Week 4 Lab

I read through Chapter 2: Telling a Story of the EmpoWord manual. (link)

Internal Monologue, Surely. (Link)

Once I figured out how to navigate the e-book, it was an interesting read. At times the material seemed a little early, but exploring the basics is always productive because there is always something that you can learn. I did not do the table and graph activities, but I still picked up some useful information from their organization. I think some of the best exercises to improve writing include timed (or untimed) freewriting. If the activity is not timed, it is helpful to still hold yourself accountable to write for the whole period. When you take a step back and focus less on getting every word perfect, a lot more gets completed as a whole. I often have to remind myself that I should finish a draft of something before the editing phase. Getting caught up in changes before something is fleshed out is asking for trouble- both big and small picture. I wish the chapter had talked a little more about dialogue like it made it out to be in the introduction, but I did appreciate reading the student submissions in the back. One reminded me of the utility of a character's internal monologue. It is a useful device that I often don't think about. At least, I don't include it in my writing very often. I would like to challenge myself to try out using internal monologues in one of my two upcoming stories.