By Alexandra Berrocal

I will be graduating next semester if all goes well.  I believe that makes me a senior. When I was here, I wrote four books. I am currently working on a fifth, which should be out by this summer.

These books are BLOODY ROYALE (a book of essays), BOY FROM TALLINN (chronicling a really weird friendship that I had the summer after my first semester here), IRIS (about the more dysfunctional aspects of my family), and I AM THE DARKNESS (a cookbook about living with depression and bipolar disorder). 

The book I am currently working on is called AGNES DEI, and it is my first novella. It is also my first work of fiction. Many of my books are very short. This isn’t intentional, it’s just my style.

Being a writer at Cal Poly Humboldt is like being a writer anywhere else. You have your day job, which is what you came to study. Then, you have your spare time. You can either write when you are done with all of your homework for the day, or you can get up extra early so that you can write before your classes begin. 

When I was working on AGNES DEI, I took both approaches. Sometimes, I’d get up extra early to write, and sometimes I’d write after completing my homework. However, sometimes I’d write before starting my homework for the day. 

Writing fiction is a wonderful stress reliever. It also gave me a boost of confidence that I could get all of my homework done and my writing in one day. It also helped me academically for this reason. When you are writing a thousand words a day for your novella, anything your teachers throw at you seems really easy.

Creative Writing Club was also an excellent resource this year. I am not certain if I wrote any of my novella during their hours – blame my bad memory. However, they gave me time to work on editing, write if need be, or just talk to my friends on Discord or in the club. More often than not, I wound up talking to my friends on Discord. 

That doesn’t mean it wasn’t useful, however. I have been exposed to poetry and poetic forms, and I have met people I wouldn’t have met otherwise.  In fact, if they met more often than once a week, it would be great. I also like to paint, and I have fond memories of bringing my painting supplies, and painting a picture of my friend. I also tried to get into crocheting during Fall semester, and the president of the Club helped me with crocheting in the round. That hobby didn’t last long (crocheting is hard!) but it was still a good experience.  

Ultimately, writing is a solitary experience. It is a team effort too. Place affects it. You’re alone with your computer in a room. When you are done writing your piece (which is the solitary part), you show it to your critique website, or your friends, or whoever looks over your work for you. That’s the team effort part. 

I am not sure that the books I wrote during the time I’ve been here would have been the same if I had written them at, say, Chico State. In this way, these works are unique to Cal Poly Humboldt and portray the way this place has become a part of me, for better or for worse.