Week 8 Reflections

I used to want to be a writer when I grew up.  Then I switched to wanting to be an editor because I would get to read books all day.  Somewhere along the way, I realized that those passions might be better off as hobbies, and today I'm majoring in biomedical engineering and probably going into a career that will have nothing to do with Indian epics.
This class has really helped me learn to write and read better, and I'm remembering how much fun it was to create characters and read stories and write for myself.  Every week I'm so excited to be reading something new and writing something new.  I love discovering new parts of Indian culture through the Ramayana and Mahabharata, and all of the different versions of the stories are so amazing to me.  I love reading myths and ancient folktales, so all of these new stories are so fascinating.  I especially love reading the graphic novels or watching the Epified shorts so I can better visualize the characters.  All of the reading methods I've chosen helped emphasize different parts of the epics, in my opinion.  Reading the Ramayana through the Public Domain definitely demonstrated how people can rewrite the same story so many different ways, whether through prose or verse.  The graphic novels showed different visualizations of the classic characters.  Narayan's version of the Mahabharata, while heavily condensed, still did a very good job of helping me understand the major story arcs and important characters, while the Epified videos helped fill in some gaps and again helped with character visualization.
Writing stories every week also helped me so much with my writing ability.  I haven't written anything in a very long time, but with this class pushing me to churn out stories every week, I've gotten so much more practice.  I'm working on a lot of my issues with using passive voice rather than active voice, but I hope I'm improving a lot!  I am also very excited to work on my Storybook because I really love the idea I picked and can't wait to develop it!
I also think that I have been improving a lot with giving feedback to people.  I used to be a little afraid of criticizing completely, but I feel more comfortable giving honest critiques to people now.  I also feel more comfortable receiving feedback and using it to help my stories.
This class has really helped me develop my more creative side and I'm really happy with how everything has been going so far!

Reflection.  Web Source.