Final Project Proposal

In Jet Fuel Review, every editor is required to fill out a manual that describes in detail what their job entails. The manual is an over twenty-page long Word document and, after creating four of them with one more to go, I will admit that the manual does nothing for me anymore. It’s falls a bit flat, especially having filled one out multiple times and I do not feel that it describes my process as managing editor as well as it could. However, our faculty advisor has been using this document as our final project for the class and internship for several years, so I don’t know how open she’d be to change that, however, what I want to transform the manual into is something that can be utilized outside of being a JFR editor: a comprehensive, digital process journal. The manual is essentially a hybrid of what our weekly responsibilities as editors are, a weekly reflection on other factors in our life that influence our work as JFR editors, and how what we learn in JFR can be applied the world beyond. The manual is basically a way for us to break down our process as editors and then reflect upon our accomplishments on a larger scale. The idea of the JFR manual is something that can be applied to various discourses, not just to being an editor for a literary journal. For example, I created a couple of chapbooks in my creative writing classes at Lewis and something that might be helpful in improving my work is reflecting my progress in a type of process journal which is the same concept that the manual attempts to accomplish. Whether I am writing or editing, I think a digital space to collect my thoughts would be helpful in whatever it is that I am trying to accomplish whether that’d be constructing a chapbook, or curating a literary journal. For my final project in Senior Seminar, I would like to create a more dynamic online version of the JFR manual that future editors can use to help them organize and reflect throughout their editing experience. Ideally, this entity can be used for anyone to better understand a project that they are working on because I believe that the more we think about what we are creating, the more developed of a creation we will produce in the end. I have been told time and time again that writing is a process and I am guilty of letting that process get lost in the anticipation of the end results which is detrimental to my growth as a writer and editor. By creating a digital space for myself to contemplate my project, I will be able to approach that project more open-minded and, ideally, more serenely because I spent time getting all of the “junk” out of my mind in a different space.

I envision this online process journal being housed in a private blog of some sort because, most of the time, everything that happens between point A and point B is not something I always want to showcase; it’s something that is there to assist me in my project. In this blog, I will create a new page for each week, day, or any moment where my project has been on my mind and I will have a template ready to plug information in at. In my JFR manual, all of my information is text, but in the blog, I will have the freedom to plug in anything I want; images, videos, soundtracks, etc. I don’t always think in complete sentences and paragraphs, therefore, I’d like my digital journal to be more compatible with the way that I think which is mostly in fragments. I envision my digital journal to be more malleable with my thoughts than my current JFR manual.

In order to complete this project, I need to be able to create a private website for myself and I can do that using Adobe Muse. In fact, I might not even need a domain if this “journal” is only going to be for personal use. I can have separate journals for each individual project that I approach in my life in order to stay organized. I will have to refresh my memory using Adobe Muse, but Brother Chris in the Writing Center is excellent at using this software and he is the faculty member that I am going to need to work with the most in order for this project to come to fruition. Brother Chris can help me set up my personal webpage and assist me in using the program since I am familiar with it, but not an expert by any means.

To demonstrate the use of my digital process journal, I will create two different versions: one for revising my old chapbook and one for working as an editor for Jet Fuel Review. These two projects will be examples of how my online journal will work and will essentially be the “guinea pigs” in figuring out how I can improve it for future projects.