Exercise 2 for #IST646: Why and how I got here

When I was growing up, entertaining myself was necessary. I was an only child, with an odd sleep schedule, and would often spend early weekend hours in the family room, watching television, making craft projects, and playing games with my imaginary friends. These friends were fairly one-dimensional; simply someone who would hang out with me, typically based on characters from books or movies: Nala from The Lion King, Carmen Sandiego, a magician from a fantasy novel. In a similar way, this unbridled creativity, together with my love of words, drove me to write. Sometimes such creations would begin as ambitious tables of contents, a column of Roman numerals adorning the left side of the page, but rarely go any further. If I began with text instead, I would typically construct stories around a word, concept, or personality quirk. For example, I remember once planning to write an entire novel about two sisters playing Scrabble, but fortunately never wrote more than the contents page. Other times, my fascination with faraway places and cultures other than my own would lead me to bring a properly “exotic” character into a world I felt familiar with. I can’t tell you how many times my stories involved a new student in school, being picked on for one reason or another, but eventually finding that rare jewel of friendship. Though this very basic storyline was common throughout my early writings, true story building and characters with personality were a rarity. I do remember talking about concepts such as plot and character development in grade-school English class, but they never really clicked for me until 2016, when I gave myself the challenge of reading the entire Harry Potter series—the first time I had ever done so. At the end of each book, I would marvel at J.K. Rowling’s attention to detail, her mapping out aspects of the novels that would be left hanging in Book 2 to be picked up again in Book 6. This is what had been missing for me, I thought, the building of a plot. Ever since this epiphany, I continue to wonder at how this creative writing thing is done. I know the different pieces of a story arc—exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution—but it feels like a huge jigsaw puzzle with vast chunks of missing pieces. How do I plan all this out, fill in the blanks, and keep a story interesting, without flat characters or boring dialogue? I also recognize, thanks to more conscious reading about marginalization and oppression, that the “exotic” characters I invented as a youngster were probably stereotyped—particularly those who spoke in dialect—and that it is not my place to tell their stories. This aspect has left me wondering at times about what things I can write about, which has brought me to exploring the idea of sharing my own stories with the world. Just this week, I began drafting a post that I’m hoping will be published on a community blog within the next month. I suppose, in some sense, this is what brought me to this course. I, perhaps selfishly, believed the course would help me in my creative writing endeavors, an area of my life that I do desperately want to return to. Little did I know that more often than not, this class would be pushed to the back burner due to unexpected stumbles in the rest of my course load. This semester, I am both fulfilling my internship requirement for my MLIS degree, as well as taking the last of my required core classes: IST613, Library Planning, Marketing and Assessment. Both of these have been somewhat unclear in their own ways, leaving me feeling like this kitten. In both settings, I’ve encountered lack of clarity as far as tasks to be completed, which has left me feeling anxious, unhappy and lost. Fortunately, thanks to a series of happy events—supportive friends; a moment of quick thinking the last week of January, which led to an honest conversation with my internship supervisor; a “reboot,” for lack of a better term, of the IST613 course under a new professor; and a healthy dose of necessary time management skills—my coursework now feels a tiny bit more manageable. Using checklists and planning out specific periods of time for particular tasks has not only helped me complete homework in a timely manner, but has also freed up space for me to be more like this kitty.

First audio story for #IST646

Soooo... This post is late. I know this. It's been a hairy first month of the new semester, which means I haven't been able to focus well until maybe 24 hours ago. (I know, not good excuses, but better late than never?) I recorded this story, based on an African folktale adapted by Heather Forest in her book "Wisdom Tales," for my first assignment. I really enjoyed expanding on the characters and their parts in the story, especially playing with the gender norms. I loved the themes of trust and faith, issues that have surfaced as rather crucial in my life as of late. I'm willing to give myself a lower grade because of tardiness/misunderstanding of the assignment (that it had to be a blog post. Oops. I hope you all enjoy!

Testing, testing. I haven't updated this blog in almost 6 years. A lot has changed since then: new living situation, new views of the world, so much. But I'm excited to start blogging again. * * Full disclosure: I am resurrecting the blog for a class project (I'm now in my 4th semester of library school), but I'm also thinking about doing more creative writing this year, so this can also be a fun place to play with ideas. :)