The personal essay piece was a challenge for me to write for several reasons. One, I don't do much story writing in general, meaning that I've never done this before. I have done some journalistic writing of stories, but never one that hit so close to home, never one with myself as a central character. And I wish I would've read Lopate's essay that stressed fleshing out the "I" character before sitting down to write this, because the tips in that text would have been quite helpful in alerting me to the fact that most everyone reading my piece doesn't really know who "I" am.
Getting down to more specifics: As has been noted in some of the comments I've received, I'm not sure how well the key story transitions or relates to the story I wanted to tell about loss. I agree that could use some work. Additionally, looking back I'm not sure how well this shows change in my personality, which was an important part of the assignment, and so in my next draft I would like to emphasize that more, possibly through further fleshing out some of the secondary examples I mentioned and cutting down on the key/moving into apartment elements of the piece. Lastly, I had difficulty making the essay feel like it had a point, like there was something to be learned from what I experienced, and would like to hit on that more. I did enjoy the writing process, however, and look forward to improving it with everyone's help through workshop.
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