In this class, so far, I have practiced my writing skills continuously with the process and free writing journals. I have found that this practice and thinking of a topic to write my free writing journals about has helped me with my brainstorming problem and my writer's block. I also get great ideas for my novel, mentioned in previous assignments, while I'm writing these journals. The ideas do not always have anything to do with the journal topic at all, but I find that while my creative juices are flowing for the journals that I get the same affect as right before you go to bed when you get all those great ideas but don't want to get out of bed to write them down. Of coarse then, in the morning, you can't remember what you were thinking the night before. I just hate it when that happens. The wonderful thing about thinking of these things while writing the journals instead is that I already have out paper, I already have out pencil, and the thought doesn't get away from me before I write it down. That has truly helped me.
However, I still need to work on expanding my explanations and descriptions. Another thing that I am still struggling with and have been for a very long time is punctuation. The way I tell if something is punctuated correctly is I say it out loud and where there's a breath I put in a comma or apostrophe. I used to think that this was a fool-proof way of doing this, but I have found that things are not always correct written the way they sound when spoken. One reason for this is that when I speak in real life I often use improper conjugations that change the way a sentence is arranged. This throws off my writing a bit. I need to work on knowing from knowledge what goes where so I don't have to worry about whether or not my spoken language is correct.
I have learned a great deal about the power of description. I have been able to apply this usefully already by going back and adding several powerful scenes in my book. I went back and read it after making these additions and it improved the flow and texture of the novel immensely. I also put to practical use the thinking from the audience's point of view method that we learned. It seems like such a simple tip, but, in the past, I have always written for myself and so never really thought of it. Before we were taught this I never had anyone read my book to make suggestions so I never knew that I was using mixed metaphors that only I and my best friend understood. Now I actually try to become someone else to write. This also gives me a fresh new perspective for even more story ideas. Those are my practical applications for these skills outside of this class. I hope to learn much more that I can apply later on as well.
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