Reflective Essay

Over the past decade, my dream has been to self-publish a story. It doesn’t have to be a best-seller or grow popularity, but I’ve always known I want to write and publish a piece that I would be proud of and potentially affect readers after the cover is closed. At the conclusion of my degree, I decided the time to write this narrative was now as my artifact for Media and Communications Project B. Over the past 10 weeks, I’ve developed, written and edited a story that has been circulating my mind for the past few months. My goal was to write The Paint Drop as a short story comprising of 10,000 words. The story would follow the life and mind of 17-year-old Colin as his mental health progressively worsens. The symbolism of a growing paint drop on his bedroom wall represents the slow deterioration of Colin’s health, which his parents and his girlfriend can’t seem to recognise. Inspired by similar pieces such as The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the contention of this story is to address the first-hand experiences of mental illness and effects of toxic masculinity, as well as comment on the manner in which society addresses these issues.

Though I have achieved my goal of 10,000 words, I cannot say I have completed this story. Though word count is generally a flaw that I struggle with as a writer, I believe that for this story the set word count was too low. The aim of this story is to express the vague and gradual decline of mental health. I want to represent mental illness in a similar way to how I have experienced it personally in order to give a realistic interpretation that other readers may relate to. To condense Colin’s progressive decline in under 10,000 words would shape the story to be much more dramatic, fast-paced and unrealistic. By writing scenarios, thoughts, dreams and conversations, Colin’s character and world developed depth and also insinuated suggestions as to why he feels mentally and physically worse over time. The final result of this project includes the first half of the story spanning over 4 chapters. I am pleased with the length and progression of the story so far.

I’ve encountered a number of challenges in the creation of this story. Writer’s block particularly affected my motivation and production. The character of Colin I conjured up mentally wasn’t as easily transported to the page and this led me to deleting half of the story at a point. For instance, I wrote a page or two outlining Colin’s attention to cleanliness and details, which immediately stereotyped him as someone with OCD. This was a stigma I simply wanted alluded to rather than to establish these characteristics in an obvious manner. To counteract this, I cut out a large paragraph illustrating the intense and particular details of Colin’s cleaning routine. I also believe this was a difficult story to write based on my inexperience with this narrative style. My stories in the past tend to be dramatic, adventurous with speculative fiction themes. Writing The Paint Drop, I had to redirect the focus from events to feelings, settings, and particular attention to detail. In the unit Writing Creative Non-Fiction there was stress to use emotive language that embellishes all the senses. For instance, for Folio Exercise Two we were required to “choose an interesting event or happening … write up to 500 words, focusing on using all the senses (sight, smell, taste, texture) when you were experiencing it … create an atmosphere to draw a potential reader in to help them re-live the experience with you.” (Ross 2017) From doing workshops like these, I implemented these writing tips in The Paint Drop to give scope to the environment Colin experiences.

With a major in professional writing and editing, I implemented many skills and techniques to create this story to the standard it is. I knew I wanted to write this story in an Australian culture with appropriate language and relevant themes. In the unit Australian Writing and Cultural Change, I was exposed to many short stories, essays and poems expressing Australian society, ideals and even style of writing. Australian literature is characterised by light, colloquial language and rhythms of country (Informit 2012). I established this with descriptions of the hot sun in Colin’s bedroom and a passion for community and football. One of the short stories we read in this class included author, Luke Johnson’s, Ferocious Animals, which expressed how football “play[s] a major role in the lives” (Parker 1996) of Australian identities. Excluding Colin from this common interest also exaggerates his differences with other boys his age. Language also determined the setting, so I included Australian vocabulary such as ‘tomato sauce’ and slang such as ‘sanga.’ I knew this would also mean I would need to set the language to English Australian in Microsoft Word, which includes slight changes in spelling and grammar which I learnt in the three editing units I took over the past three years. For instance, ‘characterised’ is spelled with an ‘s’ rather than the American spelling that replaces this letter with a ‘z’. As well as this, Australian writing tends to use single speech marks (‘like so’) as opposed to double speech marks (“like this.”)

Since starting my university degree, I have personally noticed the vast improvement in the quality of my writing. Having access to The Macquarie Dictionary (2017) as strongly recommended in all editing classes gave me reassurance that I was spelling to an acceptable Australian writing degree. This was handy when writing The Paint Drop when I needed to clarify certain words such as how to spell ‘moisturiser’. (Butler 2017) The dictionary also assists in checking if a dash between two words is necessary, such as ‘off-guard’. I was also unclear of punctuation forms in grammar, such as how to use semicolons. The units Editing For Writers and Editing For Publication established the meanings and uses for these grammar terms, which I’d never been formally taught prior. A semicolon is used “to separate equal and balanced parts of a sentence.” (McKenzie 2011, p.163) For instance, I knew a semicolon could be used in this sentence: ‘don’t be so hard on yourself; you’ve been going great all year.’

I also learnt that the oxford comma is stylistic. (Edwards 2017) As a writer, this is a quirk I embrace and insert into my own writing as I have implemented in The Paint Drop.

Though The Paint Drop is yet to be completed, I am happy with the way it has turned out so far. My goal was originally for this story to be published and I have since reconsidered this for the time being, having other works I’d rather like to refurbish first. With the skills and knowledge I have possessed across my academic years at Swinburne University, I feel confident in my professional writing and editing capabilities and I’m excited to continue applying what I have learnt into my work and personal goals in the future.

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References

Butler, S 2017, The Macquarie Dictionary, 7th edn, Macquarie Dictionary Publishers, Sydney.

Edwards, A 2017, ‘What Is the Oxford Comma and Why Do People Care So Much About It?’, grammarlyblog, < https://www.grammarly.com/blog/what-is-the-oxford-comma-and-why-do-people-care-so-much-about-it/>.

Gilman, C.P 2009, The Yellow Wallpaper, The Floating Press, Auckland.

Informit 2012, Sophie Cunningham and Joseph Gelfer Discuss Australian Literature, 4 December, viewed 1 March 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kesUMdfjc1Y.

McKenzie, M 2011, Australian Handbook for Writers and Editors, Woodslane, Warriewood.

Parker, C 1996, ‘An Investigation of The Australian Passion For Sport’, Australian Studies, 28 November, viewed 25 May 2017, http://people.hws.edu/mitchell/oz/papers/ParkerOz.html.

Ross, J 2017, Folio Exercise Two, in 2017 Folio tasks, Blackboard, viewed 11 February 2019.