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Over the Years: Chronicling the Development of an English Major

I grew up with stories. Every night before bed, Mom or Dad would spin a tale out of thin air or read a book Id requested a hundred times before, or tell a story about their childhood. Consequently, I think my writers imagination is partly a product of geneticsIm just the first in the family to pursue storytelling beyond bedtime. I wrote my first story when I was in the second grade. Our teacher, Ms. Mak, was a closet writer herself so journaling, reading, and creating were core attributes in her teaching style. Over the course of that year we had a plethora of writing assignments, which Ms. Mak showered with a surplus of encouragement and compliments. For me, a kind word was all it took for the writing bug to take hold. At the end of that year I wrote my first independent story purely for the fun of it, and to this day I can still remember almost every detail about it. The story was thirty lines long (a true feat for my eight year old self), and entitled Navy Men in Love with Racing Dream Women (heavily based off of the movie, South Pacific, which was my obsession at the time). The day after I finished the story, I showed it to my teacher after class, and the reaction I received solidified my lifelong dedication to the written word. My teacher cried. Something in those short thirty lines moved her. I dont know what (although, it certainly was not my prodigious mastery of the English language) but whatever elicited that reaction from her was enough to encourage me to explore the art form further. By seventh grade I had written a novel. Two hundred fifty pages of historical inaccuracies (it was a period piece set in Victorian England), clichd analogies and archetypal characters. Even though it never even came close to gracing the bookshelves of Barnes & Noble,

the encouragement garnered from my family further invigorated my ambition and dedication to storytelling. By high school, though, I experienced a creative drought at which time my writing dwindled considerably and it became difficult to finish a story. Academic demands gradually increased until I didnt have the time or energy to endeavor another writing project outside of my homework assignments. However, it was during these four years that I started reading more (and not just for school). As such, I began building an arsenal of go-to authors whose styles I admired and whose techniques I wished to emulate. Obviously, this arsenal has changed a great deal between my freshmen year in high school and my senior year of college. However, despite the specific authors changing, I noticed a consistent pattern with regard to my literary preferences. The authors I enjoy most typically are individuals who instill their works with a strong sense of place. These settings take on a life of their own as characters describe and interact with their surroundings. Accordingly, these authors have shaped the writer I am ultimately trying to become: a writer of place. My disposition for writing about place is apparent in even my earliest creative piece as an English major. During the spring semester of my sophomore year, I studied abroad in Ireland. At this time I took a nonfiction class called the Nature of the Nature of Ireland, in which I wrote my first creative essay entitled, The Lesson. This essay describes a solitary trip to the seaside village of Howth in County Dublin. Although my writing abilities improved since my second grade attempts, it is evident as one reads through the essay that I still have a lot to learn. The Lesson oozes with purple prose and overused the adjectives, as evidenced in following passage: Howth Castle stood in iron-gray splendor against a velvet green carpet. Deer Parks golf course trundled to the left, and the rooftops of the fishing village reclined just beyond that. The Irish Sea circumscribed this portrait with a silk blue mantle.

Though the language is descriptive, its not vivid. What exactly does iron-gray splendor look like, for instance? And how does a fishing village recline? In an effort to fill the essay with unique descriptors (and slightly misused verbs), I neglected to give the narrative a purpose beyond fulfilling a writing assignment. Due to this negligence, the theme of the essay (Ireland as a teacher) is underdeveloped, lacking the strength to unify the narrative. Consequently, the foundation of the piece consists of shallow and empty imagery. The most prominent example of the essays paltry language occurs in the concluding paragraph: To say the hike was beautiful would be like calling the Cliffs of Moher steep. The description completely undermines the place. Thats what Ireland taught me. Whether the person is W.B. Yeats or a lowly college student, no one can capture the ethereal essence Ireland radiates. Though, we will never stop trying. Though, we will never stop learning. The words drip with schmaltz, and thus the content fails to move or impact the reader. However, while The Lesson falls short of literary accomplishment, I experienced an invaluable learning curve while writing the essay. For one, this course served as my introduction to the workshop environment and the collaborative aspect of writing. Over my four years as an English major, I credit the workshop as the component that influenced my writing the most. By dialoguing with other writers and opening my mind to new perspectives via their works, I fully grasped the concept of active learning. Through this experience, I realized writing is not a solitary activity. Rather, the best works of literature have a host of people behind them, completely invested in that narratives success. At least, thats what I witnessed during these last four years. It is thanks to these collaborations and workshops that I was able to exorcise some of the flaws seen in The Lesson and apply the techniques I observed over the corresponding months to later nonfiction essays. One of my favorite narratives to come out of this time is, Yellow,

written during my junior year. While not necessarily a piece about place, it is an essay about my familyand as the clich goes, home is where the heart is, and my heart no doubt resides with that crazy group of people. As such, I found this essay a true labor of love and enjoyable to write. However, despite the strides Id taken to improve my writing, Yellow had its own set of flaws. An example of one such shortcoming appears in the introduction: I grew up in a wonderful family. A slightly odd, definitely weird, but wholly wonderful family, brimming with an anthology of stories I will spend the rest of my life trying to retell. Some are sad: stories of death and heartrending sacrifice. Some are funny: familybloopers that grow more ridiculous which each recitation. And then there are a few anecdotes that defy genre. These are my favorite heirlooms. This small collection of stories has a unique amnesiac effect; when theyre told, we forget our petty arguments and paltry divisions. Suddenly, there isnt one storyteller but many, all contributing to the plots unfolding. The introduction is much too generic. Yellow is about my grandparents marriage, but nothing in the beginning points the reader in that direction. Much like The Lesson, the language in the introduction is non-descriptive. For instance, its difficult to come up with an example of an anecdote that defies genre, if such a thing exists in the first place. Nevertheless, though the beginning needs work, thematically the essay is strong. Distinct from The Lessonin which the theme simply bookends the essayYellow has a more thoroughly developed premise that unites the entire narrative. As stated previously, this growth owes a lot to the workshop structure of the program and the emphasis on the disposition of active learning. Furthermore, unlike in my first essay in which the diction tended towards mawkish, Yellow better navigates the fine line between sentiment and sentimentality. For instance: He gave her yellow roses, because pink is the color of a young girls blushing cheeks. Pink, the color of life without struggle. Pink, the color of imaginary perfection. He did not give her pink roses because sometimes they went to bed angry. Sometimes they had trouble balancing the checkbook. Sometimes five children felt like five too many. He did not give her pink roses because their love was not perfect.

While Yellow is one of my favorite essays due to the subject matter, my favorite fiction piece is Claire and the Dogs, written the second semester of my junior year. Like The Lesson I had yet to learn my lesson about copious amounts of adjectives. Setting description, especially in fiction writing, has proven a tedious task for me and as a result my diction consists heavily of over-embellished images. For example, in the story I describe a metropolitan bar: The LoDo LoBo was cast in the clandestine light of the old Speak Easies, as the heartbeat of the bass thrummed a sensual tempo. Lazy syncopations spilled from the mouths of the sax and clarinet while couples exchanged secret smiles amid the milky constellations of votive candles. Closer to the bar, men dressed in tailored suits nursed tumblers of coppercolored liquids and feelings of inadequacy. In the same vicinity, a group of women reeked of perfumed desperation as they glittered in sequin ensembles, one-shoulder black dresses, and mid-thigh hems, all of them peacocking for attention. The description is sensory overload. Due to the overuse of adjectives, the scene lacks authenticity and would greatly benefit to have at least a third of those descriptors stricken. However, the strength of this story lies in the character developments, which are progressive, and the natural dialogue. I discovered over the course of that semester, and particularly in Claire and the Dogs, that one thing I enjoy the most about fiction writing is dialogue. Especially in this story, the conversations are quipped and provocative:

You know, Dr. Heartbreak, Caleb said, looking over the familiar card, if would you just let one of them buy you a drink they wouldnt need therapy. Its called job security, Claire defended, annoyed with the Calebs observations. Its called commitment phobia, Doc. And if you ask me But I didnt, Caleb. There was nothing more irritating than a bartender who confused himself with a priest. Next, hed be turning water into Jack Daniels.

I think the dialogue is the strongest element in this story. However, it was a long revision process to make the conversations sound natural. For instance, in an earlier draft of the story

there were instances in which the dialogue seemed forced or stereotypical, as showcased in this next passage: I know that creep. Caleb tossed his head in the retreating mans direction. Tom Holthaus. A regular Saturday-nighter with a batting average of about three women a night. You dont want someone like him. In the workshop session, the passage was described noir-ish in style, and I couldnt agree more. Since then, whenever I write dialogue I read everything aloud to make sure the words on the page sound like words an actual human begin would say. While my use of dialogue has improved over two fiction courses, and my setting descriptions are slowly becoming more authentic, there is one component of my writing that I realized has remained fairly stagnant over these last four years: my style. I write all my essays and most of my fiction pieces in past tense and limit the point of view to first or third person singular. In other words, my style is traditional and safe. Consequently, this resistance to trying a new method might seem contradictory to the active learning component of the Creative Writing program. However, I think that by limiting myself to this approach, active learning is actually augmented rather than diminished. Often times in creative writing classes, theres a quick turnaround between the first and final draftscouple that with a full class load and suddenly there is only a small window of time available to write. As such, I would rather use that time to become proficient in one or two styles and produce quality work consistently, as opposed to constantly trying to navigate a new form. I believe this outlook has served me well over the years, and will continue to help me in my seminal endeavor as an undergraduate English major. The final work that showcases the breadth of knowledge Ive acquired during my time as a Loras writer, is my thesis: The Places

We Call Home, a travel writing essay that recounts the two weeks I spent in Colombia. The content of the work includes instances of culture shock, inevitable blunders that come with experiencing a foreign place, and ultimately a renewed sense of home and belonging. However, in order to arrive at that conclusion, I had to extend myself well beyond my comfort zone, as described in the following passage: In the three years wed known each other, Dany built up the people, the country, the customs, and even the orchids of Colombia to such high levels of perfection youd think we were boarding a plane to Shangri-La. Needless to say, I could feel the familiar tug of an inferiority complex coming on. What would these people think about the bumbling, monolingual American clumsily trekking through the Deitys crowning glory? Whats worse, Dany had built me up to her friends and family back home as some sort of displaced angel, who took a wrong turn on her way to Paradise and landed on Earth instead. They were going to be sorely disappointed when a mortal stepped off that plane.

Unlike previous examples, this passage conveys my feelings of anxiety without overloading the diction with unnecessary adjectives. Continually, as this paragraph appears early in the essay, I think it does an adequate job of establishing my voice for the rest of the piece: impudent and at times (purposely) hyperbolic. However, more to the point, I believe the premise of this piece truly embodies and reiterates my inclinations as a writer. While I have yet to figure out if my talents lend themselves more towards the fiction or nonfiction genre, I do know for certain I am a writer of place. It seems rather apropos, actually, that my writing studies are bookended by two nonfiction essays hinged on a geographic theme. As such, the technique of intimately integrating place into my works is a skill I am continually trying to hone. However, as my writing continues to progress and evolve, I know this particular component will become more and more prominent in later essays and stories.

This, I believe, is how the disposition of active learning will continue to serve me well even after graduation. If I am a writer of place, it stands to reason that there are many more adventures in the future to fuel my writing. As such, I will embrace each new experience openly because I know that in order for my writing to improve I must first be willing to live the life I commit to paper.

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