Introduction to Profile

Included upon this blog in the November / December 2012 sections can be found the following pieces required for English 408. 

A) The Writer's Memoir

b) The Unfamiliar Genre Project (4/5) 

c) Profile of a School and Student 

d) Inquiry Project and Reflection

d) This Introduction 

The only piece missing is the “How-to Guide to Steampunk” from the Unknown Genre Project, which was written in the form of a powerpoint.  It was sent to the instructor via e-mail, and was also placed upon the Google file shared with the 408 class.  

I am a writer.  I have always been a writer, but this class and doing these pieces for this class made me more aware of my writer-ness than I generally am.   What does it mean to be a writer?  Being a writer means that you have… stuff, for lack of a better word, in your head that you have to get out and on paper.  It doesn’t matter what it is: poems, stories, essays, it’s all the same.  It doesn’t matter if you get paid for it (although that helps!), if anyone reads it, or how it gets out whether via pencil and paper or mouse and keyboard.  It doesn’t matter how it gets out as long as it does, and you are left with that cozy space in your brain where that idea used to be.  The only problem is, that cozy empty space seldom stays empty for long.  Some other idea moves in and starts kicking the walls and wiggling until it too, must be ejected.  And so the process continues.  

I enjoyed writing the pieces for this class, and in many ways (especially with the Unknown Genre Project) I wrote them as much for myself as for a class grade. I hope that you have as much pleasure reading them as I did in writing them.