Albertus Magnus Semester 1 Babble

[davetheanalyzer]

End of the first month of mostly online classes and I’ve settled into the routine. For the Writing Portfolio class, it’s mostly reading another’s work and thinking of good feedback to give, usually pointing out positives and looking for areas of improvement. The professor was pretty supportive of most of our comments. The only issue was me commenting on the dead girlfriend trope and issues in using it. He disagreed with it a bit but did agree the girlfriend should be fleshed out so we could see why he was drawn to her. The workload’s getting up a bit since it’s nearly my time to present a writing sample. I’m writing the first scene for a book that would hopefully be the start of a series and to gouge where I’ll be going, I’ve been plotting the book a chapter-a-day. I don’t think I’ll have the outline compete by the time I have to write the sample, but it’d help. The maximum length would be six double-spaced pages, which I don’t think I’ll struggle to do. I do like to spin a yarn.
  

My other class The Creative Process is a bit more loaded. To get through the weekly assigned readings for Stephen King’s “On Writing,” I often have to read ten pages a day. That isn’t too much but with my tiredness making reading slow, it can be a bit of a chore. Still, it can be interesting. There are some things King says that intrigue me and I agree with but there are a few that I voraciously disagree with. His disapproval of plot outlines, which should be discarded in favor of freeform writing, isn’t something that rings true for me. I’m fine with other writers having their own system but his insistence that it stifles and stymies stories and his way was the correct one annoyed me. Personally, plot outlines allow me to do some creative planning. The road a few inches ahead of me is revealed to me while I plot and whatever scenes occur to me I could weave in. Plot outlines are kind of like a roadmap to me. They are a guide maybe with pictures and videos but they don’t compare to actually journeying on the highlighted routes. When I write the actual stories, I still get inspiration for how to detail scenes that I only vaguely worded in plot descriptions. I’ve even deviated from the outline when a better path opens. One time I deviated from the outline though, everything felt wrong and directionless. It was only when I checked my outline and rewrote a bit to get back on track that the story started feeling right to me. So yeah, outlines might have problems but I disagree with King and find they have just as much benefits for me.

Okay, rant over. Phew. As for the rest of The Creative Process class, there are weekly assignments where you have to post your thoughts on the readings within two to four paragraphs. Then you have to read your classmates’ posts and respond to at least one. So far, it can be interesting and engaging, though it still feels a bit strange to use forums for classes. I do get heartened when someone responds to my posts and I try to relate to something in another person’s post as well. I do tend to write a lot in my posts, resulting in big paragraphs I sometimes cut up. Two times, I’ve submitted things that only the professor could see, the story of my writing life, which did get reposted to the forums, and King’s write without an plot exercise based on a domestic violence story template where the abuser escapes their holding institution and reveals themselves in the victim’s house. I didn’t much enjoy it, not having much of a feel for either characters. Granted, that might be because I was restricted to 500 words and King recommended going up to five to six pages. I might have hit my stride more during that upper limit. But the professor seemed to like it, which I guess goes to show that my years of writing stories have influenced me well.

Speaking of that, I’ve just finished writing a six page essay about what books and writers inspired me, and influenced my writing. I mentioned some details in the forums before, but I’ve detailed it a bit more in full. The thing is, my writing influences extend into visual and audio storytelling mediums, whether it includes dialogue or certain medium motifs I want to do in the literary format. I have to explain each influence and gave some textual examples on how they impacted my writing. Two involve conversations I didn’t put to story yet, one summarized, the other written down. Writing them down for the first time was a challenge but I hope they communicate the results of the influences correctly.

Seeing the reaction to this will be interesting. Since I’m autistic, I haven’t noticed or cared enough if taking inspiration from other mediums was taboo or not. I’m pretty open about my fandom influences. The only thing that I don’t mention in class or other places are more private, salacious interests. It wouldn’t be appropriate and I don’t want to bring that kind of attention to myself. I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m not the first writer this professor had who took inspiration from other mediums but we’ll have to see.

I’m also still doing the daily writing journal. It’s a bit annoying but I’m always able to find something to talk about, even if I have to access a particular memory if nothing noteworthy that day happened. At first, I tried to tie these observations to fantastic story notions. For example, “An officer escorting late children into the local elementary school commented no one was home after encounter a locked door today. They eventually got left in but what if they discovered the school had been disappeared?” Then, I started commenting on using these observations for average character dynamics and scene settings. Those might involve fantastic elements, but I don’t connect them outright. I’m unsure if I’d use this journal for actual stories, but I won’t dismiss it out of hand. I just hope I can read my writing if I ever do so, I often need my glasses to understand it.

While all this writing, I’m squeezing in my We Will Hold On Forever work. I’m on my second draft going through chapters 8 and 9, and it mostly involves tweaking up certain minor characters and inserting running themes and plot threads. I’m only able to fix 24 paragraphs a day, so that limits how quickly I can post chapters 6 and 7. I still think I’m going to make posting them by the end of October but it MIGHT be a close one. I have been anticipating posting 6 and 7 for months now. It’s the conclusion of arc one and a reviewer has already guessed who the antagonist might be. I won’t say who but all I can say that readers won’t be prepared for some of the things I have in store.

I am also sneaking in writing other fics, most recently that LBT film 11 AU where Littlefoot gets caught right away for the Tree Sweet Tree business. I know I could be rewriting the two other one-shots I thought I might post this year, one about Heisei Godzilla being in the afterlife and a Pterano and Doc friendship tale, but I’m trying to get down the characters for the former. As for the latter, I could write myself into being interested in the tale but the pull of Littlefoot angsting about the consequences of his actions is just too tempting. I might keep to that for now. Maybe later, if my attention starts to sway from the AU, I could get back to the two one-shots but for now…

That’s all. After I plot the second to last chapter for my original story, I’m going to look over my short essay and see if I might be able to edit it all tonight. It would be good to not have that hanging over my head all of tomorrow. But if I can’t make it, I might try to squeeze editing and submitting it in the morning. Then I can have a bit of a day’s break from all the assignments and focus on my fic project. By the end of October, I might have seen a movie and made further progress in my classes as well as fanfiction. Until then, see you!