Maybe you've asked what I've been up to since I finished work on Liebestrasse in the Fall of 2019, at least I hope you have. True enough, my comics output has dropped, but my creative output has not!
Since the Summer of 2019, I've had the great benefit by my employer to pursue a Master of Arts degree, with a concentration in creative writing. I'd invested so much in draftsmanship over the years, I thought it was a fantastic opportunity to focus on my writing.
Among the work you'll never see are five pieces from "Writing Nature" from the Winter 2020 term. We had to write two short pieces 3-5 pages in length and three longer ones. These aren't my strongest pieces ever...let's say non-fiction writing is really uncomfortable space for me. However, I did get plenty out of the class: (1) it was my first writing class, and producing so much over a 10 week period (in addition to all the readings) was a good way to dive in; (2) there's plenty of fiction with nature writing, do forcing myself into this territory will serve me well no matter what I do; (3) one of my goals in the program was push myself into uncomfortable places to grow as a writer. So, yay!
My work included:
- a look out my window (this was the class warm-up exercise)
- a tale of the rats and rabbits in my neighborhood, oddly humorous
- another shortie about rabbits
- a meticulous recounting of yardwork at my country house which I think showcased my anxiety
- a tale of a series of Mount Cardigan hikes as metaphor of a faded friendship
The class was eye-opening in that I could see the calibre of classmates in the program, and I figured out pretty quickly where I was trying to benchmark.
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