Writing, Writing, and More WRITING.

So, this week has finally come to an end! I have to say even though this class has been a lot of work, I have really enjoyed everything I have done, read, thought, and written. It has really sparked some creative juices and has me DEFINITELY managing my time efficiently, even with my other classes.  I’ll just quickly go through my week and my work that I have done for it, hopefully without being too redundant!

A Quick RECAP of the Week!

Daily Creates

This is one thing this week that I think I had the most fun with! It was a gamble to see what came up on the @ds106dc twitter account everyday and what wacky thing I would I have to do next! I did a full fledged blog post on my daily creates and the explanations and processes behind them!

Writing Assignments

The first writing assignment post I did was about my favorite holiday and the reasons behind it being my favorite holiday.  I picked Thanksgiving because it was the only holiday my whole family was around for. I also loved eating my grandmother’s cooking, especially the sweet potatoes. It was always a special holiday for everyone! (2 stars)

The second assignment I choose was about taking TEN random words from a random word generator and choosing an animal then creating a creative story with the animals the words you choose. I decided to write about a squirrel because they’re cute little fuzzy things and I used my words to create a story about the squirrel! (2 stars)

Then of course, their was the assignment with the alternate ending for one of the stories we had to read this week. I chose to write an alternate ending for The Wild Party because I found that read the most interesting. I just made some MAJOR changes to the way the story ends, that’s all! (this was required so do the stars even count, 3 stars)

My character dossier even made an appearance in one of the assignments for the week about the super hero powers, which in her case are actually villainous powers. Here I talk about the many powers she has to enticing her men and to get what she wants.  (2 stars)

And lastly, I did an assignment from the point of view of an every day object. I gave a little monologue about what the inanimate object experiences, leaving an invitation for guessing what it is!! (4 stars)

I may have done too many of these (stars) but it’s okay because I actually enjoyed doing them!!

Reading Assignments

This week we had to choose three stories to read that were examples of noir. I chose The Wild Party, “The Killers”, and the required reading: “The Postman Always Rings Twice” and write about them. For each of the readings, I did a quick/brief summary about the piece, I did an analysis of how it fits the noir, and then lastly pointed out some prominent themes that occurred throughout the stories. I really enjoyed these readings even though they were long! I like the dark and promiscuous aspects of them, however some of the vulgar language I could do with out!

Character Dossier

This week we had to create a character that is basically the epitome of noir and describe their characteristics and transform them into a character with traits, thoughts, and every day life things. This had to be submitted on the ds106/noir106 website and a blog was made to accompany this. My character is a casanova named Sylvia who is sly, deceiving, and manipulative in the most brilliant ways. In some ways, she can be compared to the looks of Jessica Rabbit.

Thoughts on the week

I really enjoyed this week. I actually impressed myself with the amount of work I got down and how I didn’t put everything off until the last minute, just a daily reminder that I CAN DO IT. I started expanding the aesthetics of my blog page and interaction with other people in ds106, especially outside of my class to see what everyone else is up to. I also explored the word press site trying to spice up my page, add some about me things and just personalize it, including a little portal to my twitter. I communicated with a few people regarding changes they made and how they did it! Along with the beauty make over I did to my page, I also did some lifestyle changes for my blog, per se, for example using some plug ins to keep out spam and a plug in to obtain more widgets for my blog!

This week was a lot of writing and reading but it also taught me more about noir and using it in my writing. I’ve always liked to write about fictional things and this class is allowing me to do so, especially with the daily creates and the writing assignments that I could choose from. Definitely excited to see what else this class has in store for me.

I’ve learned so much in these two weeks, I can’t wait to learn more!!

xoxo,

Amanda