I am admittedly worried about this final project. Though it is reassuring that we will not be graded on the quality of our creative work, I am still daunted by the fact that I have never tried to write or produce writing in this capacity. I have a somewhat irrational fear of writer’s block, which could arguably be considered a block in itself. I worry about embarking on a project or assignment and coming to a standstill, forcing me to abandon my previous work and scramble to find a new lens through which to view the assignment. I find myself thinking about an assignment until I can envision the idea fully fleshed out to avoid this problematic fear. This is limiting though, because my brainstorming is often cut short as I fail to allow myself to work through an idea until it is no longer half-baked. In light of these somewhat irrational fears, I have finally settled on an idea that I think I will be able to communicate effectively for the final project.
Throughout this course, I have continued to come back to the Athabasca Story. It was my favorite reading that we did, and I find myself comparing each of our other readings back to Cariou’s short story. Because I responded so well to the rhetoric he used to describe the tar sands industrial site, I have decided to attempt to reproduce this type of story. I am going to try to write with the same native-sounding tone, and try my hand at anthropomorphism. I predict that this particular part of the assignment is going to be the most challenging part, because I will need to write in a way that I was never taught in school. I hope to draw on my love for reading to aid me in this part of the process, as I attempt to write dialogue within fiction. I am tentatively planning to situate my climate change fable within a letter or written correspondence of sorts between a grandmother and her grandchild. I want to use this part of my project to bring the fictional story back to reality so that it can be didactic and modern.
I expect that there will be challenges, as I attempt to incorporate my analytical, persuasive writing skill set into a creative writing assignment. For this story to be effective, I will need to be able to take my creative writing ability seriously. I am sure it will feel unnatural, silly even, but it will be crucial to see my idea through to completion. I am comforted by the fact that we will not be graded on the quality of our creative work, but rather on the intention and effort behind it. I am interested to see how my assignment will look after completion, and that will guide my analytic paper. The paper that is also included in the project, though separate, will allow me to more fully explain the process I went through to produce my own Athabasca Story
Katherine — thanks for sharing these thoughts about the final project. The fears that you describe are ones that all writers — even the most experienced — feel constantly, so you should feel yourself to be in good company. As for myself, every time I begin a new writing project I am unsure of myself and a little afraid because I don’t know how it’s going to turn out or if it will succeed. I think you are right in noting that you don’t want those fears keep you from engaging in open-ended and imaginative brainstorming. The best writing always begins as a big mess! The hard work comes during revision.
I too keep coming back to “An Athabasca Story”; it’s such a fascinating narrative! It’s great that you want to use parts of that story as a model for your own creative work. I’d be happy to meet with you during office hours to talk more about your specific ideas for the story or about the writing process more generally.
I totally agree with you in being worried about having writing blocks in this project. I keep finding myself thinking about the plot of the children’s book that I am writing for this project and wondering how I am going to pull this off. I agree with you that a good writing project comes with a lot of revision.