Q. What does the discussion forum on drafting reveal to you about the ways in which different people approach drafting? Why are these differences important?
It’s interesting reading about the different ways my fellow peers address drafting. How they piece the information together and put it together into something cohesive and readable, how they take the language from casual and grammatically incorrect to something formal and professional. Everyone’s process is, I almost want to say, similar to each other but also different. It shows their thought process, how their minds work and how they approach a project. Even some of the analogies to explain their drafting process is interesting; like a web to gather ideas and picking key bits, forming a skeleton as a base, a rehearsal before the big performance, the basic sketch before the final painted version is shown, or jotting down all your thoughts before sorting through it all. As I commented before, revealing each student's approach to drafting is like revealing their thought process. Some take it more casually and take their time, some make chaos of thought and ideas before assembling them to create order. Myself and a few others are more meticulous and thoughtful even in drafting before creating the final product. It’s kind of fun to see how people approach writing and maybe even trying their method to see if it works for me.
0 Comments
Now I attending smaller anime conventions at the same convention center, so I had some idea of the rules and goings on of a convention like ECCC. I even heard about it from some co-workers I used to work with that told me about the ECCC. Ok, so I bring some spending money, and bag for drinks and snacks, and wear comfy shoes. But I was not prepared for the size difference of this convention; it was so much bigger and fuller than something like Sakura-con (anime). Upon entry of the main floor with the vendors, first thing to come to my head was, “Oh, s@#%, I was not expecting this.” I still had fun though. I checked out all the different vendors, met new people, exchanged emails, took lots of pictures, attending a few panels and went home afterwards thinking, “I need to be prepared for next time.” So I did. I spent most of the year in between working on a costume, saving my money, bought my tickets in advance, reached out to people who went the previous year for advice on panels to attend, food to bring, who to avoid (furries in particular). And most importantly, do not try to park near the convention center. Fortunately, I had a parking pass nearly where my grandparents lived. So i parked there and walked to the convention center and they let me crash at their place.
It was a much more fulfilling experience the second time around. The experience of the first time prepared me for future conventions. I met new people, attended panels with my favorite actors, got autographs and pictures (Stan Lee and the Ladies of Wheaton). Going to convention felt didn’t feel nerve-wracking or weird. I felt right at home among this massive group of people who shared something in common with me, be it movies or tv shows, certain actors, a particular genre, cosplaying. I didn’t feel like I stood out, like I did most of the time anywhere else, I felt like I fit in among ‘My People.’ I attended ECCC for two years before I didn’t have the money to go anymore. I still keep in touch with the people I met at conventions and we occasionally get together and talk about movies and TV shows. And maybe one day, if can either get my stores out or become a reviewer online, then maybe I can go again and relive that feeling of being amongst fellow geeks. Doing some fast writes for this entry, sticking to 3 minutes on each category presented and not stop or slow down to really think about things. First one is on outward appearance. So… 3 minutes.
Fourth, dietary and domestic practices. 3 minutes.
Ideas come to me in a few different ways. One of them is usually what I can recall from my dream. I would have to write it down before it fades away. I generated a few ideas just by tossing random subjects into the air with my sister and writing down the first idea that comes to mind and write something around that. Another way from various TV shows, movies or games; rearrange the plots and aspects about them and make something new. Prime example of that is my current and longest running concept story that combined elements from one of my favorite anime’s (Naruto), my favorite TV show (Avatar), and the most fascinating mythological creatures (Dragons). I have done so much research online about dragons, natural elements, martial arts, chakra’s and chi to make this story interesting and engaging, making the characters unique, understandable and believable. I jot new thoughts in a journal, on my phone or on my computer and store it to look back on when I take breaks from the project and I need to refresh my thoughts. It’s interesting to learn how my peers come up with ideas. For some, they need a project to start thinking. Other times, ideas just pop into their head. Some are influenced by normal or random occurrences in everyday life. Others are inspired by popular culture, as I think most people are nowadays, and to that I can relate to most. I read a lot about where ideas come from, what people do or where they go to generate an idea. I think my favorite one though comes actually from the extras of the Monsters, Inc. movie and the writers and directors would sit under salon hair dryers to generate ideas. Family, though, is a different thing. The most inspired member of my family is my sister and most of it comes from what she reads on Tumblr. But what she comes up with is so out there that it borders on either ridiculous or brilliant. She’s not as methodical on research or writing as I am, but it’s nice to have someone as out there as she is to bounce ideas off of. Goes to show that ideas can come from anywhere.
When reading the forum discussion on how ideas are generated, it's interesting to read how everyone generates ideas differently. Whether they seek ideas from their environment, people in their lives, or they're not looking at all, ideas are everywhere and ideas are always sparked by something. From the time I was in high school to the present, I can’t recall a time in between where I wasn’t writing something, whether it be my own original story content or fanfiction, practicing to write a novel, short or long story, some dialog heavy or leaning more on descriptions. Learning to describe characters, their appearance, personality and actions, the worlds they live in and tone, always thinking, “What kind of story am I telling here?” When I’m not working or gaming, I’m on my computer or looking through old writing and piecing a story or stories together. As a kid going through school, I never thought I was that good a writer, but what I was turning in was passable. It wasn’t until 8th grade I met Mr. Hunziker, my Language Arts teacher, and he told the class “There is more to writing than just writing.” I didn’t understand it at the time, but I wasn’t going to give myself a headache thinking about it. Just do the work and move on. It wasn’t until after we finished our ‘Original Short Story’ that he let me in on the secret. “When you are writing something, anything, you are showing your readers who you are as a person.” He said he really liked my story and wanted to see it expanded upon. Oddly enough, it’s the same story I have ever since been conceptualizing. Since taking Mr. Hunziker’s class, I wanted to write more, learn to write better. 13 years, 1 residential change, and 4 jobs later, I managed to make it back to school and the first course I picked is ENG101 and in just a few weeks, I’ve learned new terms and ways to write and set up my own website. Never did I think I could do that. I hope to continue writing, but move my stories out of conception and share them, finally, with an audience. With the knowledge of building a website, I can get a blog out to read and maybe find like minded writers to collaborate with and share their stories. But I know there is much more to study, expand my vocabulary and research more for my stories so as to appeal to broad audience.
As I continue my studies, I hope to gain a better understanding of my own writing style and how I can improve it. When I read the discussion forums, learn what the other students are writing, how they interpret the studies, share their experiences and find a commonality that we share and can tackle together. I like meeting new people who in the same boat and learning how writing works for them. As far as expectations go for other members of the course, I don’t have much. I know I’m not the most focused student, but I’m sure I’m not the worst. Everyone learns at their own pace, everyone’s motivation is different. The best I can expect from other students is that we all try our best. From what I could understand about from the two documents I read, the closest I could get to understanding Rhetorical writing is in a similar vein to writing for or watching a movie. It’s the first few minutes are supposed to set the tone and feel of the movie. Same with a trailer, which is almost a prelude to what we will be watching, or, reading. To be honest, it the closest analogy I could come up with to try and figure out what I was reading.
I want to say the most recent writing experience using rhetoric would be when I was working on my own movie reviews (haven’t made it to youtube yet). Voicing my thoughts on what makes a movie good or bad, the brilliant or terrible choices made when making the movie, why certain things work for one movie or a genre that doesn’t work for others. My audience (if I had any) would be anyone who enjoys movies, whether casually or major movie buffs, genre fans or people who just like to rant. I would appeal to this large audience simply by doing what I’m passionate about: watching movies, learning how they got made, the history about them and sharing that knowledge with everyone else. Despite spending the last two days reading about rhetorics, I still don’t get it. Maybe it’s me trying to look at it as a movie reviewer as if I was analyzing a movie or it’s my ADHD and I’ve lost all focus. Who knows, maybe my understanding will click and I’ll be able to answer the question of how Rhetoric knowledge will affect my writing. For now, More reading. To be honest, I’m not sure how I feel about the notion of writing collaboratively. I would say I’m almost indifferent; I understand why collaborating with other writers is important and I have done a bit of collaborative writing myself when I was drafting out review scripts. With more than one writer on a project, you have more than one perspective to draft a project, people to bounce ideas off, multiple eyes to check for grammatical errors, and sharing the workload. Collaborating with others can be exciting or intimidating for different people for different reasons and I can kind of see it both ways. The intimidation from working with someone who may have a different writing style than your own, not knowing what his personality is like. Will this person let me share my ideas or dominate the project? Will we be able to work together? Will this person to balance my writing or do we both have the same style that's unsuited for the project? Who knows. When it’s a peer reading your work, you don’t know what he’ll say and the judgement that is intimidating. But on the flip-side of the discussion, I also see the excitement. We work very well together, like we are in sync. This person can bring some simplicity to my complex style. We’re able to bounce good ideas off one another. And honestly, peer reviews aren’t that bad. The criticism is constructive; everyone is there to learn and get better and if someone makes a mistake and you don’t see it, another person can spot it and give you feedback. I have experienced this when working on my review scripts, which called for opinions on a movie from a moviegoers viewpoint and a book-reader's viewpoint. My partner is quick witted and comical while am more emotional and blunt. We were balance out, bounced ideas off one another and we came to a respectable conclusion about a movie from our respective viewpoints. But when I work with other people, it may not be quite the same experience. No doubt, I will have to learn to sync or understand other people's styles and try to balance or work with it. Myself, I tend to be a little too vocal and domineering on a project, feeling like my contributions won’t be enough and my ideas could work better than someone else's. I also tend to take everything personal, including constructive criticism. So, along with the ongoing challenge of taking everything personally, letting it roll off my back, I need to learn to trust and taking a step back to let my partners share their ideas and let their voices be heard. But there is something to gained, I think; I just may find people with similar writing styles, ideas and maybe even forge a collaboration outside of school. I’ll also gain a better understanding of collaboration and seek out peers to review my work, seek that criticism to strengthen my writing style and turn out a better project than when I started.
I think at the end of all this is that in the end, almost any and all writing done, whether for research, creating a novel, a show on TV or internet, creating a business; it’s all done through collaboration and collaboration can’t be achieved with some form of interaction. The social aspects of collaboration is key; interact over the phone, social media with Facebook or Facetime, or just person to person over a cup of coffee. You’ve got to interact with people, you need to bounce ideas off others, have that perspective that you didn’t have. Through the discussion forums, we can read other’s work, get a different view on the same subject, ask questions about what you don’t understand or help another student who is struggling. It does help not just one student but all students, and even teachers, be better writers. To reflect on a completed piece of writing, or even something I’ve haven’t finished and coming back to years later, is like seeing a bit of who I was in the past when I was writing it and and thinking on how much I’ve learned and grown from then. When looking back on a piece of your own work, it kind of puts things into perspective of who you are or what kind of writer you were; a casual writer, or very thoughtful and careful in the writing, or angry and just venting negative thoughts on the readers. Thankfully, I wasn’t the latter.
But when reflecting back on work that I’ve done in the past or even work I’ve done recently, I catch myself thinking, “Hmm, I think I could have written that a little better.” or, “What was I thinking writing this. No one is going to understand this.” Very few times I would say to myself, “This is perfect.” Because let’s face it, nothing ever really is perfect.
|