Before I took this class, I had fallen into what you might call a \u201cwriter\u2019s slump.\u201d I came into college as a writing major mostly because it was the only thing I thought I could do\u2014the only thing I liked to do. Case and point: when I was younger, I used to write fanfiction about my favorite T.V. shows. There was a compulsory element to my writing that was encouraging and, I suppose, misleading. In just under two weeks, I would churn out over 107,000 words for pure, personal joy. At the time, I thought: of course I want to be a writer. Who else would write so much for just themselves?<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t get that urge anymore. Nowadays, writing always involves some kind of struggle. I\u2019ve read enough to know that there are (and will always be) countless better writers than me out in the world, but I haven\u2019t written enough to fully realize that my opinions have value too. Or, perhaps I\u2019ve just reached a point where I\u2019ve dabbled in writing long enough that I\u2019ve formed too many expectations\u2014most of which are unachievable, at least on the first try. If that\u2019s the case, then a fear of failure is what keeps me from expanding on ideas the moment I get them.<\/p>\n
Of course, it\u2019s always easier to list fears than to actually face them. While I can\u2019t say that this Composing Digital Media class has helped to truly vanquish any of my writing woes, I can say that this class has helped me put them in a new perspective. I had forgotten, I think, that the core of writing is actually just storytelling, which has forms outside of just pen and paper. Now, after having done projects this semester in multiple mediums (all of which aimed towards a central goal: to tell a story), I feel as though I\u2019ve made it past the worst of my \u201cwriting slump.\u201d Now, as I enter my last semester with my Senior Seminar project on the horizon, I\u2019m thinking of ways that I can tell my story outside of just a traditional Word document. Maybe I\u2019ll write a hypertext nonfiction piece. Maybe I\u2019ll include an audio segment. Maybe I\u2019ll include images.<\/p>\n
Who knows? Bottom line is: the world of storytelling has gotten a whole lot bigger.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"