Discovering your Writer Self

Attending the right graduate program can alter your life and writing style. Maybe it's wishful thinking on my part, but I think grad school gives you a wide range of skills. After reading a post entitled, "it feels like changing fortune," by fellow classmate Dave Kiefer, I agree with him when he writes how attending the University of Baltimore has significantly improved his writing. Before attending UB, I never wrote my stories by hand--I wrote every story directly into the computer. As a novice, I thought it was bad if you didn't know what your story was about before writing it. However, as I began to study the writing habits of writers that I admire such as Toni Morrison, I learned that many of them write their stories on a piece of paper or pad. At UB, I learned that writing is a process and an exciting journey. Discovering the story is the best part of writing. I used to think it was crazy when I heard writers tell journalists, "The story just came to me." But I can honestly say, this is true. A writer shouldn't cocooned himself in his dank, lonely writing den because the best material comes from the outside world. I find myself incorporating conversations I overheard and things I saw on TV into my writing. Writing is cultural; so why not embed society, media, and real life into your writing? With writing we are creating worlds, and those worlds should somewhat resemble "real" life. Not just fictional life.

The end is almost here

The semester is almost over. It's like the countdown to freedom, but I'll admit there is nothing like getting up in the morning with purpose. I like to feel productive, although school can be stressful. Right now, I have a couple of major assignments due: Pedagogy presentation, Electronic Publishing final project, and an experimental writing assignment, but by the second week of May, it should be a wrap! But when I'm an old woman, I'll remember my days at UB--the days when I would stay until the closing of the Design Studio Lab to design work, taking the shuttle that drops me off at Penn Station, and definitely making those books by hand--and how many people can say that they handmade their books? Not many.