Highlights of Writer's Craft

This class has been a pretty fun one full of laughs, smiles, and yes, writing. I haven't enjoyed all of it to the fullest extent, but it all will help with the future. I did not like the poetry unit, but the exercises we used to redirect our brain waves in order to be more creative will help in the future. Creativity can always be used. I wasn't a huge fan of writing news articles either, but I enjoyed finding the stories and figuring out what angle to go towards. I think it helped me be more "straight to the point" when it comes to my writing. Memori writing was the hardest, though. It was one thing when I was writing about myself, but when I was writing about someone else, it was hard. I really wanted it to be true for them and I was afraid that I might end up twisting the truth. I really liked short story/novel writing, but I loved screen writing the most and I would love to put my novel excerpt into a screen play. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens! Overall, I would recommend this course to anyone, regardless of whether or not you want a future in writing. There are many useful life skills taught, I'm sure even more than I realize now.

The Words Add Up

We just finished novel excerpts in class. On average, they had to be between 3,000 and 7,000 words. At first, that number seemed like a huge, unattainable feat, but once I started writing, I found that it wasn't. It started slowly. Here's the type of scene now write. My first scene just came out so I continued with it. I didn't know what would happen next until I went to write it. Having to come up with the entire story plot was harder. I didn't even know what scene would come next much less what the end would be. There's still more I could do for the selection I wrote, but like everything else in class, it's only a first draft. My working title is Don't Lie Still. Here's the first two scenes and a general summary that would be included in a query letter.

Taking The Next Step

After you finish writing whatever it is you were working on, you could possibly get it edited and published. I love writing, and the thought of getting paid for it is intriguing, but I'm not sure it's for me. It's not that what I write isn't good enough, or won't be liked, but getting to that point takes time and I don't know that I'm willing to put in that time right now. Maybe one day years from now. People change constantly and who's to say that ten (as an example) years from now, I won't want to finish a story, script, etc? I don't know what the future holds. I hope that I continue writing (if free time presents itself, that is). If I don't, I'll know it's because it's not what I'm meant to do. Some are born to write, some are born to draw (not me), etc.
Writing is an outlet. Whatever thoughts you have are there on the page. Whatever life you may have wished you had or whatever life you want to explore can all be experience by you through your characters. The words you could never get out, to a friends, family memeber, etc could finally be expressed, like a weight lifted off your shoulder. Maybe my writing is for me. Yes, I'm currently getting marked for it, but in the future, I might not be.
All I can say is to write if you like to write, and if your character take you somewhere you never imagined, go with them, after all, they are part of you.

It's Official

So it's official. Feature articles are the hardest to write. I just finished mine. It's like a formal biography about someone. Even with great information, which I had, putting it all together was tougher than any of the other writing we have done in class. You want it to be perfect: afterall, it's a real story about a real person's life. Making it flow seemed hard also, but, like everything else we've done, the rule is "Get it written. You can go back and change it later." I have it written, and I can see myself going back to change it later.

Review

We are now working on reviews in class. Reviews for music, movies, food, you name it. A pro is that it's the writer's opinion. I wrote my review on the movie, An America Girl: Chrissa Stands Strong. The movie is about a little girl standing up to bullying. To find out what I think about the film, check out my article, Leading By Example.

Picture Caption: Sammi Hanratty (green), Ariela Barer, and Kaitlyn Dever with two fans at American Girl location.

*Note- Sammi's t-shirts says, "Let's be buddies, Not bullies." What an awesome shirt!

Picture from http://www.verymeri.com/tag/celebrities/

More Creative Outlets

I know it's been a while since I published some poetry, so I thought I'd continue today. One day within our unit, we listened to music and let of hands write what they would from the sound of the music. Our quote was "In the dark time, the eye begins to see" by Theodore Roethke. I wrote two poems that day, called Together and Hide and Seak.

Creativity with Words

Yesterday, I finished my 20 page spec script. It didn't take as long as I thought it would, but I still encountered difficulties, mainly spacing. I added in a lot of new scenes just so that everything would flow properly. Also, the grammar was a pain. Numbering the pages was hard: we have to do that manually. Here is the beginning of my script, however, I didn't include the title page, but only the current working title.
Script writing is completely different than anything else I have written. There seems to be more rules (or maybe that's just because I'm just learning about scripts now). It also seems to go quicker, once the idea is created, at least. This was the best unit so far.
I love movies, especially Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and both of the Step Up movies. I also love to act. It's the only art I'm good at. I would love to be in Hollywood for a movie premier. If that movie was my own, I would love it even more.
Movies are a big part of life, at least, for most of the world. If you think about it, a lot of social outings are movies. What about the common date of a dinner and movie? Even TV shows talk about movies within them.
Movies allow the writters to communicate ideas, thoughts, opinions, and advice with use of our favourite actors and actresses. We can learn a lot depending which movie we're talking about.
This is yet another way to be creative with words.