part c — you, the student

The “aha” moment that immediately jumps into my mind is the discovery I had for, to my own personal surprise, adding twists and rapid shifts to the ends of my pieces. I have explored this through my play To Catch the Moon and a short story I am currently working on, and hope to employ this in the future. It was an “aha” for me, personally, as I considered twist endings to sort of go against the typical lyrical/poetical nature of my writing – so to discover that I have the ability to write in a more prosaic voice was enlightening.

This year, the main accomplishment of mine regarding reading, is that I was able to read many poetry anthologies for the first time. I mainly read novels, so to be able to get a hold of and read and learn from poets that I truly admire was something that truly allowed me to grow this year. My favourite book that I read was The Complete Poems by Anne Sexton, as her style of writing poetry has always inspired me. She uses language and structure so brilliantly and purposefully, and being exposed to the hugely different ways poems can be structured and presented has really helped elevate my writing this year.

My largest accomplishment this year, as a writer, was the fact that I wrote an entire One Act play, entitled To Catch the Moon. Writing the piece itself was challenging, and taking on such a huge project truly allowed me to grow as a writer. It was performed for my schools One Act festival, so to see something I had spent so much time on and put so much thought into be presented to a large audience was an amazing experience. I hope to continue writing poetry, expanding specifically upon my flash poetry, and get to 100 poems before the end of the year.

I will take Creative Writing again, but this time it will be a course I plan on taking at university. I plan on taking it so I have an outlet for my creative writing, and so that I may continue to grow and learn new techniques.

My next steps to improve as a writer are to step outside of my comfort zone, and experiment with my structure, style, and diction usage. I’m glad that I have been able to develop a distinct style, but to be able to expand my writing range even further would allow me to draw from various different styles to suit whatever I may be writing at the moment.


claire b.