I am taking my Senior Portfolio, or Capstone, course to finish my BA in English with a minor in Environmental Studies. Our first task has been to take an assessment of ourselves as writers. It's a bit difficult having to write about myself, but I feel this captures my writing abilities and habits in the most non-biased way I know how.Gah! It feels a bit scary to know that I'll be graduating soon and that I am becoming a writer. Not that being a writer is scary, but if I'll be good enough.I suppose though if I make it a goal to be published that I can make it happen. I will be published.
Mattie Clark: a writer. It seems an out of body experience to call myself a writer. Could all of those years of essays, short stories, and even scribblings amount to titling myself a writer? It appears so. Here I am after 16 or so years of schooling and a focused attention to my writing skills that I can consider myself a writer, an emerging writer. Yeah, let’s stick with an emerging writer. I’m still not very sure footed in this idea of Mattie as a writer and not Mattie as a student. I have not published any work. It has mostly revolved around numerous course assignments. Although, I suppose I can consider the quiet submission of personal ramblings to my blog a form of publication, right?
My blog allows me to write with humor and creativity. I develop small, everyday topics into something larger. For example, I was able to couple my experience of looking for an apartment with my latest discovery of a white lined sphinx moth. If only to tell my audience that I bought a pattern while at the fabric store or to explain how interesting it is to have found a new use for fashion rings, I enjoy filling the post with asides and interjections of my internal thoughts and musings. This writing is most closely linked to how I speak.
I move within multiple realms of writing, though. Mostly academic, I focus my essays toward a scholastic audience. Here I construct grand scaffolds of sentences, which can build and build to make overly complex structures. Like transforming a tool shed into the Taj Mahal. I have such large ideas for my points that the words just keep piling. Eventually what began with a meaningful and clear viewpoint turns into a kaleidoscope of vocabulary. This is due to the thesaurus. I love it. Well, I love words in general. It is thrilling to discover denotations along with the numerous branches budding from the root. Just this morning I looked in the medicine cabinet and found myself drawn to the word musk. It has an odd sensation on my pallet when I say it; it is even odder that a gentleman would like to smell like the rectal glad of a male deer. So, I don’t like the word, but I want to use it. What kind of sense does that make? Still, I want to use the word with the anticipation of sharing my newly found fact. Yet, in this adoration for words, I come to a place where I reach word choice conundrums. In my hopes of using a word creatively or to inspire an image in the reader’s mind I discover that it can lead to confusion. My point is lost in amassing words, in the muddling of ideas and tangents.
My ideal setting for writing includes a computer, my Pandora music stations, a thesaurus and dictionary (usually already online), a large glass of ice water, and a window with plenty of light. At my workstation, usually my desk skirted in an adorable floral fabric or the corner of a local coffee shop, the books, articles, and notebooks covered in my observations and highlights are splayed out as I initially run my fingers over the keyboard to compile any important quotes. From the list of quotes I then categorize them by topic or point to build the body of the paper. I enjoy smaller tasks particularly because I will find myself becoming restless and antsy if I spend too long working on one paper. My ideas become disarrayed or even mutated as I continue. So I take small breaks by either working on another paper or diverting from writing entirely, usually by perusing my favorite websites. As long as I stay at the computer though I will pull the paper back up from its demoted space on the tool bar and jot down a few notes or ideas until I am ready to bring my focal point back to the essay.
I am finding myself more aware of the power of my writing. I am concentrating on the task of making it interesting. Hypothetically, and potentially a reality, if an essay I wrote were to be found by a researcher with the hopes of documenting it in a project, would it capture his/her interest and be of any use by bringing forth a new idea or support for his/her paper? Yes, this is what I have started to consider while writing essays. This could just be a side effect of the start of school enthusiasm, but I hope to uphold this awareness of the reader’s interest while tackling this semester’s papers.
Gag me! The guy next to me in the computer lab has way too much cologne on. His musk is drowning me out. (See how I used the new word in a sentence. It’s already coming in handy) Gasp, I need fresh air! This is certainly not part of my ideal setting for writing beyond brilliant works. Must stop here; I feel my brain is already be affected by the fumes.
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