My goals for the future haven’t always been crystal clear. It’s been more like, foggy but with a very bright red blinking light at the end. I’ve always known that I wanted to write for a living, but I’ve never really had a specific area I wanted to work in or a career path to follow. Luckily for me, careers in content creation and journalism rarely follow a straight a-to-z path these days. As a result, I’ve found myself exploring multiple mediums of content creation and styles of writing. One style that I’ve begrudgingly neglected to invest in, however, is writing fiction.
Of course, I’ve dabbled in creative writing, as one does in their 13 years of schooling. I remember writing about fairies and unicorns at eight years old and being praised for my ‘big imagination’. Unfortunately, by the time I reached the last section of my HSC English exams, I found my mind almost void of the imagination it takes to write fiction, and I’ve resented creative writing since.
However, I’m older and wiser now. I’m not nearly as crippled by my perfectionism now as I was at 17. So, I’ve decided to revisit creative writing regardless of our feud. I believe that challenging myself through creative writing this semester will be an excellent opportunity to self-reflect, give life to my imagination, and have a bit of fun trying something new. I’ll be writing a series of short stories, aiming to speculate on possible, probable and preferable futures for myself. I will focus on writing each story with a different time period in mind – that is, what I imagine my life to be like in 5, 15, and 50 years.
“We have no other resource than the imagination, and forms of practice that arise out of the imaginary backdrop of our existence, in order to articulate the future as a time-space that may work according to different rules than those that the present adheres to”
Birgit Spengler 2019
I will take inspiration from the lecture materials and visions of the future we are observing in class, as well as outside research, my personal life/perspectives, and my own favourite dystopian literature. Through this, I’ll be able to develop practical skills in writing creatively, which will ultimately add to and improve any form of writing I do. I will also have to think critically about the current state of the world, the past circumstances which led us here, and what the world is likely to be like in the coming stages of my life. After all, “history cannot be imagined without a concept of the past having a future”. In an interesting way, this will be a practice in goal-setting for me, and it will bring me further down the path of my career trajectory in more ways than one.
That’s enough blabber to introduce you to the idea. Now, on the more practical side, I’ve prepared this week-by-week chart of how I plan to carry out my content creation and feedback process. Check out my pitch video below, and let me know what you think! I’m extremely new to writing fiction so any advice or ideas are more than welcome!!
“That’s all,”
Hi! I’m Zhuo Wang. I also took a literature class and a creative writing class before! I’m so surprised to see that you decided to write stories for your DA! I can see from your pitch statement and blog writing that you take your writing seriously and have a strong passion about it! Can’t wait to read more of your stories about the future! I’m also wondering which type of sources will you research in the later on study! And I’m pretty sure there will be a range of them to do research on! Anyway, your goal and plan (especially for social utility) for your DA are super clear! Well done!
And there are some links related to your topic that you might be interested!
https://reedsy.com/discovery/blog/dystopian-novels
https://www.masterclass.com/articles/what-is-dystopian-fiction-learn-about-the-5-characteristics-of-dystopian-fiction-with-examples
https://www.novelpublicity.com/2016/12/six-important-elements-of-dystopian-fiction/
https://www.epicreads.com/blog/best-futuristic-books/
And there are some links related to your topic that you might be interested!
https://www.novelpublicity.com/2016/12/six-important-elements-of-dystopian-fiction/
https://reedsy.com/discovery/blog/dystopian-novels
https://www.masterclass.com/articles/what-is-dystopian-fiction-learn-about-the-5-characteristics-of-dystopian-fiction-with-examples
https://www.epicreads.com/blog/best-futuristic-books/
“The imagination, therefore, provides an important relay between sense impressions and reason, between the human subject and its experience of ‘world'” (Birgit Spengler 2019, p. 163). This is a quote from the first week’s lecture (Imagination and Science Fiction Thinking) which I think it’s super relevant to your DA project. You’re doing a project of writing stories about your imagined future, right? I think this week’s lecture can give you more insights (you can re-watch it)! The key point of writing this kind of stories is sparking your imagination regarding the future cultures. I’m pretty sure you will do well on this! Sorry for so many comments!
Hey super excited to see how this turns out it’s a really interesting way to approach this digital artefact. I think this task being done in a narrative formate is great super excited to see how you go. I think it would be good to post it on other sites like Tumblr to get a larger potential audience.
Hey Tyneesha, love your pitch! Could tell you were a writer from the first few sentences of this post. Similarly to my pitch, we have chosen to integrate our future careers in with our DAs which I think is super motivating and constructive. I love how you are pushing yourself to do something you don’t naturally sway towards. This is really bold and will shape you into a more well versed writer for the future. I love how you have kept your goals simple with the three blog posts- this is great and super achievable. This book could be useful for your project
https://www.amazon.com.au/101-Questions-Need-Your-Twenties/dp/0802416918
Hey Tyneesha! I absolutely love the idea of your project- it’s so unique and unlike any other project I’ve seen being done in this subject. I know you love writing and are studying journalism so I think it’s great that you’re using this project to play to your strengths and do something you enjoy! Sharing your blogs on all your social platforms like explained is also very useful to ensure you’re reaching a good sized audience that can offer you constructive feedback.
I actually completed a creative writing subject in my first year called Editing Foundation, in which we studied the “Style Manual For Authors, Editors and Printers 6th Edition”. This book provided guidance and detailed advice on publishing and writing, and a set of standards on how to format and curate published work. I found it to be extremely useful and think it could be of really great help to you when writing posts for your digital artefact. Here’s a link to the book if you’d like to check it out: https://www.amazon.com.au/Style-Manual-Printers-Department-Administration/dp/0701636483
Overall, you seem to have a very solid and manageable plan for your project, that will benefit your future portfolio and help you work on improving your creative writing skills. Links to more potential literature you intend to use for your writing could have been good, and your video could have been a little longer and more in depth. Other than that, I think you’ve produced a great pitch and I can’t wait to see the pieces of writing you produce for your digital artefact!