When starting my personal piece, I was afraid with the idea of people reading it and it was nerve racking because of people’s opinions on what I was going to say. Even though I only had to share a one sentence blurb, I still felt like it was somewhat personal, and I was being vulnerable to the people who were listening to me speak. It was still a good experience for me as a growing writer because I was able to explore myself more and find my strengths and weaknesses when it comes to writing.

Having complete openness in this project was something that I have never really had before, so it was a different experience for me. It was nice to have the option to set my own expectations because I knew my topic and just how much I could write about it. It was better than having a prompt with page or word requirements, and since I was free to make my own decisions, I was able to write a lot more. By having this open experience, we are able to be more aware of what is going on since we have to focus on managing deadlines or being able to write enough for us to complete the assignments that followed along with the project. However, I did not manage my time with this very well.

One thing that I did not like about having complete openness was that it was really difficult returning to the writing since the teacher was not seeing it. I did not feel like I had to write anything else, so it was hard to go back when I didn’t really need to. I am so used to having teacher oversight, especially when it comes to longer projects and having deadlines to drafts. This time it was different because not only was there no oversight from the teacher, I could also write it in my contract for her not to read it all. Having that openness was strange since I had “power” when it came to requirements, but I also did not want to set any unreasonable expectations.

The first day I started writing, I wrote almost my whole paper in that one session during class, so the remaining time I was not writing as much as the first day. I was primarily fixing my work and focusing on the direction my piece was headed instead of adding more to it. Before I got to writing my piece, I started by freewriting and listening to music. By listening to music, it helped draw out anything that was happening around me, and I was able to focus on writing. By free writing, I was able to get any thoughts that I had that did not pertain to my topic, out of my head and focus only on my topic. Looking back, it, I should have chosen different methods of writing to get my piece done. I focused more on the free writing method, and it kept getting a little repetitive.

I feel like if I chose different methods, I would be able to write a lot more than I did and get more ideas out on paper. A couple of weeks into the project, I used more methods that we had talked about in class. Rather than just focusing on free writing, I used the breathing technique and it turned out to be really helpful. Whenever we would talk about it in class or do some of the breathing exercises, I never really took them seriously until this one time that I did it and it worked. The breathing technique was kind of like mental free writing for me, in the sense that I was able to clear my mind and get rid of everything until I had my topic at hand. It was difficult to do at first, but when done right, it proved to be helpful in this situation.

We were talking about the project during class and Professor Peary told us to compare writing to an object. In my moment of panic, I thought of the strangest comparison, I would compare it to a vegetable. I do not hate vegetables, but I don’t love them either, and that is the same way I feel about English and writing. I don’t always have to eat vegetables, but it would be good if I did. I do not always have to read books or write, but it would benefit me if I did. When we talked to our tutors, he said that he really liked my comparison to vegetables and that it oddly made sense.

Going off of the tutors, the class where we had to go to the writing center was really helpful for me. I was able to get insight from another person on my piece and he gave me a lot of good advice. One thing that I tend to struggle a lot with is knowing where to start and end paragraphs. The tutor read through my paper and suggested where I should start my paragraphs and put them so that my paper was more organized. I went into that class session knowing people were going to read my paper, but I was not as overwhelmed as I thought I was going to be. I think this is because I did not know the person reading my paper and they would not be able to tell the kind of person I was just from reading what I had. They were just there to help me put paragraphs where they are meant to be and guide me to improve my essay. I think that if I had this mentality going into things, I would not get as stressed out and overthink everything like I usually do.