Enjoying the writing

I had the worst time editing my short story last week. I must have sat and stared at it for over an hour thinking about what to change and I think I ended up adding more and removing less. My revision was almost two pages longer than my first draft. I did consolidate a few parts, and enhance some details without using as many words, but I think I only removed one part of my story. I am hoping that the final product provides more insight into my character, Mike, more depth.

The workshop was incredibly helpful to me though. I got a lot of positive feedback about my story which gave me more confidence during my revision.  It also brought to light some of the weak parts of my story that I needed to work on. After reading other people stories and seeing their mistakes, I was able to see some of the same things in my paper that I had previously missed. Hopefully my final story is a quality product.

I am enjoying creative writing more than I thought I would. Writing has always come somewhat easy to me, even though I never really like the actual act of writing. Ever since high school people have told me that I was a good writer, but I was always such a procrastinator. I am enjoying the freedom to write outside of research. This might also have something to do with the fact that this time around in school I am more motivated to learn and do well. My previous college experience was full or last minute deadlines, late work, and poor grades. I had always been an A student in high school, but at the academy I was so unhappy that my academic performance suffered. I am enjoying school this time around, and so far I seem to be doing well in all my classes. I am enjoying the experience of getting work done ahead of time, and not freaking out about everything. It just goes to show how happiness can play an important part in academic performance! Let's hope it continues!

Working out the kinks

I finished and submitted the first draft of my short story this past week. Up until Friday I had a hard time organizing the coherent thoughts that I had in my head into a coherent series of events. Reading other people's stories in the first workshop session helped me in a way to figure out where I wanted my story to go. I had my family read it as well and I think I am happy with the way that it turned out except for the ending. The first 2/3rds of my story builds up to one dramatic event, but I am not sure I like the event that I went with. I could have gone in so many different directions with the action and the building of the weather.

It was also hard to end the story in a way that seems to fit. Should I say more, less, something totally different? I just might end up reworking the last part of the story altogether, but I think the workshop on Monday night will give me a better sense of what I need to do.

Inspiration

I am happy with my opening scene for my story, but I need to figure out where I am going to take it from there. It is harder than I thought... I have been brainstorming for over a week now and I can't seem to decide what to write about. I am trying to draw on some of the things that we prepared for, and guarded against happening while we were underway in the Pacific, but I want to make the story believable and not over the top. There are literally hundreds of things that can go wrong on the water, but I am still having trouble.

Perhaps I lack a sense of creativity!  Who knows, I just can't help but feeling self conscious about my writing. With history it is easier because you are arguing a point and have evidence to back up everything you say. In creative writing I don't have that net to fall back on so it's all on me...

Hopefully my end product will turn out better than I am expecting, but I think the work shops will help me when I am exposed to other people's opinions about my story before the final copy is due.

I thought I would include a couple pictures so if anyone is reading this you can see the sort of situations I am drawing my inspiration from...

Story ideas

So I have decided to stick with my original story idea. I am learning that writing a short story is not instinctual for me like research writing is, so I am going to rely on the peer review and the class workshops to make my story better. I have a basic idea of what I want to say, but I'm hoping the more I think about it, the better it gets.

I decided over break to stick with the idea I have been drafting, and stay away from some other topics that are closer to me because I am not ready to write about them yet. There are a couple writing territories that I could do well at, but they are too personal and I don't think it would come out how I would want.

I am sure I want to have a happy ending in my story, I am just working out how to make it interesting and dramatic without becoming too dark. Reading other short stories has definitely helped me think about where I want it to go. If I had to turn in my story now it would probably be disastrous, but I am hoping I will be able to work it and improve it in the next couple weeks.

the creative writing learning curve...

So I am finally starting to catch up on all my missed work. The past two weeks were a little rough, I had both strep throat and the flu back to back. Anyway, I am finally feeling better getting back into the swing of things.

I regret that I missed last week's class because this is a very new process to me. The writing assignments help though. I didn't really know all the prep work that went into developing a story before you actually start writing! I am so used to writing research papers where the formula is easy: research, thesis, outline, paper, and citations... To be honest I thought that creative writing was more of a trial and error process where you write a story and polish it as you think of new ideas and so on. I was unaware that there were so many writing exercised to help before the actual story writing begins. I admit it all makes sense now though. I was struggling in the first week to come up with a story topic that I could have written about and made interesting to others to read.

I have a lot more respect for this kind of writing and I am still hopefully that this class will enhance my writing skills and make it easier to write a stronger thesis paper when I get to my senior seminar class for history.

I still don't know exactly what I want to write my short story about though. I am trying my best to develop a story that I will enjoy writing. If I don't enjoy writing it then I know there is no way anyone else will enjoy reading it!

My first entry

Hey cyberspace,

My name is Todd. I am opening this account for school purposes. I have to maintain a blog throughout the semester for my creative writing class. I have never been one to write about, or even talk about, my feelings or emotions. I generally have become very good at keeping things inside, which is probably a bad thing, but I haven't exploded yet. I have always been a little skeptical about blogging. Why would someone want an infinite number of strangers reading their thoughts? This will definitely be a new experience for me, but I will give it my best shot. I don't believe in doing anything halfheartedly anymore. I will either give my best, or not do it! haha.

Recently, there is not much that I won't try. My life has been somewhat of a shambles in the past few years and I am only recently putting the pieces back together. As a result I have set out to better myself and try new things.

In high school I was very shy, but always did well in school and sports. I was accepted into every college I applied to save for one, the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD. I am born and raised in Annapolis so all I can say is that I always wanted to go there as long as I could remember. I decided to go to prep school for a year after high school under a scholarship from USNA and then entered the class of 2006. I was almost immediately disillusioned with the place I had built up in my mind to be so great, and after struggling for 3 and half years I decided that place, and the military in general, were not for me. I floundered a bit after that, missing the chance to finish school right away and instead took a job in the yachting industry which I still love! I got the chance to travel, meet some amazing people, and play on boats all day. I got laid off last year when the economy tanked, and subsequently moved to Maine in September for a fresh start. This is my first semester back in school since the end of 2005.

I also have struggled with a personal loss. The passing of my 23 year old fiance almost 2 years ago sent me spiraling out of control with no direction in life for over a year. Not a day goes by where I don't think about it, but I have learned to be more productive in life again. I have kept a lot of feelings inside for a long time, but things have been getting better over the past 6 months.

So I guess I would not be doing this if it wasn't for class. I have never taken a creative writing class before. I am a history major, so by practice I learned to write objectively. I am excited to try something new, and I am also hoping that this class will improve my writing skills in general! I have been told my many professors that good historians are first and foremost good writers. Let's see where this goes...