Creativity in the Writing Process!
It is safe to say that writing has never been a strength of mine, so walking into a writing seminar on January 17th definitely gave me the butterflies. I have always struggled with being creative, and I thought that meant being a bad writer. But, it was not necessarily that I wasn’t creative, it was that I didn’t know how to be. In grade school, we only ever had super specific prompts where essentially the teacher would make us structure the essay with an introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion. This structure would make it extremely hard to go outside the box and it was hard for me to establish my personal writing style. We also had standardized tests where we would be given a hypothetical prompt trying to get our creative juices flowing, however thirty minutes to write a prompt with some sort of creativity, how?
This class has taught me that it takes time to develop a project that you feel passionate about. Once there is passion and desire, there is creativity. Both pieces that I incorporated in this portfolio are the ones that challenged me the most, but because I spent time free-writing and researching, they developed into some of my best writing. A piece that I decided to incorporate in my portfolio that I believe includes everything that I learned this semester is my essay titled, Girl, If You Want a Burger, Eat a Burger! I originally felt like this paper was a challenge, but once I accomplished it, it felt so good. What I like most about this piece is that it completely transformed from the time I started researching to the final draft. I realized that with a lot of time, effort, and research, a work of writing can blossom into something extraordinary. I originally wanted to do my inquiry on diets among different religions, but when I was researching I knew it was a topic that I was not passionate about. After conducting an immense about of research and just reading articles, I was really interested in veganism. Many days passed and after a lot of time and research, I developed my project into an inquiry on gendering in the vegan sector of the food industry and how feminism is associated with it. It took me just 45 minutes of free-write to get my feelings and thoughts down before I realized I had something great and something that is actually very significant to my own life. I had no idea that my piece was going to go in this completely different direction, but I am so happy that it did. I think this paper has everything I learned this semester (researching, interview, top-down style, fluency, enough description without having too much fluff, among others), so it is something I am very proud of! Now I know not to rush the thinking process, and to just sit with my thoughts until something I feel passionate about emerges.
The next piece I incorporated in my portfolio was a one-pager I wrote titled, Engaging My Feelings Not Ignoring Them. This piece was important to include in my portfolio because it was one of the first times I just sat with my thoughts and wrote. I learned how to sit with my thoughts and I was able to really tune into what I was thinking at that moment in Soul Cycle. I also was able to recognize what I was observing and notice things that I had never noticed before. It really transformed my piece into a something that was really creative due to my word choice, perspective, and message of Soul Cycle being more than just a workout. Again, it took me just moments of silence and free-writing to become passionate about this topic.
Both pieces in this portfolio I am confident in as a writer. These are pieces that I believe show my creativity and my personal transformation. I know now what it takes to delve into your senses and imagination and I thank Brian for that!
Cayley Stonehouse 