Summer Writing 2017

It was a summer full of writing and I am so happy with what I achieved.

Since I began this blog, I have always been writing about past activities and events. As I progressed, I made a list of ones I planned to write so I wouldn’t miss out any important part or milestone in my life.

I also hoped by making the list, I could make them all flow from one into the next easily.

Despite how hard I tried, I didn’t write very fast and my list of my future blog posts continues to grow as inspiration kept hitting.

When I broke up for the summer, I set myself missions to accomplish by the time summer comes to an end.

My first mission was to update my blog to bring it into the present day, breaking it into smaller facets to make it achievable.

First I made corrections on the blog posts that were already on my website, editing and polishing them so they were better and more descriptive.

Once this was done, I scheduled the posts so one section of my blog was completed. Next, I looked over my blog list and plan, organising and adjusting it, so the posts were in the order of occurrence and the list included all my new experiences and challenges and the list was up to date.

Then I moved onto splitting the list into bite-size pieces and going through them; writing, editing, polishing and scheduling them ready to publish on my website. I wrote feverishly to update the blog, one section at a time to bring my blog up to present day.

Alongside writing for my blog, I wanted to build a strong journalist and creative writing portfolio, using what I had learnt from my first year at university that I could use for the future.

I decided to build my journalist portfolio first, writing pieces and articles, using notes and data that I had collected before recent months. I also kept a keen eye out for new stories or articles that I could write.

I hoped by doing this, my knowledge, skills and confidence grew in time for the second year.

While expanding my journalist portfolio, I made sure to write different style and forms of practice pieces and practice articles to be able to experiment and discover which subject, form and style, I felt comfiest with to peruse.

So I have tried various articles I still feel that I want to focus my attention and passion into writing articles that would benefit the world of disability.

I feel I could use my empathy and my determination in my articles and channel my feelings and emotions to shape an effective article.

While I was expanding my journalist portfolio, I made a big decision, I decided that I would stay on the path to continue studying journalism as my main subject in university and finish with writing journalism dissertation.

I was pleased and relieved that I made this decision and it’s defiantly a weight off my mind.

I also spent a lot of time expanding my creative writing portfolio, writing short pieces and short pieces, using what I already practised at university and to expand my skills. I feel I benefited from expanding my portfolios and will continue to do so.

I hope I can use the pieces I have written as inspiration or drafts for my work in university and expand them into better pieces and with some hope, achieve a form of publication.

For years I have always written stories for personal use, but I have never had the chance to develop them enough.

I decided to change this and use the skills and techniques that I had picked up over the past year to make my stories better and more professional.

First I went through some old stories and disposed of those that weren’t worth anything, took some parts of other stories and put them together to make into bases for brand new pieces or stories and then I finally began to edit a number of stories I thought might be worth something.

When I sifted through all of my stories, I spent some time working on them and developing them. Once I was sure I made some leeway with each, I started to construct bases for new stories that were more out of my comfort zone to try something new.

To get ideas flowing, I brought creative writing books, which was filled with scenes and subjects to write a small piece on.

Though I didn’t use the exact pieces I wrote in my books, I used some of the ideas I wrote about in the book in my stories, which helped me a lot.

I worked on both sets with equal passion and I feel I made great progress on each set that I will continue working on.

I really felt I had a productive summer and will never stop writing!