Week Three Reflection

This has been a thrilling and monumental last week. I feel that I finished my life-changing project with a resounding bang. Whenever I feel like I can't accomplish something, I can look back to this week and be reminded that I have the talent to do whatever I want. The first reason that this week has been so brilliant is perhaps the most obvious; I received a letter from one of our nation's most cherished writers, Donald Hall. That he personally responded to everything I said signifies that he must be interested in me. The thought of Donald Hall's interest in my thoughts will serve as a reminder to me that I have potential. The second reason this week has lifted my self-esteem is because of what I accomplished. I helped a teacher in the classroom with both general errands and specific tasks. I actually connected with a child and taught him about the deeper meaning of the poem. I hope that by showing him the benefits of my analysis, I taught him that literature often has deeper meaning and that it is rewarding to find this meaning. Perhaps this idea is a bit too optimistic, but his responses to what I said demonstrated that he understood, which means that I have the ability to convey knowledge to others and teach them. If, as I expect, I end up as an English teacher, I can think back to this moment as the first time I taught someone about the deeper meaning of a piece of literature, and I can draw confidence in my teaching from that memory. More importantly, however, my confidence in my writing has developed through this week. I began the week with much revision to do, and, since I am not skilled at revision, I felt despair. However, I managed to revise all of the essays to their full potential. Well, probably not their full potential, since a piece is never truly finished, but I did manage to substantially revise them when I thought that I could not. If I ever feel that I cannot bring a piece to near perfection, I can look back to this week and remember that I can complete successful revision. This week provided me with three moments that I can remember in the future to inspire confidence within me. I have finished a life-changing project with a resounding bang. Now, I can walk into my future life of teaching and writing knowing that I can accomplish whatever I set out to do.

The End

Today was my last day of sitting in the library working with these essays. A sad truth that brings with it a sigh of relief.

I began my last day by reading through the revisions that Mrs. Lemeris and I had made and applying them to my essays. I then went through the car essay and fixed it up, because it was a little more disorganized than the others.

Before I knew it, it was time to attend the first, last, and only class I would attend during senior project, the last session of Chamber Choir ever. I have been in the choir for all four years, so it was quite a poignant moment.

From there I went to lunch, where I met with Karin and we discussed my project. We started by planning how I could present my project on Wednesday. I decided that I would make a poster on which I could put information about the basis of my project as well as my letter to Donald Hall and my letter from him. Beneath the poster, I could have a bound copy of my essays that people would read while there if they wanted to. I would also have piles of the six essays, and I could tell people that they could take one.

After we discussed this, we talked about the project as a whole and what an accomplishment it was.

I then returned to my work. I copied and pasted all of the individual documents into one larger document, finally bringing the essays together. I made a table of contents. I then wrote the acknowledgement section at the end, which was frustrating because I wanted to thank many people but only wanted the section to be one page. The act of making this master document was like bringing the whole project together. It felt like an ending, which I suppose it was.

I still need to finish off the introduction this weekend, and I need to review the piece as a whole, but as far as I can see, I will be printing copies of the essays and of the book Monday.

I would talk about the nature of the book and what it has meant for me, but, if I wrote it correctly, the book will speak for itself.

I’m glad to have accomplished this.

Busy Day

Today I spent a lot of time in Mrs. Lemeris' classroom. It was good to get out of the library yet still be working on my project.

The first two hours of my day were spent in the library, however. I spent this time revising the library essay, mostly, as well as tidying up the playground and classroom essays, with which I feel comfortable. I believe these two are finished. Actually, no piece is really finished, but I mean as finished as it will be before the end of the project. I’m so glad to have two pieces behind me. I’ll be finishing the rest, which need only small tomorrow and this weekend.

I went over to the school at 10:30 to help Mrs. Lemeris during her Reading classes. I feel like I was of good assistance with her first block. Her class is creating books of their own poetry. I remember when I did that. It was an interesting step into the past. One eighth-grader, named Mike, needed to write a poem based on another poem by Robert Frost about a colt who was afraid of the snow. He had to write a poem from the colt’s perspective. I read through the Frost poem with him, and we discussed why the colt might be afraid of the snow. Mike was a good listener, and I thought he had some cool ideas. I think I helped him develop those ideas. I hope so, anyway. During that first Reading class, I also hung poetry on the walls as examples for the kids.

During the next block, my tasks were more general because none of those kids needed assistance with their poetry. They were actually already finished with all writing and revision, and they were typing it up. So I cut paper for the kids who were binding their books and got things from the supplies closet.

Then it was 12:30, so I went back to school and ate lunch. Next I went to the library and got a little bit of revision done, tidying the revisions I had made in the library essay. Then it was back to the classroom, where Mrs. Lemeris and I did some amazing revision on my essays. I look forward to doing those revisions tomorrow, my last day spent entirely on revision.

The Library Revisted

Today was less productive than yesterday, but yesterday was glorious in every way, so that was to be expected. I finished the church essay, and I love the ending I gave it.

Mostly, I worked on the library essay, trying to narrow its focus.

I found it difficult to do this for all the same reasons I’ve had difficulty with revision throughout the writing process. The library essay is the essay I’m having the most trouble bringing to its full potential. Right now, it’s pretty good but very general. I think that it can be brilliant essay that examines my linguistic development and, unlike the other essays, my fear of growing up.

I know I’ve stopped putting excerpts in since I was finished with the rough drafts, but I’d like to include one in this entry so that you can see how the essay could embrace the ideas I just mentioned:

“Whereas in elementary school I had picked Moby Dick off the shelf specifically because it looked mature, I now chose novellas which were written for a reading level far lower than my own.

“In fifth grade, I had a fear of growing up. I had worked my way to a place where I had begun to understand myself through reading literature and seeing all the strange things language could express, and, as I peered into the deepness of the human mind, I realized that there may be knowledge in there that I would not want to own. I was afraid of what I might discover about myself, humanity, and the world. So I stuck with cheery children’s books, choosing to float on the surface of fathomless life until I realized that I had to dive in because I did not belong on the surface level; so I dove in.”

Language was my way of discovering the deep and complicated nature of the world, and I want to expand on my development from eagerness to hesitation to finally embracing the full mystery. I just hope that the essay realizes these qualities before Senior Project is over.

Donald Hall's Letter

Today was a glorious day indeed.

I started by doing the most specific of the revisions Mrs. Lemeris and I discussed yesterday for the playground, classroom, and car essays. Most of these were based on diction, syntax, and sometimes, as I am embarrassed to admit, mechanics. A lot of these revisions breezed by pretty quickly, although there were a few that confounded me. For example, there's a specific paragraph in the car essay that contains a lot of complex ideas and syntax, and it took me half an hour to fix it up. I was constantly switching words and phrases around in different ways. I plan on returning to it, because I'm still not sure that it's perfect.

After this, I added endings to the pieces that were lacking them, and I'm proud to say that all of the pieces but the church essay have endings. Finally adding a conclusion to these pieces after two weeks of obsessing over their main bodies was relieving, to say the least.

Afterward, I went through the playground essay and added to some parts where I hadn't quite finished my ideas. I love the way this essay has come out.

I plan on working more tonight. I want to read through every essay and figure out what's left to be done. While reading, I want to keep in mind that the entire piece should be focused on the development toward the end. I predict that the revision that's left will be mostly refocusing essays.

The best component of today was not in the work, however. I received a letter from none other than Donald Hall! I had written him one just before senior project started, a letter that sang his praises and then asked him questions about being a writer, but I had not sent it until Friday purely out of anxiety that it was not a perfect letter. But Mr. Hall responded with great interest in everything I had written; he responded to my praise (although he seemed bashful to do so), he responded to my story of my personal connection to his poem "Name of Horses," and he answered all of the questions I asked about the life of a writer.

I was surprised at how his life and mine are both similar and different. For example, he says that he does not keep a journal regularly, although he likes the idea, but uses his letter-writing as a form of journal writing. I, too, like the idea of journals but have trouble sticking to them, and I love to keep my letters as records of my personal development. However, while I have had trouble with writing multiple drafts of my essays, he says that he never creates less than forty drafts of a piece and has even made two hundred for a few poems! When I spoke about this with Kris, he pointed out that that is especially amazing because he is such a prolific writer.

I found out all sorts of wonderful things about his life through his life, and I actually got to communicate with one of our nation's greatest writers, and he actually took interest in what I had to say!

One of his final messages was in response to my request for general tips for young writers:

"Tips: Read the old poets! The 17th century is the best for poetry. I have moved from one infatuation to another, which has been my education. Take a look at the poetry of Thomas Hardy some time. My other tip is excessive revision, but I think that the number of revisions, in my case, has grown exponentially as I have gotten older. Probably I wrote poems in my twenties when I used only ten drafts or so."

At least there's hope for me!

Thanks so much to Laurie for providing me with his address!

A glorious day indeed!

This entry definitely contains the greatest amount of exclamation points I have used in any blog entry thus far!

Monday

I wrote this entry for yesterday but forgot to post it. Here it is now:

Today, I achieved two major accomplishments.

First, I added a lot of content to the playground essay. It is currently my largest essay at 11 pages, and I still haven't finished the ending. When I discovered this, I was confused, because the classroom essay, which discusses a subject much more important to my development, was only six pages. I thought I had done something wrong.

My second accomplishment was that I brought both of the essays, as well as the car essay, to my sponsor Mrs. Lemeris this afternoon. I felt like there was a huge amount of progress made with specific factors of my writing like diction and syntax. I also felt like she gave me some important ideas to consider when approaching revision. The most important of these is that these essays are supposed to chronicle my development into the person I am now, so I need to show where this process led, because that's the whole point of the essay. I need to refocus the essays so that they lead to the end result and so that the rest of the essay reflects the ending throughout. The ending can't just be where the piece stops; it needs to be an answer to the rest of the piece.

Interestingly enough, Mrs. Lemeris also said that the classroom essay was the essay that was closest to achieving this goal, and I personally think that the playground essay, after I have added an ending, will be just as focused as the classroom essay. The pieces I was worried about are the ones that are the most finished. This goes to show that length does nothing to indicate quality and has little significance. The classroom essay can be more important than the playground essay even if the playground essay is longer. I need to just make a piece as long as it needs to be.

Week Two Reflection

This week, my objective switched from writing the rough drafts of my essays to revising them. While tuning into one’s creativity on command and writing an original piece is challenging, a different set of challenges meets someone whose goal is to revise and edit a piece of writing. Writing the rough drafts gave me no direction while I was writing, which was intimidating because there were so many paths I could take. It was like trying to go fishing in the vast ocean of language. At the same time, though, it was a more free process than revising the rough drafts. Revision required me to fit my corrections and expansions into the context of the rest of the piece. It was like fishing in a river. While I didn’t have so many words and ideas to worry about, it also meant that my selection was narrowed, and I had to do it carefully or else the words didn’t fit in with the rest of the essay. Sometimes, I would find myself growing impatient with how much time it took to edit a simple sentence so that it made sense with everything else. I felt less productive because I wasn’t producing as much material as I was in the previous week. It was frustrating to tailor my creativity to something that already existed. Revising isn’t something I do often. Editing and readjustment I perform a lot on my pieces, but I like to get all the writing for a piece done immediately so that I don’t need to try to produce writing for the same piece later. I need to learn that to create a larger and more perfect piece, I need to be able to return to it and add to it. This week has taught me about the patience that will be required of me if I want to become a real writer. I can’t just do the fun, easy, creative writing; the slower and more difficult process of revision needs to happen as well if I want my writing to be as good as it can be.

Anticipation

Today I performed most of the revisions Karin and I had discussed last Friday. Like yesterday, it was difficult to work from an already existing piece. Revising is a careful process, because you are altering something while trying not to destroy its existing structure.

I can’t help but think of the board game Operation, trying to pull the organ out while not hitting the sides. Perhaps that’s a lousy metaphor, but it seems appropriate.

The essays I worked on today were the church essay, the yard essay, and the library essay. The library essay is the toughest because I am trying to focus the essay on certain aspects of the subject, which means adding a lot of content about these aspects. It’s difficult to find where this content would be appropriate, where it wouldn’t disrupt the already established flow. This usually means altering some of the material around it so that it fits in. It’s just plain awkward trying to drop new material into the middle of things.

I’m not complaining about it. I actually enjoy the process. But it is a much slower process than writing in the uninhibited way I have been writing the drafts, so when the day winds to a close, I feel like I’ve been less productive.

Besides revision, I also spent some time today planning the rest of my project. I will be working on revision again tomorrow as well as meeting with Karin during lunch to discuss the three essays we did not discuss last week so that she can revise those essays with me. I will be spending time revising this weekend. I meet with Ms. Lemeris on Monday of next week for an extended period of time so that we can go over every essay and revise all of them. I will also be helping Ms. Lemeris around the classroom. I may be interviewing Mary Lynn Rae, depending on circumstances. In any case, I hope I will be getting a return letter from Donald Hall answering my questions about life as a writer. I will continue intense final revision, of course. On the last day of the week, I will meet with Mrs. Lemeris again to go over the final drafts of the essays and make sure nothing should be tweaked. Next week looks busy to say the least, and I hope I can prepare for it tomorrow and through the weekend.

My Writing Process

Today I expanded on the classroom essay, although it still doesn’t have as much content as I would like it to have. I have lots of ideas for the essay, but it’s hard to fit them in because the structure is so tight-knit. I spent a lot of time figuring out where to fit the ideas in rather than writing them, so the content added was low although the time spent was high. I hope I can get this structural problem sorted out soon.

Despite this difficulty and the fact that abstract ideas seem to abound throughout the essay without concrete foundation, I really like this essay. Some of the writing is really awesome, and the idea behind it is cool. When it comes to demonstrating my development as a person, this essay shows one of the more interesting angles. Of course, I feel that way about every essay after I finish a day working on it.

Joan commented on a recent post asking about my writing process. To be honest, my writing process usually seems to be a mystery even to me. I’ll start with a sentence, a well-crafted, interesting sentence. Then I’ll expand on that idea. Then I usually realize that there’s more to say about this subject, something even more fundamental, so I’ll start writing in front of my original sentence. I just keep writing, expanding on what I wrote previously. I constantly rearrange and delete as I write. I am trying to establish an order, but I can’t do that until I create the materials that will be arranged. I just write and follow my instincts as to what else should be written. I can always delete something if it doesn’t make sense, but it’s good to write it anyway. Sometimes, my original sentence doesn’t even make it by the time the piece is done. I think Pablo Neruda described poetry as words arranged on a page. That’s how I would describe all writing. It’s about arrangement, and the process is about not being afraid to shift that arrangement around and play with it. At least, that’s what my process is like.

I plan on continuing to revise the essays for the rest of the week.

A Summary

As I posted last night, yesterday’s blog was deleted. It was really well-written, and I was sad to see it go. I will summarize it here:

I spoke about how revising is a different process than writing. It’s like the difference between building a house from scratch or building an addition to it. When you’re writing a rough draft, there’s an intimidating liberty, because you are unrestricted in your process but also unguided. When you are revising or expanding on a piece, you are limited but also secure because you have to make sure that it fits with the rest of the piece but you have the same guidelines to help you decide what to write. Basically, it’s different now, because while I need to be more careful, it’s not like I’m wandering through the dark.

I wrote that it’s strange to revise and to return to a piece, when I’ve spent my entire project never looking back and pushing forward.

I then wrote something special about my writing process, how I avoid using clichés because I want people to see things differently. I want to show them, through my writing, that life can be seen through many angles, and I demonstrate this by describing things in ways they’ve never considered. Maybe that way people will experience their lives more attentively, so they will notice how unique and beautiful every moment is, and they will be grateful. It was a lot better than that, though.

So, that’s the basic summary. It was a great entry, and Blogger messed up. I will now be writing all of my entries in a word processor and then posting them.

Upsetting

I could just cry. I wrote one of my favorite blog entries thus far. It took me an hour to write. It was a beautiful explanation of why I write. Sometime during my writing the entry, my computer signed me out, and so when I went to post, it all went away. For some reason, it wasn't saved. So I guess I'll re-write the entry sometime tomorrow. Now, I need some sleep.

Writing About Learning

Today I wrote about the classroom. Life has always been a giant classroom for me (don't worry, I don't use this cliché in the essay) because I really try in my everyday life to learn everything that my experiences can teach me.

I felt a bizarre sense of déjavu while writing this because I have spent the past year writing about my love of learning to colleges and to scholarship foundations, hoping that this passion could earn me a place at a good college. I faced the temptation of abstraction, because abstract writing is often what is found in the kind of persuasive writing that I would be doing for college applications. I needed to make this essay personal rather than persuasive. It was a strange experience, writing about something that I had just written about multiple times and having to look at it through a completely different lens. This was a challenge I had not yet faced. The only way to avoid clichés and abstraction was to ground the piece with concrete details. Tom Morgan taught me that. Being a naturally concrete writer, it was strange having to focus on concreteness.

That's not to say that I wasn't a little abstract sometimes, but this emotional writing was built on the foundation of specific details. Here's a piece of the abstract part that seems strong even out of context:

"I felt a deep sense of belonging when I was in the classroom. Since as long as I could remember, I had attacked the process of learning with an intense enthusiasm. I constantly attempted to crawl out of my crib as an infant, sometimes successfully, so that I could further explore my room. I had learned the alphabet, both upper case and lower case, by the time I was eighteen months old. At three, my mother hid all the magazines and books in the house because I would cry when I read about a natural disaster. Of course learning was encouraged and fostered at home, but at the school, that passion became my purpose.

"When I say learn, I’m not speaking of memorizing or consuming facts. I’m speaking of something a lot more fundamental and sacred: expressing your gratitude for this magnificent experience of life by just being an observant and active part of it. Learning is a way of communicating with the universe. From each piece of knowledge that is revealed, several questions emerge, to which I find the answers, only to be met by several more questions. As I acquire answers, I realize that the little bits of knowledge were not separate. I recognize connections between them. Learning is my way of crossing the immense web of life."

Week One Reflection

It’s true that hands-on experience teaches more than theory or discussion ever could. By spending a week writing rough drafts for a collection of essays, I have had my endurance and writer’s vision tested, and I have learned about how to meet these challenges effectively as a writer.

The first challenge I met was against my endurance. I am a person who likes to finish pieces in one sitting, completely intellectually investing myself in an idea for a few hours and then leaving it. When I wrote my play, I literally sat down, opened my computer, and wrote it without taking a single break. Writing this collection of rough drafts over the span of a week has been challenging for me because not only do I have to stop from writing each individual essay so I can take my lunch break, but I also have to stop from writing the entire piece each day as I head home and then start again the next morning. At the beginning, I felt like this manner of writing broke my concentration, but there was no way that I could sit down and simply write the entire collection of essays in one sitting. I’ve actually learned that by allowing my mind respite, I come back to the piece mentally rejuvenated, and while I may not be in the same mindset that I was before, returning to the piece several times gives it more texture. Breaking my concentration doesn’t ruin the mood of the piece as I thought it did; returning to a piece to re-write, revise, or continue gives it a deeper character, making for a more interesting and vibrant piece.

I also faced the test of writer’s vision, being able to see the whole collection while focusing on a part of it. When I began, I felt overwhelmed, wondering how I could write a whole book of individual essays that made sense together as one. As I wrote the second piece, however, the connections between it and the first piece seemed to come naturally because the first piece was kept in my mind while I wrote the second. And with the third piece, connections formed between the first and second. By the time I began the fourth essay, I understood what my collection was about, what fundamental feature bounded them all together. They all characterize my personal development as a human being from different angles. Because I had kept the previous essays in mind while I was writing each essay, because I opened my vision to include both the essay I was writing and its companions, I was able to form them as a whole. It is important, when writing a longer piece, to be able to look closely at what I am doing while focusing on how that will fit into the whole. This takes practice -- the kind of practice I am receiving through this exercise.

I have read books on how to write a longer work, but I never have written a long piece before. This week has taught me about endurance and vision through experience, and now I know how to achieve these qualities as I continue to write throughout my life.

Looking Forward to Next Week

Today was a fairly good day. I didn't finish the whole car essay, but I wasn't expecting to because it's the biggest and most important essay. I plan on finishing it and doing the final one this weekend and on Monday, which puts me only slightly behind schedule.

The car is an important essay because all of these essays are about my experience with the world around me and how these experiences taught me to look beyond myself. The car was the vehicle that transported me to the world beyond. To get to all of the subjects of my essays except the yard, I had to be driven in the car. The car isn't quite like the other essays because rather than being any one place in particular, it was the gateway to other places. Besides the car's role in my childhood, I'll also be discussing my more recent experiences with the car, including my fear of learning to drive, learning to drive, the independence of being able to drive, and the recent car crash; this essay goes a bit further into my current life than the other essays, making it almost act as a reader's vehicle to my present self.

I'm excited to finish this essay.

Next week, I plan on finishing this essay, writing the next, revising my pieces, and deciding on an order for the whole collection. I'll be focusing on bringing out each individual piece while also fitting them together.

I met with Karin today, and we discussed the first three pieces. She gave very specific advice for each piece, and we discussed, mostly, focus, since the pieces I wrote were often a little broad, which is to be expected of a rough draft. We also discussed endings. My pieces did not have endings, really, because it's hard to write an ending while still figuring out the focus. But these bugs should be sorted out next week.

Here's an excerpt about when the car took me to the planetarium:

"The first time I went to the planetarium, I was sitting in the backseat on the driver’s side of the Toyota. I had no idea what a planetarium was, but its name sounded strange, and so I was thrilled to be there. It was the Christa McCauliff Planetarium, which is in Concord. As we were waiting, I made my first purchase at the dark blue star-spangled gift shop: a patch that said the planetarium’s name on it beneath a white star. I tried to put it on, but that back wasn’t sticky like a sticker’s back was. I had no patience for this unexpected complication and threw it away. When we entered the planetarium, the dome ceiling was a shining graceful combination of pink and yellow. The sky’s color gradually shifted to a lavender, then to a purple, slowly becoming deep and blue, until finally, I was looking at the night sky. A man standing next to the projector told us the story of stars. They weren’t scattered across a flat sky. They were giant balls of burning gas scattered across three-dimensional space, each billions of light-years apart from the other. A light-year - now that was an idea. That night, I tried to outrun light by flicking on my room’s light switch and running to the end of the room before the room was lit up. I failed. Now if I were to maintain the impossible speed of light for billions of years, I would have run as far as one star is from the other. And that’s not even a fraction of the size of a galaxy, and a galaxy isn’t even a fraction of the universe. That’s how much space is out there. I was so amazed that I lived in such a place that was so vast and diverse that it could never, ever bore me. There would always be something else to explore."

Sick Day

Blogger was not working yesterday, and so here is my post for yesterday:

Today I woke up feeling extremely lousy, so I decided to work from home. I felt distracted all day by my lousiness. It was difficult to work because of this. I feel that my writing was not as strong because I had trouble concentrating.

I wrote about the playground and how it always seemed like a political place. Not in a bad way, necessarily, but because our class was a community, we definitely seemed to develop a social order, which is natural. I attempted to chronicle our evolution as a community from first to eighth grade.

Here is the introductory paragraph:

"Politics always have been in operation on the playground, at least for as long as I can remember. It wasn’t like there was an explicit hierarchy applied such as in the playgrounds in movies. There wasn’t one popular girl who controlled everyone else’s lives nor a bully who took our lunch money. But my classmates and I were a community, and like any other community, there was a tacit social order established. It’s difficult to articulate, because it wasn’t something that was necessarily clear. And of course it changed as we grew up. The invisible dividing lines were constantly shifting and transforming. It’s difficult to communicate exactly where they lay or how they were to be interpreted. But our actions sometimes seemed to indicate a sort of collective agenda."

This particular essay will be interesting in the context of the rest of the essays. First, I'll explain what I've discovered the purpose of this collection to be. As you've probably figured out through reading my descriptions of the essays, they are each based on a place. I chronicle (I know I already used that word but I can't find a better one) my experience with this place through the years. So, it's like looking at my personal development through several angles. In the case of the library, it was my development of language and learning. In the case of the church, it was my spiritual development. In the case of the yard, it was my development of myself in nature. It's interesting that the essays turned out this way because I originally thought that it was going to be about moments in my childhood that contributed to who I am now. It's actualy like exploring Haley Peters in different lights. I think I just figured this out today. Nothing ever goes according to plan.

Anyway, this essay is about the development of myself socially, and I believe it will be interesting because it also chronicles the same development in all my classmates. Basically, this essay is about me learning to function in a community, but at the same time, every other kid in the community is learning, too. So the subject itself, the playground, will change, whereas in all my other essays, the place stays the same while I change. Just interesting.

I can't wait till next week when I can revise this essay while not feeling lousy. It's going to be a cool one.

Getting Clearer

Today's writing was even smoother than yesterday's. This is becoming much easier as my tension dissipates. I'm starting to realize that while attention to detail is important, it's much easier to write something and then revise it instead of revising as you go (although I still do a fair amount of that because I hate to continue while imperfection lies behind me). It's easier to fix the small stuff afterward because the piece's purpose is constantly changing as I write, so my revisions might not be relevant and then I have to go back and revise it again.

Today I wrote about my yard. The piece progressed through seasons, although it wasn't like I labeled each season. The transitions aren't that clear in real life. Here's an excerpt from the summer leading into fall:

"And ultimately, the coolness of the evenings crept up into the afternoons as fall slowly descended. While the air cooled, the colors of the trees heated up as if to offer temporary compensation. Many kids continued to play hard every afternoon. I became more quiet and meditative in the fall. In the woodlot next to our house, I’d see the oak’s fluorescent orange leaves, each leaf bordered by a bright scarlet. I’d see a wide maple with leaves the color of overripe bananas. I’d see a crimson cherry tree. I’d see minute squirrels clambering over the branches of trees. I’d see the leaves shaking as the wind pushed them. First, I’d hear the hushed rustle, which would build with the wind’s momentum in a dramatic crescendo until, at its peak, the sound became a dissonant, crackling noise resonating through the woods and my yard; the fierce cold wind pushed my hair aside and hit the nape of my neck. The sound of the wind in the trees would gradually soften, returning to its original pianissimo and then finally silence. I watched the sky as, day by day, the solid blue summer sky faded, and the colored leaves withered and spilled from their trees. The whippoorwill’s call became less frequent until it finally disappeared with the winter."

I met with my sponsor Mrs. Lemeris today, who liked Monday's piece about the church. I had handed to her, embarrassed, telling her about how I had felt anxious on Monday and how the essay might reflect that, but she and I had a long discussion about the purpose of religion in our lives as well as my writing style, which seemed to her an interesting sort of chronological stream of consciousness. She said that she was impressed at how I pulled all of my disparate details together at the end. I can't wait for next week when I can polish these pieces and make them quality essays!

The Library

Today was much easier because I wasn't quite so edgy. I got a lot more quality writing done, being less distracted with anxiety or pressure. I was very happy with what I produced today. I didn't allow myself to feel overwhelmed because I just kept working.

I wrote about the library, basically speaking about how I used language to orient and express myself. I give detailed directions to the library in my essay, which represents how the library showed me where and who I was. I talk about my progression toward maturity, paralleling it with my experiences at three libraries. I put in a lot of vivid descriptions of these libraries, especially of the Franklin Library.

Here's an excerpt of that description which demonstrates my use of detail and my directions:

"Every Wednesday afternoon of my fifth grade year, Mom, Tucker, and I would enter the car, one of us holding Mom’s filled and consequently heavy green-trimmed L.L. Bean bag. Mom would turn on the car, shift it into gear, and back out of the dirt parking lot onto the dirt road. She’d drive down the road to the highway that crossed it. She’d stop, look both ways, and then turn left onto Route 11, which we would follow through East Andover, past Highland lake, past Webster lake, through the Franklin suburbs until we arrived at a junction, at which point we’d turn left onto Main Street. I’d watch the array of passing green trees thicken as we left Andover, then thin as we reached East Andover, then thicken as we left it, then thin as we entered Franklin, a process of waxing and waning that accompanied the dynamic momentum of the drive. As we got into the most urban section of Main Street, which was past the Unitarian church and the gas station and just over the reservoir, Mom would pull the car next to the sidewalk to our right and stop it. We’d get out of the car and stand on the sidewalk. There we’d be on one side of the road, while the library stood on the other, and it always seemed that there was so little distance between us but that I could not cross the road and reach it."

I liked the style that I achieved with this essay. With my first essay, I felt conflicted and lost when it came to voice. I can't wait to re-approach that essay with my newly earned confidence.

I am meeting with Mrs. Lemeris tomorrow so that she can check in and give me suggestions on what I have written so far.

My First Day

This morning, I headed over to the library to begin my first day of writing. It was exhausting, to be sure, writing for such a long span of time, but it helped to think that this is only the rough draft. Sometimes I would obsess over small pieces of the writing when I should have been focusing on the big picture. After all, I will spend the two weeks after this week refining my essay. For now, I just need to get the main ideas down. I need to keep this in mind so that I will not waste time in the future. I hope that I can leave the OCD piece of me while I write these rough drafts.

I've also learned that rough drafts are not complete products. For example, I wanted to write a lot more today and expand on certain ideas, but instead I just wrote down my ideas and decided that I would examine them in the next draft. It is difficult for me to do this, but I need to realize the time constraint.

I completed one rough draft today, which was exactly what I wanted to accomplish, so I'd say I'm on the right track so far. As exhausting and scary as it is, I find the excitement of writing is taking over. I do love investing myself intellectually in an idea long enough to write a piece about it, and now I have a whole day to devote to each idea. It's wonderful, and the pure thrill of it is starting to conquer any anxieties I have.

An excerpt of my work today on "The Church":

"After I learned every child-appropriate story in the Bible, I stayed with my parents upstairs in the big white room where our pastor gave sermons that I usually understood, which my parents considered impressive. Sometimes, though, my mind would wander toward the long stained-glass mosaic windows as I watched the light that shone through them move with the sun, and sometimes, I would study the ceiling, which was made up entirely of little white bumps that seemed to have no pattern in size or arrangement. I often wished that we would sit in the balcony behind us to see the sermon from above. Once we did sit in the balcony, and I found it to be a disengaging and dull experience, since our pastor didn’t even look at us, and I experienced a pale but incredibly visceral fear of falling off the balcony and disrupting the sermon with my death. I wondered vaguely if God felt bored or frightened as he watched us move through our lives."

My Feelings about Tomorrow

It's Sunday, and tomorrow, I begin Senior Project. I feel relieved that I'm finished with classes, excited that I get to spend three weeks writing, and scared that I won't accomplish what I want to do. I'm especially anxious about the first week. The rough draft is the hardest part to write, and I'm writing all six in one week. I'm also worried about how people will react the essay I will write about the church, through which I will reveal my current state of agnosticism. I know I shouldn't be worried about what people will think until I have the essays done, but I'm worried nonetheless. I'm definitely worried that I won't be able to do this -- I'm putting a lot on the line here. I have to trust myself, which is something I find difficult to do. I hope that completing this project will make me realize that I can trust myself.