What is this?

As mentioned on my “who am I?” page, I have a fair amount of uncertainty about myself. Something I did not include in my list of what I do know, however, is that I love to write. If I had to guess, this is a product of my progressive high school that emphasized writing in every class, along with my love for being creative and introspective. Writing has manifested itself in various ways throughout my life, and I have enjoyed it for different reasons at different times. When I am anxious, I like making the chaos in my head into words on a page. It makes my emotions feel more concrete and manageable. Sometimes it is the process of writing itself- subconsciously moving my fingers across the keyboard or messily jotting down thoughts. 

​

I joined the minor in writing, where I have further explored the joys of writing and how they can take many forms. I thought the minor would help me exercise and practice what I already knew about writing, but I quickly understood that I would be learn how expansive many ways there are to "write." In light of this exploration, I experimented with genres of writing that I was not as familiar with: podcasts and poems. These experiments were based off of an origin piece that I wrote for The Michigan Daily about small talk. Ultimately, I used these experiments to create a final project: a Zine about small talk and how to enter a conversation. This process has taught me a lot about my personal process, especially the way I engage with an audience. At the begining of the semester, we read a piece by Elizabeth Wardle in the book Bad Ideas About Writing that said "there is no such thing as writing in general." This became my guiding principle as I worked through these experiments. I tried to transition from my more casual and absent minded way of writing, to a more intentional, slower paced process. This is why I ultimately decided to make a Zine. It is something that requires a series of steps: seeking out materials, placing them on the page, telling a story, etc. This naturally slowed down my process and has tested my patience.