Bio-note: Hi! I’m Elliot and this is my digital writing folio. Woo! During my experiences this semester, I have tried to grasp the concept of digital writing; that is, creative writing in a digital form, that may adopt traditional or abstract and more artistic formats. I have expected to learn writing methods unique to technology and take advantage of expression in ways that simple prose, script or essay, my main formats, do not generally allow. I have found these to be largely cathartic forms of creativity, with both fictional and non-fictional concepts, however, I have recently come to wonder more about the abstract forms of expression. Digital writing seems to lend itself more to those possibilities and I have only gotten more intrigued about how they can motivate me to be creative in unique ways.
Writer's Statement: Everything operates through the trippy guise of a static TV, a chaotic, infinite spew of white noise. But behind it plays a tune; even if you can’t see it, you might know it’s there. And if you sit in it, with a spark of mindfulness, and a whole lot of curiosity (otherwise known as having terrible social cues and never knowing when to stop asking the question “Why?”) while you gently turn the knob…you’ll hear the right chords and the right lyrics. You might even find that what you’ve been listening to all this time isn’t just some melody, but an entire fucking symphony.
I can’t help but want to understand all of all inside out. Word after word after word until an idea, my own or otherwise, is out there in the world and I can put it in some sexy big ass frame to appreciate it. Sometimes, that means getting creative! Sometimes that means rambling! Feel free to stick around and see what that means, and what it might mean. :)
Reflective Statement: On the whole, this semester has been very telling in terms of how I like to involve myself in creative media, both creatively and critically. For me, the definition of my practice has always been something that I have felt rather aimless in; I write stories whether it’s script, prose or something as unique and stressful as Twine, and even though I can find the process cathartic and fun, I feel like I ultimately look at those relatively straightforward pieces and feel nothing for it, which has been a kind of lifelong plague on the way I tell stories. I don’t know whether I detach when I start writing, or if I’m just doing it wrong, or if I’m just being too hard on myself and assuming my writing sucks from the getgo but it’s hard to care about what I have to say when I say it through such direct forms, especially as I tend to approach them very rawly and struggle to give it complexity or subtext as I bring it all to the surface. I feel like my narrative piece, Suspect, really only reminded me of that. In my head, such stories come to me one beat after the other, and I feel like I’m putting my hand out for a toddler to walk steadily with me. Even if they aren’t necessarily bad stories, not that I can ever really tell, but I just didn’t find writing it interesting. Oddly enough, I didn’t feel like I was being creative in a gratifying way.
That said, the experience of using Twine, CSS and VSC was nevertheless wildly enjoyable, especially the design aspect of it because it felt like I was learning to become creative in unique ways that direct writing does not allow. This enjoyment extends into the other, smaller digital pieces I have developed this semester, which I find infinitely more intriguing and satisfying than my hypertext piece. Even if they aren’t entirely original, it felt like I could approach writing, and the discourses and experiences of the modern world, in ways that weren’t just unconventional and new, but fun to develop. I was excited to see what I was coming up with, how it was evolving and getting better, and how they felt so concise and as though they made sense to me, but not without depth to them.
The biggest thing I’ve learnt from this semester is that I should put the unconventional ways my mind tends to work into creative practice; I ought to embrace it rather than keep tending the fields that everyone else already farms. This class has given me an immense opportunity to test and compare how I can enjoy different forms of writing. I think from here, I intend to focus my practice in creatively stimulating ways, more often than not, those are unconventional. Perhaps I will seek more of them out over my break, and consider how I can put more of them into action as the course comes to a close, and maybe even beyond that if I can professionally be so flexible.