The concept for this audio poem actually came to me very late at night, while struggling to complete a free-write assignment for my current creative writing class. I was considering spaces on campus that may be more conducive for studying, and the first thought that popped into my head was the Starbucks at Tressider Union. Together with my writing problems, I decided that my audio poem would represent the process of getting writer's block in a cafe, a place a lot of people go to try and focus on their work. I wrote the poem down on my phone at 1AM in the Notes app, and recorded myself getting coffee at Starbucks the very next day.

I am actually quite pleased with how this piece came out. The three events are the order at the coffee shop, the beginning of the writing, and the rumble of thunder as writer's block takes over the narrator's mind. Audacity was very easy to work with (I have used it in the past, so I was pretty familiar with most of the controls) and the fade-in fade-out feature was particularly useful, as I employed it to represent a transition out of reality (the coffee shop) and into the narrator's head, filled with staticky writer's block. Another big decision I made was the very end, in which all the background noise empties out: I wanted this to represent the blank slate, the square one that the narrator has returned to as a consequence of their struggle. Overall, this final product comes very close to the image I had in my head, and I am very proud of what I have created.