Hi, um... I'm Kaitlyn Hirsch... and I don't like to talk. I like to write. I'm slow at it, and most of the time, I fly on the seat of my pants on where it's going beyond flashes of ideas and flops on my face. It's a clumsy way of going into the world, gripping the walls and a parent's skirt, but I feel it's a lot of fun. It was why I chose this college, and specifically this program. I like the idea of being able to get my feet wet in many different ponds and seeing the color of the water or the way it ripples when it touches my toes or even the temperature it's at. Creative Writing, to me, has always seemed like the program to exploring new places with nothing but a pencil.
My writing style is considered by many to be very unusual, and to myself it's something that I don't know how to explain. It's a very personal style, reflecting the author as well as the character, voicing details and nuances that as a neutral narrator normally go ignored, or even not noticing little pieces of information or clues that would be noticed if the narrator was distanced from the character. It's meant to be immersive and human, imperfect and sometimes unfocused. I don't know if I like it, but I can't think of any other way to write. To be honest, I don't think too much on how I write as a whole, just the topic I'm writing about.
I write to invite people in. I want to walk with readers on their journey through the story, see what they see and how they see it, but while inviting them to look and see other elements of the story in new ways or as a different story altogether. It's a lot of fun.
My experience in the EMU writing program has been rather laid-back. I am encouraged to explore and test boundaries, as well, but not to think one way or another. I feel like I've just entered into this big discussion that doesn't really have an overall topic to discuss, but a lot of little ones I can walk in and out of and puzzle out. No one's shoving their ideals down my throat or letting me think I'm a fool if I'm different. I enjoy that I get to interpret things my own way.
Genre fiction, to me, is a type of story that is written with a specific box of tools. There are notable tropes and plots that are generally associated with a genre, such as science fiction. If you ask a random reader on the street what goes into an everyday science fiction story, it's usually something along the lines of "X years into the future" (haha, that used to be 2001. I still want my hoverboard.), something to do with super advanced technology, or we humans in our wisdom destroyed the earth. Obviously not all of sci-fi has this, but that's what everyone expects. Genre fiction has expectations. It has a box. Sure, it can break the box, but the genre you're writing in tends to at least start in a box and say: look, I belong in this box. If it doesn't, people get horribly confused. Everyone likes things in their boxes and uncomplicated. Not that twisting things around for fun and difference is bad or something.
I mostly write for YA fiction, if I have to put the genre label at all. I find I understand that area the best, emotional head games and troubling realities included. Plus lasers and magic because that's fun. I'm not a fan of straight-up romance most of the time, but if it tends to be mixed with other genres I really enjoy it a lot more. My problem with it would be that the formula rarely gets mixed up or taken in different directions, so I give the romance genre more flak than it may deserve. I feel like I usually write hybrid genre stories most of the time. When it comes to labeling my work, I admit to getting confused on where it stands. It's kind of sad but also fun. I never find enough tags to explain myself or even the right ones a lot of the time.
To be honest, these sort of intricate technicalities confuse me. I don't know how to explain writing or teach it to people. I can suggest ideas fairly easily but I don't really understand what it is I'm doing until I talk it out. The process of writing is something I know inside of me, but to bring an outsider into the backstage is uncomfortable and hard to get used to. I guess, to me, as long as it works, I don't have to understand everything that goes into the writing. I'd rather just leave myself open to guessing about it.
I think I should stop before I get more off-topic. Thanks for reading!
Great, and well said!
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