PART A:  You, the Writer

Prior to this course, to be honest, I did not enjoy writing at all. I never willingly picked up a pencil and opened a journal to write. The only time I would write, as many students today, is when my parents would force me in order to “get better at english.” After taking creative writing, I have found a new passion to write and I plan to buy the book Write Now by Sarah Werner and create many new pieces of inspiration though following different prompts in the book.

I am still developing my voice as a writer and I am working very hard at it. I love to write with analogies and metaphors though. I remember in during my english finals a year prior, I sat there in the desk for a solid forty-five minutes trying to come up with a thesis and supporting evidence. Creative writing has helped me develop my thought process significantly. Now I am able to come up with ideas on the spot and come up with something creative with it, which is a life saver when it comes to writing a personal response for finals next week. Previously when I wrote short stories, I was never really talented at flushing out my plot and purposefully embellishing my sentences. I am still not good at it but I am trying harder to include description in my stories.

As a mentor writer, I would encourage puking out ideas without really being too picky about what comes out because this helps me get my ideas out of my head and onto the page, which I am able to organize later.

PART B: You, the Blogger

I have never written a blog before and I never really wanted to start one and thus leads to my need to improve not only my motivation to write blogs, but also to work on what I all ready have on my blog. To be honest, I don’t think I will be updating my blog very often, if at all. I wonít delete it of course, but I might just have one spark of inspiration one fine day and post something.

I have explored some blogs pertaining to candle making, DIY crafts and personal wellness blogs but I have not explored any professional bloggers. However, from my class, I will definitely continue to follow Zyana, Lucas, Wild, Caiden and Areeb, just to name of a few.

PART C: You, the Student

The one particular activity that sparked my enthusiasm is the Write Now activities that we did at the end of the year during our short story unit.

I have not accomplished much as a reader this semester, however I did read a giant encyclopedia of the major Greek Mythologies. Reading improves my writing by putting tools in my tool box so I can come back to my tool box to look for ideas or to help my writing. The more tools you have in your tool box, the more successful you prepare yourself.

I have finally typed up many ideas that I have thought about in the past and never really written them down. This will help me as a future writer because I love looking back on the things that I have previously accomplished as a writer and take ideas from it. I would love to take creative writing again if I could, but as I am in grade 12, this is my last year in high school and I will not be coming back to high school. I would if I could, but I physically canít.

PART D: You, the FAN

By listening to other people’s writer’s seminars, it has helped me improve as a writer and get to know about different writers out there in the world that I have never heard of before. It has opened my eyes to see what I can do as a writer and how I can incorporate their style uno my own work.

For My writer’s seminar, my group decided to present F. Scott Fitzgerald because of his heralded work: “The Great Gatsby”. Also, I was one of the few American authors that successfully discusses social class structure within the American society with his readers.

F. Scott. Fitzgerald likes to write fiction and incorporate things he has gone through as a person into his writing.

As I walked out of the courthouse in the warm, evening night, I was furious because some scum of a jury did not show justice toward the pursuer and the condemned. I did not want the debate to end, yet some mysterious force pulled back at the reins of my rage. And spoke soft words to me in a gentle voice that it would have been no different an ending if the court had assembled for a longer time. No matter how hard I tried. They would not have changed their sentence for the condemned innocent black men. As I walked down the steps I could not help but to be amazed, yet repulsed by the world’s prejudice.

I felt really inspired by the presentation on Alan Moore and I definitely will be reading more of his works. I would like to know more of how he incorporates sensitive thoughts into his works. I learned that great writers can also be graphic novelists. I’d like to start reading V for Vendetta.

PART E: You, the Critic of your work

ï You now need to take us on a journey of 4 pieces of your writing.  Each will be its own paragraph whereby your explain what your piece is about, your process of writing it, any challenges you faced,

o A Short Story

https://forthesakeofwriting.edublogs.org/2016/01/16/living-stars/

1. “Living Stars”

The significance is to show that things we think are objects are really not objects, but they are alive. What would they think of us when we exploit them?

2. Humanity’s nature of wanting more and more, leads to a world where there will be no more.

3. The purpose of this piece was to put the idea out there that humans are greedy creatures and there is a need to show people that if this nature isn’t harnessed, it will go wild and rampant.

4. I usually have a “story time” before I go to bed each night. This is a time where I am in my own dream world that I create ideas of stories to be written in the future.

5. I decided to use two similes back to back to emphasize my point that people stopped at nothing to gain wealth. “like dropping passenger pigeons that blacked out the sun to seem it were night. Like running buffalo off jumps for their fabulous fur.”

6. There are many writing activities that we did in class that I tried to do with this idea, however, I went back to my very first copy and revised that one because I thought that this best reflects what I wanted to talk about. I also had the idea to write about a living star princess that is going to the earth to hide out there until the threat on living stars dis down.

o A Poem

https://forthesakeofwriting.edublogs.org/2016/01/16/there-are-some-things-in-life-we-will-never-forget/

1. There are Some Things in Life we will Never Forget

The title is to bring light on the fact that we will never forget about the things about ourselves, but we forget what happens to other people who have suffered more than we have.

2. We only remember the details of our life, but never blink an eye to tragedies of others.

3. The purpose of this piece is to bring attention to the idea that the tragedies that have happened in the past are always in the past and are rarely brought back up in conversations because we forget about it. We only remember the things about ourselves and how we are hurting and our “first world problems” and forget about the things that other people have to go through.

4. I originally was going to do another poem for the spoken word, but I thought that it was a bit too personal and it wouldn’t appeal to the audience of the class or have a wow factor that it would stick in their minds after a day.

5. I decided to repeat “do you remember” before the introduction of every idea to help buy time to let the idea sink into the listener’s mind.

6. I literally wrote this up a day before it was due.

o A Non-fiction

https://forthesakeofwriting.edublogs.org/2015/11/07/narrative-of-my-life/

1. The Boy who Cried

To set up the story that it is about a boy who got upset

2. You’re hot and your cold, your yes and you’re no; people change their minds quickly without reason.

3. Just to talk about a story about myself to others.

4. We had to write a narrative about ourselves during class so I put in on my blog as a post.

5. I used parallelism between the boy and the girl in the story.

6.

o A free choice

I am not one in a million, but it is the millions who live in me.

I hear their painful, helpless, depressing cries.

I feel their beaten, burnt, half-dead bodies.

I read their debased, and innocent minds.

I see their hurt, their abuse, their grief.

I smell their wasted bodies full of drinks and drugs.

I taste their bitterness, their hatred and their disease.

But there is one. One who is a speck of light in the vast stormy ocean of darkness.

Who is this? I must find out. I must. I must. I must.

Yes you can say I am full of sin.

Yes you can say I am full of hatred.

Yes you can say I am full of death.

But it is the light which makes me shine gloriously.

I must find the small speck of light and make it shine.

I see it is a “nobody”. It is a “worthless”. It is an “object”.

But love her all the same.

I hear her sorrowful cries, and her sonorous words.

I feel abused, body, underrated body, and I hear her luminous soul.

I read her scorched and fearful face and I read her innocent mind.

I see her hurt and I see her joy.

I smell the sweat that clings to her skin and I smell the fragrance of spring in her hair.

I taste the dirt in her mouth which clogs her throat and I taste the sweetness of oranges on her lips.

What shall you say then?

Is she still a worthless soul?

No. she is the rose of the thorn bush,

She is the sun of the solar system that hangs in the universe.

She is the apple of my eye.

She is one-of-a-kind,

And I will love her with all my never ending love,

And I will make her shine.

I have heard many a times “you’re beautiful”, and “you are special”.

I don’t believe them. I’ve heard many say you are “one in a million”

But I am not. I am not “one in a million”, but it is the millions who live in me.

Why try running?

Why try fighting for freedom any longer?

We are all tainted.

None of us are free.

Those who live at the poles have no fight against the change of ice,

Who have no fight over the first supply.

Even those who live in the hot sweaty forests,

Those birds, beasts and creeping things,

Are forced to die. Why?

Because they have no fight.

No fight against banana farms or cotton plantations,

No fight against the falling and tainting of water basins,

No fight against the change of seasons.

Perhaps those who live in the deep and dark are free.

But what is freedom for them to live in the dark

Where they they live and die without seeing the light,

They are like people who are forced to stare at a wall,

And make sense of the things being projected.

They are not free.

None of us are free.

So stop fighting the humans and their ways

and settle down for the way things aught not to be.

For it will all be well when the humans exit their haze.

Every Friday night my friends and I have a lazy rendezvous at the carnival. Every Friday we would walk around the park making up funny stories for the lives of the people who worked there. We knew everything little thing about their lives that we had made up for them; down every last detail. For example, Dave now works at the carnival because he  wet his pants during his first audition that scarred him for life, or the reason as to why Jane painted her nails last week. It was to impress a coworker at the carnival to posh off her sense of style, maybe to hook up later.

I would listen to the conversations and laugh outwardly to show I was listening, but in my heart I knew it was cruel to make fun of others without getting to know them first. I never commented anything, however, because I was considerably afraid of the outcome if I spoke up. Would my friends abandon me and call me a loser for standing up for others? Would I be labeled as a hypocrite? Would I never have friends again? My fear kept me back from saying anything something that might make my friends hate me.

However as they were walking around the fairgrounds this week, I heard a unfamiliar voice call among the booths. The voice was masculine, yet young calling to play the basket toss. I looked up from the ground, where I usually starred at, scanned the faces of the people standing in the booths trying to locate the source of the new voice. I turned around and saw cute boy wearing a tight white shirt which accentuated his muscles holding three orange fair balls to play the carnival game. My eyes sparkled and my cheeks turned red. Never have I seen so handsome a young man in my life. Hot as Hades I whispered to myself as I looked back down at the ground frightened if he saw me look at him.

By this time, my friends have also noticed the new voice and glanced at me with my cheeks painted red, which was out of the usual porcelain tone my face procured.

“Hey look, Sam is blushing!” a friend of mine elbowed me.

“No… no I’m not.” I stuttered trying desperately to draw attention away from myself. But, obviously my cherry red face wasn’t helping me at all.

My friends pushed me closer to the booth counting me to play the game. My heart told me to play the game and impress the boy, but I was deathly afraid of messing up and ruin my first impression to the boy. Especially the fact that I would be throwing a ball. I cannot throw a ball for the life of me. The best I could possibly ever manage is throw the ball into the ditch or accidentally hit the boy’s face, and obviously I didn’t want that. I pushed against my friend in an attempt to escape, but she grabbed ahold of my shoulders and shook me saying, “you got this.”

And at this moment, I knew shying away was no good, and that fear was the one holding me back from acting, afraid that I would mess up in front of this boy and ruin my first impression; and with wild eyes I turned to the boy holding the orange fair balls and said, “I’ll give it a shot.”

Note: I tried to type out word for word what I wrote on my English diploma by memory, obviously It isn’t word perfect sorry.

Man had revolutionized and from it, gained a deadly technology that enabled them to shoot down stars. The very first time they aimed their deadly weapon at the vast sky, they lured in a precious catch; a living star.

As men are, they poke and prod at every new discovery and unveil everything there is to know about it. Their tiny minds crave knowledge. To get more and more and more. Always more.

They dissected the living star and eventually found her heart. Because of what  they found that fateful day, man has never stopped shooting us down ever since.

Men kidnaped and killed as many living stars as they could to gain wealth, to be rich. Our hearts were prized like tiger skins or elephant tusks. only much more so. To them, we were just a game to see who could be the one who had the most and they shot us down like dropping passenger pigeons that blacked out the sun to seem it were night. Like running buffalo off jumps for their fabulous fur. But, we are unlike buffalo. We are much more precious. So much more precious that men would dare to take innocent daughters as they were among the stardust gardens picking star flowers or our elderly from their thrones in their galaxies, and even the force keepers, the ones who busy their days tending to the nebula’s rotation while strictly keeping to the laws of physics. They, those lust filled men and their devilish desires taking whomever they pleased.

They have no fear in cutting our alabaster skin or ripping open our chests to expose our rib cages; just to plunged their impure hands into our mist like flesh. To grasp our living hearts made of pearls of innocence, emeralds of royalty, and diamonds of determination. Just to have more and more and more. Man will never cease to want, to have and to take.

One day there will be no more living stars among the galaxies. One day there will be no more living stars among the universe because man wanted to have more and more and more.

To escape the brutality of man, we are choosing hide our hearts. To avoid being contaminated by their filthy hands which asphyxiated our people, we are turning our hearts to ashes. To erase our existence so man will eventually forget about us.

We are choosing to die.

So today, there are no more living stars among the universe.

There are some things in life we will never forget.

Like the first time you rode a bike.

How you swayed and rocked from side to side

As your dad held you close and ran beside your bike?

And when he let go and gave you a push

You panicked, thinking he had left you for good.

But then he called after you to keep on ahead

For he was not far behind, you see,

Because you were the boat and he was your wake.

The waves which chased after you making sure you were safe.

There are some things in life we will never forget.

Do you remember the last time you punched someone in the face?

Your sheer anger and flaring hatred at the pin point in time?

How you felt the rippling of their flesh underneath your fist?

As skin met skin and bone met bone

The crunching and crackling of someone else’s broken nose?

Do you remember how you got the scar on your arm?

The one with splintering edges, burnt centres, the one with a blistering charm?

Do you remember the time when you gave away your first kiss to your “special someone”?

-Because I don’t.

Now I ask,

Do you remember the things committed against my people

When they built you the railroad to the West?

How they were underpaid to build spectacular bridges

and when we died, nobody cared because were were just a pest?

Do you remember the one photo which stopped the Vietnam War?

A nine year old girl running down the highway, bloodied and burned.

Running from bombs which threatened her country.

Why?

Because everyone was willing to care for everyone else

And set aside their own differences for the greater good.

The flames of prejudice on the little girl’s back was far too hot.

Do you remember the plane from Malaysia which fell down,

and was never to be found?

Do you remember the photo of a three year old boy who washed ashore?

Because his story was common and his life to those watching the news was just a bore?

He died because his little frame couldn’t stand the weight of hate.

and those in the West think it was just all a play of fate.

Do you remember the bombing which took place in Paris two months ago?

Do you remember?

Because I don’t.

The room and everything in it is larger than myself as if I were Alice who drank the shrinking potion. Everything is in shades of grey with little mixes of pink. Not the regular happy pink you would see on valentines day, but the pink on odd wilted mothers day carnations that have been rotting for weeks in a vase.

There are lots of things in the room plush cubes, teddy bears, stuffed bunnies, twenty-five cent balls, cushions, blankets, beanbags and the like. The room smells dusty yet somehow manages to musk out some sort of melancholy flowery perfume, which mixes with the smell of dust so perfectly. Everything is soft and covered with dust, which sticks to the roof of my tongue.

One object stands out in particular; a giant stuffed bunny. As I walk close to it, it seems to get infinitely big. It towers over me and when I am standing, I don’t even reach the top of the bunny’s foot. When I touch it, it feels like an old towel that has not been washed for months. Crispy and crunchy. Yet, the dust manages to soften the fur due to the accumulation of dust. The musky perfume doesn’t seem to cling to the rabbit. I remember the little stuffed pink bunny that I once had as a child. I used to cut its whiskers because I thought that it would actually grow back.

Sometimes I had wanted the intimate touch or feeling of being genuinely loved like how I have loved this dear old rabbit of mine.

Suddenly the rabbit starts to shrink, and as it shrinks, its fur morphs and changes colour to a shade of skin. I gasp in fear as it takes on the shape of a young boy. A young boy whom I fostered and cared for. Perhaps I cared for him out of pity or perhaps I wanted to know what love felt like or what it was like to give away love. I push him in the chest out of anger, unprepared for my response, he stumbles backwards through the mess of the room and falls onto a couch, pulling me with him. I collapse on him and curl into myself clutching his shirt while hugging my head as I pull my knees into myself as tears cascade down the porcelain surface of my cheek. As it lands on the boy’s knee, his skin cracks and fractures like glass cracking under the impact of a chisel. His whole body fragments into pieces and floats up disappearing into the dust.

Her innocent eyes and child-like voice,
paints a lucid masterpiece of strife.
Words of honey, sweet and silky,
draws you into a slippery slope of utter demise.

Incoherently you listen as she lulls you to sleep
with her vicious songs of hidden envy.
She beckons you into the crimson red chasm, with:
heartless,
hopeless,
satisfying, yet…
empty promises.

Betrayal! Betrayal!
A screeching voice crows,
That wretched woman who has no soul
was trying to devour your spirit-
-Torn and aghast you retch with bile,
until that is left of you is an empty shell.
No love. No hate.
No joy. No sorrow.
No feeling,
No pain at all.

And yet, you ask, you search and you question:
Surely she couldn’t have lost her heart and soul
for how could such a person exist at all?

As you think and ponder,
a ravaging wind strikes you.
leaving you cold-hearted and senseless. Blind.

This is the end of your naivety.
This is the start of your own self-pity.

Placid smile, beaming eyes,
at least it’s how you try.
Standing straight, energetic beat,
it sure is challenging to land on your feet.

Changed you have,
and yet, changed not you also have.
For there is a power within you
to transform yourself for the better.
Thoughts, motivations, words actions.
It’s all in you.

Your innocent eyes and child like voice,
paints a vivid masterpiece of life.
Words of truth direct and dependable,
draws others into your bright light.

Inspiration taken from “Ten Things I Know to be True” activity

The following truths I know to be true are explored in the above poem:

Betrayal is an evil thing.

People can change, yet remain the same.

All people have souls.

There will always be an end and a beginning.

Everyone has a dark side.

The following truths I know to to be true are ideas that didn’t make it into the poem, but I still would like to share:

Everyone has a heart, however, their heart may be cold or hot or lukewarm.

There is a high and almighty power in the world.

1+1=2

Everyone has the power to change the world held in your own palms.

“Would you like to introduce yourself”

“I am the queen of the stick castle and it is so good.”

“Why?”

“So first my friend Eliza started of with it and then she started creating sticks with feathers on it. It looks so cool. It looks like first nation sticks. But then I started making more and they called me the Pokey Stick Lady.”

“Pokey Stick Lady?”

“Because I poke a bunch of people around with the sticks”

“Isn’t that dangerous?”

“No. There is this one girl that goes like RWAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHHH!!! when I poke her with the stick.”

“Well obviously she didn’t like it.”

“No. She liked it She just did that to be weird.”

“So how do you rule your kingdom if you are a queen?”

“So I give everybody like a job and then there is my librarian, my royal gym teacher because I am really lazy and there is my royal English professor since I’m really bad at English and there’s my royal Knight and then theresmy royal fighter and my royal deep voice person basically she does this kind of stuff: (in a deep and creepy voice) hugggghhhhh, hello, I am going to kill you. And then there’s my royal entertainment lady. It’s the person that screams when I poke her. There’s my royal gun powder maker. So basically there’s this brick wall and we have to scrape it, and there’s this dust coming off and we call it gunpowder. And we blow it on someone, they die.”

“So where is your kingdom then?”

“My kingdom? My kingdom is part of the small direction in the other direction of the small direction at school. It’s hard to explain.”

“So does everybody in your school know about your Highness?”

“No not everybody in my school does, but everyone in may grade does.”

“If you go around blowing gunpowder at people they die?”

“Yeah they do, although if I can’t find somebody, I go like ‘You. You know where Eliza is?’ Yeah. So they know I’m the queen.”
“So tell me about some fun stories or silly things that you have done.”

“So we went fishing. We went fishing in a puddle in the ground. We went fishing in it. I caught lots of fish. It was called a dust fish. It looks like a bunch of dust… and dirt… Another story. ‘Everyday you must have an ounce of cupcake,’ my friend says, “behold the royal cupcake.’ and she just grabs a bunch of chocolate cupcakee and slaps it on my face. My entertainment, screaming lady, slaps it on my face. It’s quite fun.”

“Do you have a castle?”

“Umm… we are still working on that. We are still waiting for the climate to change…I meant the weather. It’s called snow. So I can make an ice castle.”

“Like Elsa?”

“Oh Hell na.”

“So what do you like about being the queen?”

“Like… I don’t know. I just like being the ruler.”

“Thank you for jointing my interview with Joanna, the Pokey Stick Queen. Tune in next time for another adventure. Thank you very much.”

During the summer, I went to China as an ambassador for the government of Alberta. Twenty students from across all of Alberta were selected to go on this trip. It was such a marvellous and unforgettable trip. However, the story I am about to tell you is my experience during the flight back to Canada.

There was a boy named Joshua who wore black, rectangular glasses; who would always spike up his hair in the style of the modern pop stars. He would turn fifteen years old in twenty days. Josh, a Canadian born Chinese, was average in height and in general had the average physical attributes of an average Asian boy build. Yet somehow despite his overall average physical appearance, his face was shaped with precision as if the great Michelangelo himself added a few touches to this masterpiece. Yet at the same time, a sense of a delicateness radiated from his innocent brown eyes.

There was a girl named Sherry who wore earrings that matched her blazing personality; little prisms that stuck out of her earlobes to look like spacers. Her light brown hair with the tips dyed blond was very short. Perhaps less than three inches at the longest. It was a bit too short for a girl, but that saying, it matched her personality perfectly. Sometimes she would even spike it up to get it to look like a mohawk. She was 14. Sherry an 110% born Canadian, was fairly tall (a few inches taller than me at least) and skinny. But not skinny that she looked fragile. In contrast, she was deathly strong with a bear hug that would squish all the wind right out of you. In fact, she could probably beat anyone to a pulp if she wanted to.

They were both young and foolish like most teenagers nowadays in that manner. He was kind but not kind enough to be a gentleman. He didn’t hold open doors for the ladies or let them go first. The rule of “ladies first” never crossed his mind whatsoever. She, on the other hand, was genuinely interested in others, but not lady-like enough to earn their respect. She would playfully punch people with punches that actually really hurt.

Sherry kept it a secret that she liked Josh. But I knew. So did all the other girls on the trip. I learned of it three days before the day of departure. He, however, knew nothing about it.

During the final thirteen hour leg of the trip, she sneakily switched seats with the girl who, on her ticket sat beside him. I switched seats to the row directly behind them as my flight ticket was two rows behind and to the left of the entire group. I sat in the centre seat and Crawford, who was also displaced on their plane ticket, sat to my right. Josh sat in front of Crawford and Sherry sat in front of me.

While I was watching X-Men with Crawford, the two children wrote notes to each other on Josh’s iPod; kind of like how middle-schoolers would pass love notes around in class.

She told him that she had romantic feelings for him, and he became upset because he didn’t like her back the same way she loved him. He didn’t want to upset her either because he knew their relationship would not have worked out as they lived in different parts of the province. They sat there in awkward silence for an hour, and occasionally Josh would turn around and whisper to us the awkwardness of situation. We kept telling him that we would gladly switch seats with him if he so chose. The main reason he didn’t want to switch seats is because of the fact that he didn’t want to act like a jerk. That hypocrite, I tell you.

While lunch was being served, Josh finally decided to switch seats with Kelly (who was to my right). We ate and had an enjoyable time chatting and discussing about the situation. Sherry had a miserable and tear filled lunch break where she talked with Kelly.

After having a fulfilling lunch, all were tired and Josh was upset. I put up my armrest and pulled Josh close so he could lean on my shoulder. Sherry fell asleep on her own and slept soundly. Josh nodded off after awhile and the weight of his head seem to this displace itself bit by bit off of my shoulder so that I had to hold his head from falling even more. Sometimes he would awaken and snuggle closer to me; somehow finding comfort in the fact that I was physically there for him. He had those puppy dog eyes that made anyone want to help the poor lil’ emotionally traumatized boy. During the last hour of the trip, he got up and read read over the notes they sent to each other again and shed a few invisible tears before coming back to his seat. I pivoted my body so I faced him more so that he could fall asleep more comfortably, and I wouldn’t have hold his head up from falling off my shoulder. He fell asleep quite soundly as I sympathetically rubbed his arm and petted his hair. He slept so soundly that he didn’t even stir when people accidentally tripped over his legs in the aisle. When we were landing, I whispered softly into his ears and called out his name until he woke up.

Such a poor, poor child, if you ask me.

After a few days of adjusting back to the Calgarian lifestyle, I messaged him on Facebook to wish him a happy birthday. I asked him how he was doing and he replied in a non-joking way: better without you.

It might’ve been better that way anyways.