Who is Jade Walters?
Who is Jade Carson? As cliche as it may be to open up this essay with a question, I believe that it provides a small explanation of who I am as a writer. Jade Carson is the pseudonym that I use whenever I write new content, whether that’s on my blog (www.lovejadecarson.com), my novellas on Wattpad (www.wattpad.com/jadecarsonxo) or articles for Her Campus: Howard (www.hercampus.com/school/howard). While Jade Carson is the name that I use for artistic purposes, Jade Walters is the name that is used in my academic writings.
This year, I had the pleasure of being in Professor Galbraith’s English 105: Reflective Writing Portfolio class at Howard University. I was glad to be a part of her class due to the small size and the prior knowledge that I knew about her as a Professor due to ratings and reviews that I did online.
So far in this course, we’ve read chapters from Habits of the Creative Mind, created a major-based resource guide for prospective students, and revised two essays that we’ve written in the past. My resource guide was targeted towards prospective nursing students. It was great to be able to create this content because when I was coming into Howard, I endlessly searched for information about the Nursing program but failed to find adequate resources.
The first essay that I was revised was a critical analysis of a journal article titled “Mentoring Leaders in Perinatal Nursing”. The article is written by someone who is in my desired field and specialty, Perinatal Nursing. Coming into the revision, I was hesitant because I felt as if the essay was great from the beginning. Yes, improvement can always be made but I was content with my work. This essay is one that didn’t get a lot of revision because I felt as if I didn’t really need it, but, I still revised it to the best of my ability.
The second essay I revised was one that I wrote four years ago titled “The Theory of Protection”. This essay was one that required a lot of revision because my writing style has drastically changed since then. Ironically, the topic that the essay was based on is closely related to a topic that our nation is debating on today - whether or not we should arm our schools for protection.
The third essay I revised was originally titled “Asphyxiation of the Hands” but was later changed to “The Confessions of a Self-Proclaimed Literary One-Hit Wonder”. This essay is an extended version of my college personal statement. In the first version, I wasn’t able to go in-depth about my journey as a writer due to a 650 word limit. In the second version, I managed to write over 1000 words about my journey. But, in the third, revised version for this class, I managed to double the word count with a whopping 2200+ words. I was shocked that I managed to write that much and I’m very proud of this essay.
During my time in English 105, a writing technique that I had to unlearn was writing a structured, 5-paragraph essay. I’ve always had difficulties writing five paragraph essays because I found them very limiting. If I had to write an essay about an interesting topic, it’s hard to contain my passion to a mere 5 paragraphs. The same could go for when I needed to write an essay about a boring topic--it’ll be hard for me to stretch out an essay to meet the requirement.
A habit of the creative mind that I closely related to would be creativity. Some strengths I believe I have as a writer is my ability to know what the readers want to read. Writing cliches helped with that because they never fail to gain an audience. You could never go wrong with a good cliche. Another strength I have as a writer is my ability to pour my passion into my writing. If I am writing about a topic that I really care about, I tend to write very detailed about it and pour everything I got into it. I am a strong believer of putting your mind, heart, and soul into something you truly care about and that’s a motto I live by because I know that if I put everything I have into a piece of literature, my readers will begin to feel the same passion that I’m possessing. Limitations I possess with my writing are my lazy tendencies and procrastination. There are so many storylines that I have drafted and want to write but I struggle with how to start. I could easily plan out the storyline but when it comes to writing the actual novel, my mind would go blank.
My portfolio is titled Love, Jade Walters because I see it as a part two of my lifestyle blog, Love, Jade Carson, where I document my college life in and outside of Howard University. This blog is brought up a lot because it’s the first piece of literature that I’ve been working on since finishing up my last novella two years ago. My blog is where I can write without any restrictions or guidelines. I can take as much time as I want when it comes to writing a new blog post, which gives me time to figure out what I’m going to write and perfect it.
Love, Jade Walters is a collection of my academic writings written during my time in English 104 and English 105. From essays about James Comey’s arrival at Howard to revising and revisiting an essay about gun control in America, I was able to challenge myself to write about boring topics and create works of literature that I am proud of. I believe the theme of my portfolio is “writer on a mission to explore.” I say this because as a writer, I am constantly on a mission to find other ways to express myself instead of writing essays. An example of how I expressed myself would be creating the infographic for “How to be a Quad Queen”. Back in Wattpad days, not only did I write but I also designed covers and story graphics for other users on the platform. It was great to tap back into those skills because I truly surprised myself with that infographic and I loved the minimalistic look to it. This form of literature is important because sometimes words aren’t the only way that someone can express myself; I can see myself creating more graphics as a way to express myself without a required word limit or prompt.
As you move on to read my entries for my portfolio, I hope you’re able to see my growth as a writer. I may not be the best writer but who is? Literary discourse is always changing and evolving. I just so happen to be caught up in the evolution and I hope it takes me on the literary journey that I am looking for.