Some of my works, art, writing, various crafts, all of that!!! I'm not going to put whole essays here, just snippets with commentary.

also PLEASE ignore the weird random characters, it's because I copy-pasted from google docs and they got lost in translation.

On Gentle Readers, the Relationship Between Readers and Authors, and Social Media

The relationship between the author, reader, and work is a tightly braided thread. Without one, the whole thing falls apart, but none of the threads are more important than the other, they only complete each other and build the relationship into a solid, tangible thing. Without the author, the work wouldn't exist. Without the work, there is no way for a reader to communicate with the author, and vice versa. Without the reader, the author and the work would get stuck in a self satisfying loop, proving themselves right, changing, never improving.

Much of this stems from her next point, “My interest in [creators] doesn’t make them seem superior to me,” which needs to be adopted by many people. Often, having a platform is treated with respect, as if the influencer is somehow better, more worthy, than the fans. This, which I will call hero worship, is a recipe for disaster. No person is perfect. There are nuances, flaws, and just plain hatred in people, including people who happen to be talented, or attractive, or have influence. Looking up to an author is like building a town on an active volcano: appealing, creates a community, but is likely to end in disaster. "If we stop treating talent like it's synonymous with character, I think we would be a lot less disappointed," Akanbi says, once again summing up the problem with hero worship.

I just like this whole essay. I think I got my ideas about the reader/author relationship down, I like the words I used, I'm just generally really proud of it. This was part of a class where we learned a TON of different theories of authorship and analysis, and that class has really influenced how I analyze different works.

English, Failing, and Fear

Reading that book, I learned that writing isn’t a tool, it’s an artform, and so is reading. To read poetry, you need to be able to read every line, every word, and hear it in your head. I struggle with this. I read fast, I skip around, and I skip what I deem to be filler, especially when trying to read faster. I’ve conditioned myself to unconsciously read classwork faster than I would something I care about, and am unable to turn that off. How do you appreciate poetry when you can’t even read it as it’s intended to be read? I can acknowledge the skill put in, especially to rhyming and strict formats, I can appreciate the dedication, but I can’t appreciate it properly. I can’t read the emotion put into each line, and I can’t read between those lines, to find a deeper meaning, one that so many people talk about.

This is from the literary narrative essay we did in this class, and it summarizes my experiences with poetry pretty well. In the essay I mention a poem that helped me get over that fear, but I was locked out of my old schools account (because I don't go there anymore) and I don't have access to it anymore. :(

We Killed My Dog On Halloween

Crying on her fur

Sleeping deep

She's taken away, sheet folded over her cold body

Back of a truck

Do the dead feel?

Wind wind wind

Do they see? Is there a heaven?

Pull yourself together

Where am I going?

A walk, the first without her

Are you coming?

I may as well.

A fireplace?

A little ghost

A furnace?

She's a bioluminescent jellyfish

A morgue?

I try to forget

Thrown in

I miss her

Do they care...

...about me?

...about my dog?

They better.

I hope so.

Back home

Light the fireplace

Fire, burning hot, scalding.

Bones become ashes.

so...yeah. I wrote that about the year we put my dog down, on halloween. It was hard, but we knew it was coming so it wasn't as hard as it could have been. The "little ghost" is my best friends little sister, the "bioluminescent jellyfish" is my best friend, who I went trick-or-treating with. We had my dog cremated.

I dunno. I just really like this piece, it's probably the only poetry I really like. I also wrote it with the restriction of using exactly 100 words

Here's some stuff I've done!