control? Come on that has to be a fairly unique concept, especially concerning the fact that it was inspired by seeing a couple of postcards.

            Considering two of these postcards did contain puppets I did think that it made sense to put them in a competition, a puppetry competition. I thought about it and putting weird imagery throughout the entire thing seemed to make it more unique.

            I’ve done this whole postcard writing thing before, and I have to say, the weirdest things come out when I do so. The characters are unique, and I feel like I add a mild unique humor that seems to be nonexistent with more time elongated mediums. I’m hoping for the best, and I hope you like it.

Why I like swear words/ creative project 2

While looking over assignment two a dozen times it occurred to me that it’s almost impossible to be groundbreaking. My initial idea, “Swears” consists of the following, essentially every title of every poem/ story is a swear word, and the plot revolves around the swear word to some degree. My main issues with this were that;

1)   This would be incredibly offensive.

2)   There wouldn’t be enough stories to base off swears

            So then I decided, why not push the envelope? Sleeping with the Dictionary, while admitting not my favorite piece of work had something going for it, it was well organized. And it had a theme, it was in alphabetical order, and every piece of work had something to do with the dictionary. It makes sense to me that if I am going to do something unique I have to try new things. I find works of nature and sex frivolous; they are overused, and because of such lose their entertainment value. I of course want to evoke some emotion, but the only way I think I can do it is involving naughty words.  

           

Swear words are the most powerful of words, and that is why I like them. Like a spice, you throw them in too much; they lose their purpose and make things worse. Swears have the power to evoke emotion to an extent to no other (I’m actually liking this so much this might wind up in my actual assignment). Swears are the words to use, to create, to divide, and to conquer.

There is a reason why I am obsessed with the swear, and I refuse to make it a negative thing. Hopefully, these days editing my assignment will give me true perspective on how to make this assignment great. Just because I use a little fowl language now and then doesn’t mean I don’t want to learn.