Hello everyone! I hope you've been well since my last post.

     I have just completed my first year in college after having taken three writing workshops (academic, screen, and playwriting) in the second semester. I also participated in three clubs! One was a club that I had attended during my first semester (my favorite club) but two of them were clubs that I hadn't gone to before. It was scary going to those meetings for the first time because I am always afraid of what will happen but I had a lot of fun and I am planning on attending them again next semester.

     In terms of writing, I did a lot of it. I don't know how but I often found myself surprised in my academic writing class because some of my preconceptions about academic writing turned out to be wrong! It was so fascinating going to class and learning more about how it could be fun to write and read academic papers. As a result, I feel that I will be in a different mindset when writing future essays.

     In my screenwriting class, I struggled with the format of the this form. You have to give an image as succinctly as possible while conveying setting, emotion, and whatever else you want in it. Also, a lot of words that are used in narrative forms can't be used in screenplays because it makes the screenplays read slower and/or like a story. As someone who is used to writing novels, I found myself constantly making sure not to have those phrases. I also had to be careful not to have anything in the past tense like I would in a story. It might not seem like something that should be a concern but, when you're someone who writes stories in the past tense, trying to write something in the present tense is very difficult. You also can't have too much dialogue or too much setting/action at one time because you have to make the screenplay quick to read but also need to keep it interesting for an audience. Basically, a screenplay is like a novel without all of the flowery phrases/monologues/descriptions. Though, there are still plenty of opportunities to have fun with how you write it.

     Even though I struggled with a lot of this, I found that I enjoyed it a lot...maybe even more than novel writing. However, when it comes to novels I try to write about something that is a very serious circumstance or problem and try to encourage change or thought. But, when it came to the first act of a script that I needed to write for this class, I ended up with a superhero film with a very cheesy opening. I kind of like the cheesiness in it though. I plan to write the rest of the script over the summer and am planning to have the tone become more serious (possibly demented) as it goes on but I feel that the cheesiness is a sign that I wrote it. I never thought that anything I'd write could be funny!

     In playwriting, I found other struggles that made the work more worthwhile. In some ways, playwriting is like a novel but you have less control over the characters, set, and actions. The goal or a play is to have as little direction as possible while concisely depicting where the events are happening. Also, you needed to show a character's motivations (usually through dialogue). I found the structure easy to work with but these other rules within the form were a challenge. I've always struggled with the internal workings of my characters and that was in a lot of the critique that I got in the workshop. However, I was great at writing the visual aspects of what was supposed to happen. In the end, I enjoyed writing the play that I wrote and I plan on exploring my play further this summer!

     I learned a lot this semester about my writing and about what I enjoy. I also learned that there are times when I really can't push myself to write...no matter how much I want to. I think it will take a while for me to remember that though. I am grateful for everything I've learned so far and I can't wait to see what my sophomore year brings.

     I hope you are all doing well as summer comes around the corner! Hopefully I'll be posting again soon!