about 1,000 words

Jonathen Green
ENGL 2250
Reflection for Major Project 1

Reflection on Composition Book

by Jonathen Green

Composition book is a creative non-fiction, voyeuristic

exploration of various facets of fear. It takes the form of a
mashup in a student's writing journal
To complete the task, I leveraged Burroway's textbook, as in
each of the stories/texts came from writing prompts in the
chapters. I think I benefited most from the chapters and sections
on voice. I tried very hard to to create a very blunt, raw, and
brutally honest tone of voice for the narrator's. I tried to give
each character a believable voice in their dialogue and thoughts.
I also used specific details. Some from setting, sort-of, and

GREEN / Reflection / 2
enjoyed the manipulation of pov, specifically wide-shot>middleshot>close up, Muleskinner exploits this trick, I think.
The beta-reads were extremely helpful. At the time of the
first draft I was still searching, after discussing the piece
with my classmates, as well as some trusted family and friends, I
learned that many of the topics and emotions I was touching on
were universal. Crystaldawn's feedback was the least, most
irritating, and ultimately the most useful.
All she said is that she read through half of it and that
the language was over the top. I initially dismissed her
comments, but kept thinking about it. I realized that she had
endured the heavy language for half of the piece before she gave
up on it. I took this feedback as indicating that she was willing
to endure the discomfort of the text, but only if I made it worth
her time, halfway through she became annoyed and gave up.
When it came time to rewrite, from the get-go I was seeking
unity out of what seemed like separate disparate pieces.
I removed, dissected, combined and returned each piece from
the project many times. I rewrote each piece several times. I
revised Coward 3 times and had it very tight, only to discover
that I lost the revised copies when it came time to print. I'm
pretty upset about that at the moment. I think it still shifts
from present to past tense. The dialogue with the devil got
reworked through several revisions and quite polished, I feel

good about that.

GREEN / Reflection / 3
The third piece got split, into two parts, I am

NOT a serial killer, and The men that made a boy a man. At one
point I decided to abandon all of the others and only go ahead
with only one of the pieces, The men that made a boy a man. I
wrote and wrote and wrote on this, and it only seemed to grow and
expand. Some sections became quite polished, others are very
rough, some sections didn't even get fully completed. I continued
to write and rewrite delete and resurrect chunks of all of it up
until 4:00 today, when I knew that if I didn't just hit the print
button It wouldn't get turned in.
Unfortunately, I never got to a final copy edit, nor
proofreading. It is full of typos and misspellings, But I do feel
like I have finally taken it to a level that it is starting to
have some cohesive structure and purpose, and I feel very proud
that I completed as much as I did on time. With two minutes to
spare even.
I think that I've only just begun this project and will
likely continue to poke and play with it for quite some time. Its
starting to feels like a book to me.
For the handmade form, I wanted to attempt to recreate a
personal experience I've had. One of my favorite past-times is to
go to second-hand stores and browse through the notebooks and
journals. Not often, but every once in awhile I'll come across
one that has someone's journaling and writing left behind. I buy

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these as fast as I can. It's a stretching experience, reading
through someone else's intimate and personal thoughts. For a
moment I get a glimpse into how someone else views and see the
world, like trying on their brain.
I attempted to make an illusion that the reader has
discovered one of my private writing journals. I wanted it to
feel cluttered, uncomfortable, and voyeuristic, like your trying
someone else's mind on for a time, but the size just doesn't
quite fit right. To do this, I tried craft a believable diary. I
underestimated the difficulty of this task, and spent nine hours
at work figuring out how to print it, and ended up doing the
binding, and asking my wife to help me bind it, during class.
But I think it was all worth it. I feel that the handmade
form for this definitely accomplishes what I had hoped for. (but
next time I'm just taking it to the publishing center and
spiffing one of the kids 20 bucks, cause I'm one pooped puppy)
I have found that I rarely accept my moments of greatest
change and growth willingly, but rather, stubbornly cling to my
beliefs. But when I am defeated and forced, or tricked into
seeing an alternative perspective, I often find the issues I
thought were simple have infinite depth, like fractals. In a way,
the most interesting questions have no answers, instead they are
made of varying degrees of right and wrong, like the transition
of grayscale in a gradient.

GREEN / Reflection / 5
Instead of making the benign into something strange, I
wanted to explore the opposite. I went into some of my wierdest
memories, and spent enough time there that they no longer feel so
bizarre. Instead, with a bit of perspective, many of the fears
and judgments I had no longer seem honest. I've heard it said
that the experience of art, suspends disbelief, but perhaps art
does the opposite as well, by providing a mechanism in which we
can also temporarily suspend our beliefs.

Now, I don't want to

go so far as to call this writing is art. It certainly is not,

yet. It's still very raw and rough, and still growing. But, my
desire with this piece, was not to present answers, but instead
to invite questioning and seduce introspection, and it certainly
achieved that goal in regards to its author, me. :)

END