Hypertext Short – Learning

I came into this class thinking it was a creative fiction class….I think I somehow tricked myself into forgetting the non part.  On the first day I was not only shocked by the fact that I would be writing about my life, but terrified that our teacher told us she was nuts and that we should leave at this moment if we are not willing to put in the appropriate effort.  I started to think about how much effort was appropriate, and whether or not I wanted to be sacrificing J-term fun for something that, at first, seemed it could be un-fun.  That first Sunday of the term I dreaded the reading and writing I had to do, but I thought I might as well stick with the class for various reasons: First of all, I’m not someone who likes to quit because I’m too lazy to go through the add/drop/searching-for-another-class procedure, and also, I thought I could start to have fun writing about my life – I do like writing.   So I wrote my first 5 one-page pieces without too many clues as to how I should or could write facts creatively.  I think my initial idea of telling a story creatively was adding humor, so I attempted that.  I wrote a page – that was a start – but my creative juices were certainly not flowing, they were trickling.  I still like reading that piece – it is funny, it’s just not that engaging, it tells the reader what happens.  My photos had a little more creative life in them, which gave me some hope.  After meeting with BG the following week, I got my wake up call – your photos are interesting… – and I started to see the creative light.  Reading more pieces of contemporary nonfiction also fueled my creative brain, and class exercises helped as well.  Participating also got me thinking like a writer, and I started to practice dissecting various techniques like… short sentences.  or longer sentences with no commas that were exhausting so people could understand how bored you were or how redundant someone was being or how suspenseful something is if they have to gasp for breath in the middle because they want to keep reading but they don’t have all the air they need.  Then I wrote about what I learned from a piece, and the result was better.  It was more what I was used to, though I did turn a paragraph into a mini meaning-analysis – straying away from the exercise of analyzing as a writer.  Then came the stranger studies, and the power of close observation was noted.  I was starting to develop.  My comments were still sparse – I was afraid to be the first – so I posted where other people were.  Nevertheless, I was starting the commenting stage.  As of late, I have begun to comment more frequently….like here or here or here.  Then I started to write on my own and think about each moment as a moment to write about.  I still want to write about ski lodges - I love the sounds.  But I wrote about Zappa (which was a lot of fun) and about being mad (though I was kind of out of the INTENSE moment) and about driving and about observations about exercises..  I wrote a braided essay that I was happy with but needed to tie together a bit more (which I will be doing for my final), and I started to enjoy some of my 100 word pieces.  I liked some of my images from later on as well…I like this one or this one, though some of them were worse.  Last came my multimedia, which I was happy with as a first time editor.  There were faults - transitioning, pacing - I talk too fast, and I need more pics.  Now I feel I am part of a new community, a fun community.  I have almost finished my final – I am pretty content with what I’ve done with it.  Hopefully I will continue to post on my blog.  I will probably post less as classes start to catch up with me, but I will be posting nonetheless, happy to have had an enthused teacher and class.