Receiving the Creative Writing Award for Outstanding Capstone was, and still is, an incredibly surreal experience for me.
When I first arrived at Ashland University four years ago, I knew two things for certain: I was going to major in Creative Writing, and I had no idea how to function in a college setting. Apart from the usual high school to university transition, Ashland was my first time in an actual brick-and-mortar school building. My first semester was a blur of finding my footing and choosing the easiest way to go about things.
Sophomore year was when my capstone first came into being, starting out as an extended project for the Fiction/Nonfiction Workshop. Looking at my first attempts from then to what I had even last year is a testament to how far I’ve come as a writer. My initial chicken-scratch, while roughly the same plot, has not seen the light of day for a reason. It’s a befuddling mixture of tension between a story idea and its characters, trying to do too much and so achieving nothing.
Junior year was an exercise mainly in my English double-major, and in that sense it was incredibly rewarding. I feel certain that it contributed to the evolution of my writing when I returned to my capstone for senior year. The more academic approach to writing (and the parts any single piece consists of) once again changed my thinking and challenged my conception of writing, creatively or otherwise. Suddenly every work had an intentional (and often an unintentional) meaning woven throughout concerns of plot and character. Every segment seemed to have been carefully chosen and stitched together, a removal from my usual process of “winging it.”
When, in my senior year, I revised and examined my capstone yet again, I felt myself approaching understanding of my piece. I finally knew enough to negotiate between my own flaws as a writer and what my story wanted to explore. As my story took shape, I could rely a bit more on my characters and a bit less on whatever humor I’d been stringing myself along with for the first few drafts. For the first time, I felt certain that I could call myself a writer without hesitation, because I not only enjoyed writing but understood at least some of what went into making it.
I would say the most valuable thing to come out of my capstone is that I know where I have yet to fix. For my next set of revisions, at least, there are plot lines to move forward, characters to spend more time with, and relationships to untangle and streamline. I can already see it shifting into something that, Lord willing, is approaching its best version. Obviously this means I’ll be completely rewriting it within a year when I decide it’s all wrong. I’m being glib, but really even that is an exciting part of the process.
To borrow a half-remembered idiom: the journey to the mountain is just as impressive as the mountain itself.
