Writing Reflection 27/02/2012

Last week in our creative writing class we were working on making six word memoirs. I found it difficult to find 6 words that flowed together well that described me and how my life is going at the moment, because it seemed like so much is going on that six words just doesn't cut it. This genre of writing really causes your brain to think outside of the box. It was really rewarding to come up with certain six word memoirs that worked really well because of how challenging and different it is. Another challenging part was trying to find a picture that went well with the memoir, because it was hard enough to think of six words that worked well and sounded good together, and to try to find the perfect picture to illustrate it was just another obstacle in itself.

Reading Response 27/02/2012

Response time! Continuing with Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, I found a quote I found quite unusual: "Nice, in a bodyguard, is about as useful as the ability to regurgitate whole lobsters. He looks dangerous." Now, I'm not too sure why Gaiman decided to use this as a comparison, because there's so many other things he could have used. This particular one caught my eye because of how strange and random it is, however it also really enhances what the speaker is saying, because what usefulness is the ability to regurgitate whole lobsters, in all seriousness. As I continued reading, I realized Gaiman uses a lot of comparisons, because I found yet another one: "Richard could see Hunter and the marquis waiting for them at the tunnel's mouth. The marquis looked as if he had been forced to swallow a pulped lemon." In this book, the marquis is a person who isn't particularly cheerful and doesn't like Richard very much, therefore he is quite sour towards him. Describing that he looks like he ate a lemon enhances that fact. A few pages down, the characters are still walking down the tunnel and Richard makes a diary entry in his head about how much he wants to go home, and how he's "walking around a couple hundred feet under the streets of London with the projected life expectancy of a suicidal fruitfly." I like how he makes the diary entry mentally. It kind of makes him seem like he's going insane, which is what I think Gaiman could have been trying to portray. This book is continually interesting and I admire Gaiman's work a lot. It always seems to have quotes that make you think.

Reading Response 22/02/2012

For the past two weeks, I have been reading Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. One interesting, simile, if you can call it that, was "Then he pondered Mr. Croup's last statement with the intensity of an anatomist dissecting his one true love." I found this quote very chilling and original, and it really made me feel the way the character should be feeling. I love this quote and it very well might be my favorite quote in the book. Another one I found was "A huge stone bridge spanning out over a vast black chasm, into the night. But there was no sky above it, no water below. It rose into darkness." The bridge in the book is supposed to be terrifying, and this quote helps get emotions rolling so you can understand how creepy this bridge really is, like the darkness is infinity and you cant see past it, like the darkness is so thick you can breathe it in, which brings me to the final quote for this response: "...and Richard began to understand darkness: darkness as something solid and real, so much more than a simple absence of light. He felt it touch his skin, questing, moving, exploring: gliding through his mind." This description freaks me out in a way, and makes me desperately want to know what's going to happen on this bridge of darkness. These type of quotes render the book so much more suspenseful and a lot more interesting to read, and is a really good book so far.

Writing Reflection, 21/02/2012

Hello again,

For the past few weeks in our Creative Writing class we have been adding personal additions to our writer's notebook, making listography doodles and writing in our blog.

One personal addition i added was a tattoo idea that i have. It says 'faasnu', written in daedric, which is dragon for 'fearless'. That word has a lot of meaning to me and has to do with struggles I had to learn to overcome a few years ago. The rest of what I have been adding are mostly song lyrics, by August Burns Red and Bring Me the Horizon. "You claim you were built to fall. You were never strong enough," are some of the lyrics in a song called Chasing the Dragon by ABR, which is about addiction and overcoming those addictions while accepting help. Learning to accept help because you aren't strong enough to do something on your own is also something I find important and inspirational. I've added a few successful sentences that react to my personal additions and explain why those additions are there. I think I could try to add a few different things though, to veer away from the music and game additions. The majority will probably, in the end, relate to those two things because they are what take up most of my time, however I will try to add a few unique things to it.

Listography

This was the list I made: "list your favourite games to play". It didn't specify what type of games, so I decided to go and make a list of the thing that takes up 75% of my spare time. I chose to doodle this list because I find lots of inspiration within games because I play them so much, and with certain storylines I find uniqueness and interesting pieces that I find inspiring. It is one of my most time-consuming pasttimes therefore it would be one of the best places for me to find inspiration.

I like these games because I think they have an interesting storyline and they are unique compared to other games I've played. I would say Kingdom Hearts is my favourite game series of all time, because there is so much to it, so much storyline. It's just so interesting and deep because there's always more to know about it. I've played it for years and still these days I'm still discovering/realizing new things about it. It's definitely the most inspiring game I've ever played, with the most emotional storyline.




Gears of War
Kingdom Hearts
Oblivion
Skyrim
Zelda
Dead Space
Pokémon
Bioshock

And to enhance my nerdiness I just wrote "list your favourite games to play" in daedric on the right side.

Digital Footprint doodle

This is my doodle that I made about my digital footprint. I would say my footprint is fairly clean; when I Googled my name nothing relevant or personal to me came up, although my digital footprint is dirtied, in a way, by other people with the same name as me, which seems to be quite a few people with a wide range of hobbies and careers, interestingly enough.

Just Startin

Heeeey people of the bloggin' world, how's it rolling? Just starting out on this thaaang. I'm Sam T, and I'm not sure what else to say, so let's end it at that for now.

Later, mates :)