Week 15: Famous Last Words: Literally.

So this week I am finishing up everything in here and this will probably be my last time to post on this blog for at least now! I wanted to finish this as soon as possible so I can be free to focus on my other classes! I am on top of most of my work in those classes and would like to stay that way! I have one final on Wednesday that I need to get to stuDYING for and a huge project proposal presentation on Friday! I am super excited to present the research and experiment I have been working on all semester! I also have some Italian stuff to finish up on and I am so excited because this is my last semester of Italian! I can read Italian almost perfectly, but speaking it and listening to it is hard for me. I suppose that is what happens when you take an online class were the emphasis is on reading and writing it! I have had a lot of fun this semester in this class and would like to take this as an opportunity to thank you for your kind comments and critiques this semester! You have made this class enjoyable and encouraged me to continue on with my creative writing so thank you!!! I wish you all the best! To those of you who are graduating like me in May, I am just as excited for what your future holds for you as I am what mine holds for me. For those of you who still have school to go, I wish you the best in your classes and would encourage you to keep putting in hard work! It will all be over before you know it, so make the most of your time here at the beautiful University of Oklahoma! Live on University!

---Karisa

(Thank You!)

Week 13: Last Words

(Source)

This week has been a very hectic week for me. I have been scrambling to get everything done so I could get my wisdom teeth out today. (I am currently laid up on the couch and watching the Walking Dead). So my schedule for how I do this homework usually has been very thrown off. It is also the end of the semester and I am rushing to knock out at least two online classes before December starts up! ANYWAY, I chose to talk about other people's writing in this class. I have found so many great writers in this class. Like you all are seriously fantastic. I was very nervous coming into this class because I am very, very, very shy about my writing and showing it to people. I love to write and I know I am pretty good at it, but still. So the fact that everyone in here put themselves out there and tried something new every week with their new stories is pretty cool. I think what makes stories successful is trying to understand the character's personalities and thoughts in the story. Before you write, I believe you should sit down and go down you character list and give them a name(if they don't have one), distinct personality traits, and I also like to think of their physical characteristics because that also gives insight into how people are going to react in certain situations. For example, if one of my characters is red headed, it plays into their temper tantrums because red heads are said to have fiery tempers! (Even though this is not necessarily the case at all times.) I really like to play with characters in my writing by giving them opposite traits or taking away some of their old ones to see how that changes the outcomes of the stories and most of the time it does!

Week 12: Famous Last Words

So this week, I read the Faerie Queen: Britomart unit. I had time to do both halves of the reading and I found them very interesting. The thing I liked the most about this reading is that Britomart defied gender norms from her time. Women were meant to be dainty and sitting in the house sewing and all that jazz. She basically stuck it to the system and decided she was going to be a knight. Another thing that I really liked is that even though she was going out of her way to fight gender norms, she still had a crush and wanted to be with him. This shows that you can be a feminist and not hate men. That is one of my biggest pet peeves in the world today. Some people assume just because women are strong and independent and do the same jobs as men (sometimes better) that they are cold and callous and don't want to be in a relationship. It's absolutely ridiculous. I am really glad this story showed both sides of this.

This week I did the writing for my story in my Wednesday night class. I always do my best writing in there because it is a three hour class that I have to have something to do in. However, as the weeks go by I have noticed that my ideas for writing stories are starting to run out. I think I may be suffering from some end of semester writer's block!!! I hope that is not the case because I have some more papers to write still! I think that I just need to take a moment and come up with a good writing strategy for this week. I really need to plan it out and maybe play around with more character development. I also might switch it up and write the story from my desk in my room with the lights off (I have two old vintage lamps that give off a nice warm glow.) I like to write here when I cannot think because it makes me feel like Jo off of Little Women and that is one of my favorite books!

(Jo writing at her desk)