Nicholas R. Clark

The Writer’s Mind- Writing Intensive

Professor Katie Budris

December 5th, 2014

Final Portfolio Revisions

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Nicholas Clark

12/09/2014

Prof. Budris

Self Reflection Final Portfolio

Introduction:

At the beginning of the Fall semester I walked into the Writer’s Mind course having

absolutely no idea what a writing intensive course was, and because it was also my first

writing art’s course I had even more reservations about the content I would be required

to produce throughout the semester. Within just a few short weeks, however, the step-

by-step processes given to us for each assignment proved to not only expand my

creativity, but also inspire me to become a more calculated writer, while paying attention

to details in all of the right areas. While the dynamic of my writing style itself was

challenged multiple times throughout the semester, my fear of letting others read my

work was challenged even more significantly. This course has shown me the importance

of looking at writing as more of a process and less of a job, and by asking myself “why”

before attempting to write anything, I am now more adapt at tackling different styles of

writing I previously would have avoided.

Calibration Assignment:

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! While this assignment seemed easy at first, it actually proved to be a little more

difficult than I had originally anticipated it to be. I had never previously sat down to think

about the exact steps taken when I am attempting to write a new piece, but by doing so

I have since been able to focus in on specific patterns I follow when attempting to create

a new piece of literature. I also really enjoyed using the ‘Wordle’ image creator,

because it allowed me to see how an over usage of some words throughout one piece

can help point out negative patterns in other pieces I have written that are of a similar

subject matter. If a writer overuses particular words too much, readers tend to become

bored of the subject matter, so by pointing out these words and knowing which words to

look for I have become more aware of the necessity of using more colorful vocabulary to

keep my readers entertained.

Shadow Poem Assignment:

! The shadow poem assignment was probably my favorite one of the semester,

mainly because it challenged our entire class to discuss issues from our pasts we

otherwise wouldn’t have publicized. Initially I was afraid of including too much gruesome

detail about the specific incidences I discussed in my poem, but after hearing a few of

my classmates poems I became much less fearful for the reactions of my classmates. I

was actually very surprised at how mature everyone reacted to some of the somewhat

shocking subject matter that was written about for the assignment, and never once did I

feel like anyone had disrespected anyone else which was very comforting.

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! I think the hardest part about revising my poem was trying to transition out of the

rhyme scheme I had become dependent on to try to give the poem an overall more

serious tone. While I do enjoy poetry, I generally use rhyme as a sort of safety net, but

had never previously realized how often times it can skew the overall message from my

poem to the reader and take away from it’s overall importance. For this particular

assignment the topic of infidelity and abuse were very prominent themes, and by

sticking solely to an ABAB rhyme scheme, the poem became much more ‘sing-songy’

than I had originally wanted it to. Although I wasn’t too satisfied with my final revised

version, I can definitely agree that it had a more serious feel to it than the piece I

originally handed in.

Memento Narrative:

! The idea of taking two seemingly unrelated incidences in my life and attempting

to make a connection between them was something I had never thought to do prior to

the memento narrative assignment. By conducting interviews with different people in my

life and asking them to list traits they associate with me, I was able to successfully

narrow down the list of potential events I could use to relate two incidences to a

seemingly related personality trait. For me, the brutal honesty that I used in the piece

was somewhat difficult to muster up the courage to write about- especially because the

first of my two stories was an event that happened to my mother more so than it did

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myself. I think because I was able to take a life changing incident that happened to her

when I was younger and compare it to a similar, although very different, incident that

occurred to me at a much older age, I was able to show the readers how I have grown

as a person while still holding true to my core life values.

! The end results of the two seemingly unrelated stories were very different, but

the ending of the first one sort of acted as a answer key to the second one. Had the first

incident never happened to me at such a young age, I may have made a different

decision in the second story, which was a very hard fact to come to terms with as the

writer of these pieces. I think the transitioning between the two pieces was the most

difficult aspect of this assignment, in other words figuring out where to end story one

and pick up story two at. If given this assignment again I would attempt to use two

different incidences in my life and intertwine the two stories in an alternating manner

throughout the entire paper. I think the back and forth transitions may be a little more

confusing for the reader, but overall it creates a more memorable impact as well.

Final Project: Parody (Final Edit)

The Sun Can Wait.

I remember the brisk autumn air relentlessly blowing against my frail seven year-old

back, and just how free I felt as I was sat perched high above every monotonous thing on the

ground below. I knew that in that particular moment in time, I was on top of the world, and that I

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would remain untouchable as long as my feet grazed the surfaces on even the highest clouds in

the autumnal sky. I had concluded that my favorite place to be wasn’t really on earth at all, but

more so in the sky that looked down upon it. Just as I had done every day before that one,

without any hesitation, swaying stories above the ground, I challenged gravity with a smile. I

remember my best friend towering above me, just as she always had, just about ready to touch

the most prominent cloud in the sky. She had always been better at me at hopping from one limb

to another, and she could scale most of them quicker than Spider Man could scale a skyscraper.

While I bit my lip over my residual feelings of jealousy, the faint chill of the October air acted as

a forewarning of sorts, of the dangers that were to lay ahead.

We had been on a mission that day, to touch the sun once and for all, but it was proving to

be more difficult than we had originally anticipated. The sun had always been a huge part of our

lives, it guided us throughout our recesses, it warmed us up on cold mornings, and it loomed in

the bright morning sky as a constant reminder that the sun was our protection. The sun was the

embodiment of true strength. The sun was mysterious, and beautiful, and completely remarkable,

so much so that it had the power to take your breath away in a second, right before you realized

you were staring into the eyes of the brightest star in the world and if you had not planned to stop

soon you would grow to regret it. The sun just dangled in the sky and everyone revolved around

it, it was as though the sun was the king of the planets, who were all merely peasants arriving

late to the party.

“The higher you go, the harder you fall”, the message my mother always said replayed

like a bad song on the radio, time after time in my head- but still I continued to keep embarking

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into the fluorescent light of the autumnal sky. After all, this wasn’t the first time I tried to see the

sun up close and personal, and with all concerns about vision impairment pushed aside, I was

determined that this time my goal would be met. It certainly wasn’t the first time I’d gotten this

close to doing just that, but never had I been so close, only to realize that the sun was traveling

further and further from my grasp into the darkest parts of the universe. The penetrating wind

storm seemed to be picking up, and the sky was losing it’s vibrance, so my best friend suggested

we venture to another universe on a better day. Determination had set in, full force, and despite

her concern I was determined to reach the sun before he had to go away, after all- we were

already so close.

The journey could not be successfully completed without an adequate amount of self

preservation, or pacing, on my behalf. I inhaled roughly, and let out all of the air my lungs had

encompassed and I traced my breath as it floated through the daytime breeze. As the flames of

the sun were growing dimmer and further away with every passing moment, I knew that pacing

myself would promote the best end result, but it would be all for nothing if I had paced myself

too much. The rays of the magnificent fire ball that had before blistered my skin from being too

close, began to become benevolently distant with every minute, and a chill begun creeping over

every surface of my bruised and beaten body. All that was left was the faint shrill of the hollow

wind, and the highest point of the sunset, that was slowly disappearing behind three dark navy

colored clouds. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to turn away, even as I saw my destination being

ripped away from my clutches back into the emptiness of the universe. Something inside of me

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screamed, “You can do this!”, so I took a few moments to compose myself. A few moments to

catch my breath before I lost it entirely.

Convincing my best pal to travel back down to earth was the easy part, the hard part came

upon realizing that all that was left in this massive earth embedded structure was myself, with a

goal that I wasn’t even sure was capable of being met. It was me, all on my own now, against the

ever growing blackness of the consuming night. I knew that if I were to touch the sun today it

would have to happen within the next ten minutes, before he had gone to sleep indefinitely. The

countdown had begun, and here I was so consumed on the set up of my next move, when these

ideas distracted me so much I ended up taking a step in a very wrong direction. I caught myself

right before I had drifted too far into a hazy fog of thinking, of which weakly described some

informal “plan of attack”, and I remembered that the best way to reach ones destination is to

simply put one foot in front of the other and trudge towards their goal- don’t think about the

consequences.

The wind blew once more at the exact worst moment possible, and I once again felt the

hairs on my skin being ripped to the surface and almost clean out of their root, as goosebumps

rose through my skin in an instant. I heard the faint groan from what sounded like a bird,

reminding me that I wasn’t quite as close to my destination as I needed to be. There are no birds

in outer space. I took in my surroundings once more, and I realized that in order to land on top of

my next lifeline, that was dangling about ten feet in front of me in the most taunting manner I

had ever seen, I would have to take a risk. I would have to jump, and let gravity guide me in the

right direction. A little bit of fate was about to take me a long way, so without much thinking

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behind it, I leaped into the almost-night sky and just like that everything around me went from

dim to pitch black.

I opened my eyes to realize I was falling into the abyss, I had slipped and there was no

way I would see the sun now, but importantly in that moment I wasn’t sure if I would ever see

anything ever again. Could it be possible that my selfish desires, of which I knew weren’t even

entirely possible, had caused me to lose everything that mattered the most? I continued to feel

the world around falling from my grasp, as the now ice cold wind pierced my lips, and my limbs

all had gone numb.

I was approaching the ground, and when I got there, all of my hard work would be

erased. I heard the shrill shriek of my dearest friend, the poor soul who had to watch my demise

while not being able to do anything to prevent it. I could not go out like this, not after how

determined I had been just a few moments ago. While inches from the ground, I threw all of my

body weight (which wasn’t very much) onto one side of my body, in an attempt to break my fall.

And to an extent I did. I was fine, I had survived, and I was going to be okay. No goal of mine

had been met today, but I was thankful my fall had been met with someone there to catch it. I felt

a sigh of relief when I realized I hadn’t hit the concrete below, and an equal sigh of misfortune

when I realized the sun had now completely vanished into the dark of the night. Sure, had the sun

been met with my presence, I would have felt a strong sense of accomplishment, but being

thankful for my survival was the most prominent thing on my mind right now. I felt as though I

was in limbo, was I happy, or was I defeated? The decision wasn’t mine to make, as my friend

was

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crying from joy that I hadn’t been fatally wounded from the plunge. One thing was for certain

though, now more than ever. The sun could wait.

Parody Piece Final Revision:

! The most difficult aspect of creating the parody piece was deciding on a simple

action that could be exaggerated enough to hold humor, while still making some inkling

of sense to my audience. I had settled on the action of climbing trees, because it was

one of my earliest childhood memories. I remember all of the different emotions I felt the

first time I fell out of the tree in my backyard, and how I had convinced myself that I was

falling to my death when in reality I had fallen maybe ten feet at the absolute most.

! The exaggerated feelings I felt inspired me to give more life to the tree, but more

so, life to the sun, because it always seemed as though the sun was our end goal when

we would spend hours on end climbing in my backyard seemingly towards nothing in

particular. I remember being so consumed by the idea of touching the sun when I was

younger that I would spend as much of my time as possible staring at the sun, to the

point where my friends and myself would have contests to see who could stare at the

magnificent ball of fire the longest without blinking.

! I wanted to capture the feelings I had when I was in tree, and how magical it felt

to the seven year old version of myself to feel so alive and at such a higher altitude than

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I was used to. The conflict in the piece occurs when I attempt to rush through my

scaling of the large tree to reach the top prior to the sun fading away for the evening,

and as a result I fall. The most difficult aspect of writing this piece was capturing the

feelings I had felt while falling without actually saying what the feelings were.

! Initially I had included more details about the after effect of me falling from the

tree, but in the end I decided to remove this from the final version of the piece because I

felt that it took away from the overall drama surrounding the action of climbing the tree

and falling from it shortly there after. I also ran into some issues in regards to

maintaining agreeing tenses throughout the paper, which made the time lapse a little

confusing to readers. I definitely attempted to eliminate any time confusion in the final

version of the piece.

! I also neglected to inform my readers on the importance of the sun in the original

version of this parody, and in the revised edition I spent a little more time explaining the

reasoning behind the metaphor of the sun and all that it represented to me as a young

child. I really enjoyed using such colorful language throughout the piece, and the idea of

taking such a boring story and drawing it out and making it much longer than necessary

to achieve a satirical end result. I also attempted to incorporate a little more repetition in

the final version of the parody because I feel as though it allows readers to develop a

better understanding of the surroundings while making it pleasurable for them to read

about as well.

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! I think the most difficult aspect of revising this piece (as well as initially creating it)

was finding the fine line between using colorful language, and using too much of this

type of language to the point where it hurt the overall meaning of the piece by confusing

the audience. I had never previously written a parody piece before, and I think if given

the opportunity again I would pick an even more boring incident because it would be

more entertaining for me as an author to take something so monotonous and give it life

through exaggeration.

Conclusion:

! The most interesting part of these assignments as a whole was their vastly

different subject matter. I wholeheartedly enjoyed each one of the assignments for their

own special reasons, whether it being their simplicity or the rawness of their subject

matter. I think the importance of taking a step back before attempting to write,

regardless of what it is you’re trying to write, and figuring out the appropriate steps you

need to take to achieve your desired end result are very important to the success of

your piece as a whole. I had never really given much thought to the actual writing

process itself prior to this course, but now I find myself coming up with an outline before

beginning any type of assignment. I also find myself trying to replace common words

such as “that” or “many”, etc. with more colorful vocabulary to give my piece an overall

more sophisticated feeling. I am very pleased with the advances I have made as a

writer from the beginning of this semester to now, and I am looking forward to not only

bettering my writing, but taking more writing art’s courses at Rowan and potentially

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pursuing a career in this field- as it is definitely a type of writing I have a great amount of

passion for.

! I feel as though this course allowed us to look at many different types of writing

styles and genre’s and take key lessons away from each one to make us overall more

adaptable writers as a whole. By reading about different theories of writing our class

was also more aware of potential styles, and potential negative effects that a specific

style creates if not used properly. Our class also used investigation, evaluation, and

discover on both ourselves and the world around us to successfully create original work.

Personally, I have become much more critically aware of the things I do wrong in my

own writing, and I have definitely grown a more clear understanding of the importance

of explaining through writing, as opposed to just telling a reader about a specific thing.

These core values have all definitely worked together throughout the semester toward

making our entire class much more particular in regards to our writing, and as a result I

feel we have all benefited in at least some way. I am definitely less afraid now than I had

been before to attempt to write in a style I am not familiar with, thanks to being able to

successfully follow a clear process prior to even beginning to write the first sentence of

a specific assignment. I am looking forward to expanding my capabilities as a writer for

a long time to come.

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