Process and product are critical components in creating content and over the past few weeks I have gotten well acquainted with my personal creative processes and have developed new beliefs regarding what publics I wish my content to appeal to.
Being a writer is a tumultuous experience and rollercoaster of emotions on the weekly. Creativity cannot be squeezed out of the soul and often exhaustion from a day of pretty un-poetic events can leave inspiration outside a padlocked door. This is one of the reasons I was hesitant in my original focus on poetry and creative expression for this website when picking my focus. I find I am a staunch believer in the place and time having an impact on my poetry and I find it often difficult to force a burst of writing out of myself on days when I am simply sick with writer’s block.
Despite these roadblocks I have begun a training regimen to try and make my creativity a little more structured by opening up my notebook at least once a day and writing at least something down on the page- good, bad, or ugly. The pages of my notebook currently consist of a myriad of sad snippets and half-finished doodles that litter the corner of beaten pages. I have been doodling ever since I began writing so I went down a rabbit hole to attempt to justify why I did so. This rabbit hole became more of a single step as a quick google search later I found a developed article by Canva themselves, on 10 Benefits of Doodling. The article covered a range of benefits including the benefit that I find the most relevant about how doodling makes you more creative which is what I find when I begin writing after a quick cloud, flower, and fantastical monster on the page end.
Along with my sketches I find the practice of free writing to be stimulating enough to eventually allow for more cohesive content to be created. Free writing is, “a prewriting technique in which (you) write continuously for a certain amount of time and ignore grammatical rules… by way of (a) stream of consciousness” (Wilkerson 2022). This technique often creates some of my greatest ideas that can then translate into inspiration for a larger piece.
This process produces what I call the ‘product(s)’ or what I refer to as my ‘works’ on my homepage. With these products I have undergone the process of determining the public that I wish to tailor my content to. Michael Warner describes such groups, ‘publics‘ as an audience to a certain work and since my works are generally poetry my public would be anyone who wishes to read such creative expression (2002).
My work is also somewhat restrictive despite my attempts at accessiblity. In terms of alt. text and accesiblity toggles I have worked thoroughly to ensure ease of access, however, the limitation lies in language. Since my poetry generally adopts a certain level of the English language and also utilizes devices such as similes, metaphors, and personification that may be difficult to understand for certain readers. In the case of poetry I am willing to make these sacrifices in audience as it further’s my personal goal of developed poetry that captures more than just surface level observation of society and self.
Works Cited
“7 Benefits of Doodling for Creativity and Concentration – Learn.” Canva, Canva, https://www.canva.com/learn/7-ways-doodling-will-change-your-life/.
Warner, Michael. “Publics and Counterpublics (Abbreviated Version).” Quarterly Journal of Speech, Nov. 2002.
Wilkerson, Ginna. “Take Online Courses. Earn College Credit. Research Schools, Degrees & Careers.” What Is Free Writing? – Definition, Topics & Examples, Study.com, 1 Nov. 2022, https://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-free-writing-definition-topics-examples.html.