Self Evaluation

1.    List your personal strengths and weaknesses.
          - Strengths: Logical, level-headed, observant, creative
          - Weaknesses: procrastinator

2.    List important or related courses you have taken.
           College Composition (I and II)
           Creative Writing (I and II)
           Linguistics
           The Writer’s Mind
           Journalistic Writing
           Writing Poetry
           Writing, Research, and Technology
           Magazine Article Writing
           Writing Children’s Stories
           Writing with Style
           Film Scenario Writing
           Writing Fiction

3.    What is your major and specialization, overall cumulative GPA? How many credits have you taken in your major?
            - Major: Writing Arts
            - GPA: 3.450
            - Credits: 103

4.    Do you have a minor or coordinate major? Explain.
            - Coordinate Major: Philosophy/Religion (specializing in Religious Studies)

5.      List hobbies, activities, interests, especially those related to your major.
            - Activities
                 reading fiction
                 writing short fiction/poetry

6.      List all the offices you have held in clubs or writing associations.
7.      Do you hold any special licenses?

8.      List special skills. Have you served in the military? Have you ever published? What computer programs are you skilled in?
            - Published: Avant, Rowan Univ. undergraduate Magazine
                      + Fall 2010 issue
                              2 poems (“Twisted,” “Russian Winter”)
                              2 short stories (“Happy Holidays,” “Broken”)
                       + Spring 2011 issue
                              1 flash fiction (“Tell Me”)
                       + Fall 2011 issue
                              1 poem (“Sailing to the Moon”)
             - Concert band (clarinet)
                         9 years (grades 4-12)
             - Marching band (clarinet)
                         4 years (grade 9-12)

9.      List the types of writing you do the most.
             - Short fiction
             - Poetry
             - Genres: horror, fantasy

10.   List awards, honors, academic or otherwise.
             - Academic Achievement
                     National Junior Honor Society
             - High School Marching Band
                      Most Improved Freshman
             - High School Concert Band
                      First Chair (senior year)

11.    List special programs in which you have participated.
             - Girl Scouts

12.   List charity work.
             - E.H.T Community Pride Day (annual roadside trash clean up)

13.   List any scholarships you have received.
14.   List key projects and roles you have played in them.

15.    List all jobs you have had (dates, length if employment, promotions, responsibilities, title, etc.
             - Summer job: Boscov’s
                       Since summer 2009
                       Annual "Tent Sale"
                       Responsibilities
                               Cashier
                               Straighten/stock shelves
                               Vacuum rain water

16.    Describe the kinds of employment you seek (rank order of your top three job goals)
             - Write/publish fiction
             - Write/publish non-fiction
                       magazine articles
                       newspaper articles
             - Freelance book reviewer

17.    List three people who can recommend you and how you have been associated with them.

     - Martin Itzkowitz, professor (Rowan Univ., Writing Arts Dept.)
                    + Writing with Style (creative non-fiction)
     - Drew Kopp, professor (Rowan Univ, Writing Arts Dept.)
                    + College Composition II
                    + Evaluating Writing
     - Jonathan Mason, assistant professor (Rowan Univ., Radio/TV/Film Dept.)
                     + Film Scenario Writing (creative fiction)

The writer’s life I envision for myself now is to continue what I’m doing. In class, I watch bored people doodle all over their notes or clickity-clack on their cellphones if they’re bored. My method of boredom-fighting is much less conspicuous. I take a notebook out and start writing dialogue for a story that I’m working on, descriptions of characters/places, important plot points, interesting backstory. I write down the images I see in my head, anything that doesn’t have to do with the lecture. I look like I’m taking diligent notes, and usually I am. But sometimes, I look at my open textbook and a word or phrase literally jumps out at me and sparks a flashfire in my mind that will become another story idea and then I get sidetracked from the class…

The only problem with this rush of creativity is that I have all of these “brilliant” ideas and no time to flesh them out. This is where my relatively uneventful summer job comes in. I work at a department store and whenever the manager isn’t looking or when a little old lady isn’t arguing with me about an expired coupon, I pull out a pocket-sized legal pad I keep hidden amongst the paper clips, pens, and “PAID” stickers and work on my short stories. I have excellent peripheral vision, honed from grades 1 through 12 when people thought it was funny to sneak up on that odd girl sitting at the back of the lunchroom and make shadow puppets across the pages of her book. I trained my brain to multi-task, to be immersed in the adventures on the page and also to keep an eye out for real life villains all around me. People find it hard to believe that I can do that, but I can. It’s a nifty tool.

If you’d asked me how I envisioned my writer’s life when I was still in middle school, I would have described me sitting in a little café with a penny in my pocket, writing on a napkin like J.K. Rowling. And if you’d asked me in my Junior year of high school (when I read The Talisman), I would have described something not unlike the picture on the back of this incredible novel, where it shows a young Stephen King smiling in front of a typewriter, with his nerdy glasses on and his sleeves rolled up.

Today I simply envision a less paranoid state of mind than how I read/write now. I hope to have more time to dedicate only to my writing, with virtually no one to bother me except maybe an editor. I’ve been told that human contact is desirable, so of course I would leave my writer’s den once in a while to wander in a populated area, wherever my whim chooses.

I don’t care how unrealistic this vision is. If you don’t have hope, then what’s the point of the future? I found Thomas Turner’s little article understandably but annoyingly bitter….

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Three things about me that I could use to find my writing niche

1)      I love watching and commenting on movies I’ve recently seen
2)      I love reading a story and saying, “Why did she write this sentence like that? I would have written it like this.” Or I'd say, “This character’s behavior is not at all believable. Why is she so obsessed with this sparkly emo vampire?” or even, “I can’t believe this crap was published. Here are the reasons why….”
3)      I am witty and observant

I don’ write about any of these things professionally. I did make brief facebook statuses about how The Devil Inside was overrated, and every week I give a recap and personal comments on the newest Project Runway episode. I also share my profound thoughts about life in general, for example I recently updated my status to: you know you're a college student when you find a crumpled note-to-self reminding you to "eat lunch."

I'm sure I could find a niche from these hobbies.

I am a dual Writing Arts and Philosophy/Religion major (specializing in Religious Studies) at Rowan University and I am a self-proclaimed Ravenclaw at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I am a bibliophile, I love to read horror and fantasy fiction, and love to write my own short fiction. My two favorite authors of all time are Stephen King and J.K. Rowling, who are geniuses of their respective genres.