This creative writing class taught me ways to use my words to express my emotions in many ways. The last time I have ever written a poem was around middle school. This class took me back to that moment. Writing poems taught me to use figurative language. I was able to reach deep in within me and use my experience to describe my thoughts and have the readers paint them in their heads. I was able to learn how to use auditory, tactile, olfactory and gustatory imagery. In my list poem, “Admiration”, I write, “I adore when the condiments of a juicy burger splatter on my taste buds like a Pollock painting.” Here I use Jackson Pollock’s famous splatter paintings as a way to have the reader picture a juicy burger exploding in the mouth. If you ever had a great burger, you would know what I am talking about. When we got to the short story module, I got a bit nervous but also excited. Nervous because I had no idea how everyone would like my writing or I was scared that no one would get it. Maybe I would give too many details and not enough story? I was excited because I have been wanting to write a short story for a while. I had no motivation to do so before. This class helped me write my ideas down and also taught me to not let my negative thoughts conquer my ability to create something amazing on paper. I was able to also write about an experience that had impacted me in my life recently. Although it was personal, I loved sharing it with the class and getting feed back on my writing. For some reason, I thought I wasn’t so good with writing.

Not only did I write about the things I adore in a poem, but I was also able to learn how to write my overwhelming feeling in a chant poem. I called this poem “responsibilities”. Once I started school, I had so much responsibility going on in a matter of days. I felt like I was already falling behind even though I just started classes. I have a constant dream where I cannot find my class rooms or I am behind in homework. I use the line “The sweat on my palms is just the oceans carrying these worries higher onto the tip of my crown.” I am proud of this line because I express how sweaty my hands can get from the worries and overwhelming feeling. The sweat then gets a little more intense that it drowns me into more panic that you can no longer see my head. It is the feeling of being trapped in your own thoughts. In the spooky alphabet poem I was able to use the acrostic method to tell a Halloween story about a serial killer with an alien mask. This one was a bit tough since we had to use the letters of the alphabet to tell the story. I liked the challenge because it gives me a push to dig in to my mind for a moment. For example, with the letter “Z” it took me about 3 day to come up with, “Zero people. No human in sight.” I knew that that letter was going to be the challenge but I am happy that it matched my story. In my haiku poem, I wrote about my experience of an on and off relationship that impacted me in how I view myself at the end. This was not challenging to me believe it or not. Haiku poems are tricky to write but this one flew through me quickly. My best lines from this poem to me is, “A treasure I am, Into my arms I go further, Deserving I am.” with just a few lines, I was able to express my lesson and the way I viewed myself at the end. It was easy to look back in this moment and create it’s syllables per line. The haiku was the poem that took me back to middle school/elementary school. I remember my English teacher teaching us this for a week and it’s one of my favorite memories. In my free verse I write about my trip to Peru after not being there for 27 years. I had to absolutely write about this because it’s been years since I’ve seen my mother land and going through that experience was like a movie moment. Everything seemed brand new but at the same time it didn’t. I loved the feeling of seeing friends from long ago and them not forgetting my parents and welcoming them back. I used the word “Peruvian” a lot to signify that Peru itself is welcoming me in and the people in it is its arms opening wide for my family and I. “I turned my head to look around my childhood neighborhood, I see our Peruvian friends coming out their house with giant Peruvian smiles stuck on their faces, their Peruvian eyebrows raised, their Peruvian eyes widen and their arms holding out for a Peruvian hug.” I think it adds how proud I am to be Peruvian.

We were able to write short stories in both fiction and non fiction. I enjoyed this a lot because we were able to take our imaginations further. I had already set up something before this class but I never came around to writing it. Thanks to this class, I have a beginning to a science fiction short story. My short story is about a young woman in her mid 20s whose mom is an elf like alien from the planet Ventura and her human father from Lima, Peru. She finds a pocket sized cloning machine and uses it to her advantage. After a few months of dealing with her clone, she finds herself regretting her decision. This idea came to me after I had a rough week and I thought, “I wish I could clone myself. She would already know what to do and I can just stay here sleeping.” I’m sure many people had this thought when feeling swamped. Here I used visual imagery to describe the setting each character was in. I was able to let the audience know that she is half Latina by using Spanish words in the narrative. I also wanted the readers to know that she has alien skin of lavender and has some turquoise in her hair that she has inherited from her late mother. This is a story I would like to continue working on and have it published. I have always loved science fiction and the show “black mirror” has inspired some aspects of this story. Each episode of the show is different and portrays a near future with advanced technology. Some of the episodes have morals such as “do not take advantage of technology because short cuts are no good.” or how technology can somehow ruin our lives. The creator of the show said that he chose the name “black mirror” because it refers to a blank video screen. “Any TV, any LCD, any Iphone, any Ipad – something like that – if you just stare at it, it looks like a ‘black mirror’, and there’s something cold and horrifying about that, and it was such a fitting title for the show.” Even though I wanted my story to be in a dark side, I also wanted to add some humor in there.

In my non fiction short story, I took the same memory from my haiku and made it into my personal essay. This memory had impacted me so much I had to write about it twice. It’s unforgettable because it was recent. It started a long time ago but it recently ended in the beginning of this year. It was an on and off relationship. Who hasn’t gone through those? I remember when I told myself that I would never get tangled into those kinds of relationships. But you never know until you experience it yourself. Thankfully we ended it on good terms. What is the point of holding on to a pain? To conclude this story, In the end I realized that I was the one that mattered the most. I loved him but I loved me more. In this personal essay I got to expand and explain more of this memory. I was able to describe more of the setting and focused on my feelings and what made me feel good and bad through the relationship. I feel like I used a lot of visual imagery, “I look at his light brown eyes and I focus on how the light hits his iris. It’s like honey being slowly rotated in a mason jar. But the deeper I look, it turns into a rocky planet.” this line came out to me naturally. At this point it felt easier to describe what I visualize in my head. It was like illustrating on paper with words.

If it wasn’t for this class, I don’t think I would have put my short story out there for the first time and not just to myself. I have had a few stories I started but I haven’t finished due to the fear of writing something someone else has. Now I have a few ways I can make them unique. I liked getting in touch with my poetry side. I was never into poetry but I am a lover of music and music is poems being sung with beats in the background. I was able to explore other ways to write poetry and it challenged me to pick at my brain more. I learned to draft my stories and poems with asking myself questions and not just going straight to writing. I learned to edit and revise my own work and my peers’ as well. I as able to push myself to give helpful feedback to my peers rather than just focusing on what they did good. And the major challenge I faced in this class was reading in front of the class. I have been trying to avoid doing that for my classes, however, I don’t think you could ever avoid public speaking. I am proud that I never backed out from it and also I am thankful that I took this class. It has helped me view other perspectives in writing and with my classmates. Like I said, I thought I wasn’t the best at writing but to others it’s probably the best thing they have heard in a while. It feels good to know that. I also learned to use writing elements carefully but also do not be scared to over do some of the writing.