Austin Kleon’s Show Your Work book discusses the horror of becoming human spam. As he explains it, being human spam is selling too much of your own work and not taking the time to look at other’s work. This is a very important thing to learn, especially with writing. It is important to look at other works in the same genre and see how they tell a story and taking that and using it in your own unique work. It is also important to share your work with others in order to get feedback and criticism and hopefully learn from that criticism. My favorite example of working with others and not being human spam is C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. I loved reading Narnia as a kid, and I love reading it to my nephews still. I’ve always loved Lord of the Rings and all of Tolkien’s short stories.

Writing is not the easiest of tasks. It is sometimes hard enough to collect your thoughts and much harder to put those thoughts down on paper. It is especially difficult to write about something that you are not interested in, which is something that often occurs in classrooms. Thompson’s book Smarter Than You Think gives the example of a teacher who encouraged his students to write online, and in this way the students wrote for an audience, and not just for a teacher. This motivated students to really take an interest in writing.

Art always has a story behind it. The artist feels different things as they create it, and they are going through different things. Every piece of art an artist produces can bring back different memories and different emotions for them that can never completely be communicated with the reader/audience. An example of this in my own work is when I first got into my relationship, I was really nervous before the first date and so I drew a picture to calm my nerves.

I am often walking to the Poole and Agriculture building for work and I love the area around the Academic Success Center. It is wet and gloomy in this picture but I especially love the tree in the center of the circle by the bus stop. I just love how centered the tree is in the circle (being a bit OCD). It is such a simple thing, a circle with a tree but its simplicity is amazing especially when the tree has leaves. It gives the place amazing color.

“Every new tool shapes the way we think, as well as what we think about.” (Thompson, 7). This quote from Thompson’s Smarter Than You Think was very profound to me. It shows that our minds are always seeping in new knowledge and are changing and shaping as time continues. It really makes me think of learning as a creative twist on an already exciting life. An example of this in my life is that when I read Shakespeare
I often start talking in rhythm on accident. My friends always call me on it, but it shows the effect the words have on my mind.