end o’ class thoughts
“Introduction and post-mortem on social media project. Write about what you’ve learned in the course, the revisions you’ve made, and in the postmortem talk about how your social media project ended up. How did it work out? Describe what you did, how you felt about it, and what the results were.”
Like any overly analytical personality type, I started my blog with a post about how I chose which blog site I was going to use. I’ve ended up liking Svbtle so much I’m considering whether to use it exclusively, despite the $6/month fee, but I’m not sure if I can give up all the bells and whistles I’ve gotten used to with my group blog on Word Press. I used my blog to track my house research while I was checking out houses and my travel while I was travelling. Basically I used it as an online journal and notebook, but I tried to make my posts interesting for any potential readers. My notes ended up being parts of drafts for my formal essays, but my blog ended up also being a space I felt comfortable posting the finished products. Since I was using Instagram and Facebook to share pictures and brief updates, I liked having the clutter-free, minimalist space of Svbtle for writing time to myself.
For my first essay I wrote about house hunting. The first draft focused on the houses my family and I saw on a particular day, our first day looking. I tracked addresses and my thoughts on Svbtle and Zillow. As I worked to revise and expand the essay, I started writing a lot of backstory on how I ended up here in Arkansas, but I found myself focusing too much on relationships and not enough on place, so I took out a huge chunk of exposition and shaped a next draft with place more strongly in mind. I did the prep work in Essay 1 to briefly explain polyamory and genderfluidity so I wouldn’t need to in Essay 2. I was able to add a lot of new content with all the other houses I saw since writing the first draft, and I also built in a history of preferences based on past living experiences. I took the specific addresses out of the essay because I didn’t want anyone to google the address and find my blog and feel like I was advising anyone not to buy a specific house for a specific reason. And I liked that I could end with what is hopefully the end of that story, ie, finding the house we hope to successfully buy and move into.
My second essay was about the trip I took with my family. It went almost nothing like planned from beginning to end, but it was still an absolutely fantastic experience. I used the blog for my notes while on the trip, but I was surprised to see how much more fully I was able to recall and write about the experience once it was over. I filled out a lot of details and conversations and thoughts from the “first draft” of my blog posts on the road. I had trouble with Essay 1 taking the good advice I got to add dialogue, but for Essay 2 it came a lot more naturally. Setting out to write about house hunting and a road trip I didn’t expect for them to tie to together very neatly, but I again surprised myself when I realized that, duh, they are both about my family and how we co-inhabit our physical and emotional spaces. And I think I probably over-wrote both by a long shot, because once I got going I didn’t want leave anything out. :)
Having the experience of taking the Travel Writing class twice, my favorite change was making the two essays assigned at equal length, instead of a shorter and then a longer one. Probably my least favorite change was not knowing where my classmates were blogging so I could peek in on their travels, too, so maybe for future classes there’s a way on the Colorado State site to post blog links or something. I really appreciate the opportunity to take this class again and be part of this excellent program.