Lansing Community College student Sarah DeToy joins Professor Melissa Ford Lucken to chat about her journey from high school, through trade school, to community college. DeToy, an avid Minecraft-er, cosplayer, and fan-fiction writer, expresses her deep appreciation for myths and how they unite people of different cultures and reveals how her success as a student is linked to her ability to intentionally deconstruct the “puzzles” of academic writing and research.

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Website: Washington Square Review

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Washington Square On-Air is the audio town square for the Washington Square Review, Lansing Community College's literary journal. Writers, readers, scholars, publishing professionals, citizens of the world, gather here and chat about all things writing.

Hey there. This is Melissa Ford Lucken, editor of Washington Square Review. I'm here today, though, as Professor Melissa Ford Lucken, Composition.

I'm joined by Sarah Detoy, former composition I student. And so. Hey there, Sarah. How you doing?

Doing good, Professor Lucken. How you been?

I'm pretty good. Yeah. So I know I had you in class, but I never had the chance to ask you this in class. How did you end up here at LCC?

And at first some jobs were okay, but then I had a little bit issues with, for example, refrigerator. I did not like being in the fridge when it was winter. There was.

Oh, wait, wait, you had to be inside the refrigerator?

I had to do stocking in. I had to go into a refrigerator during the fall of winter.

Yeah, I get that. All right, so no hanging out inside refrigerators.

I did not hang out inside refrigerators.

Okay. All right. What else did you do?

I did a little bit of like, it's kind of like tailoring, but it's not really tailoring. I went and did like, checking on, like, zippers and everything and folding for some military clothing at a place called Peckham.

Okay.

But one point, the smell was like, there was smell of burnt plastic. And it was overwhelming for me. After some time, I decided to accept a trade school application to go to. It's called mcti. And I went in.

What is that? Mcti?

It's called Michigan Technical Institute.

Okay.

And we learned about all these kind of careers. We only were allowed to select one. And after I graduated, I started my process of trying to find a job again.

I did find a job, but it had to shut down after like some weeks. And finding a job in commercial printing was very, very hard, especially where I live. And I can't really drive, so it's a problem for me.

And after some time I was like, I was really frustrated that I was like, trying to figure out where I need to go and I wanted to do ammunition and stuff. So the next step was for me to try to figure out if I can apply to a college or something. And usually college is expensive.

But luckily we did fafsa and turns out I was able to apply to this college. And I guess I'm here now.

Okay, so it sounds like you went to a school and they were inviting you to try different vocations, you know, to see if you like different things and how different things fit and didn't fit. But they didn't have anything about animation.

No.

Which is your thing.

Yeah.

Okay.

I love animation.

Cool. So you came to lcc. What did you think it was gonna be like before you got here?

I thought it was gonna be, like, very, like, hard on the books and everything. Like, I thought some mean teachers would be here. Like, I was getting overwhelmed.

Like, why did you think there was going to be mean teachers at community college?

I thought that.

Okay, well, why?

I don't know. I just thought that because I thought, ooh, this is going to be like, people like, the teachers are going to be really hard on us and everything.

Because especially with like last year, it was like, really, like, overwhelming. And I was like, oh, shoot. What? What did I do?

Okay, so it sounds like you were a little hesitant or intimidated or worried, any of that stuff.

Okay.

Because I graduated during COVID I was like, I was really nervous. I did not know what was going to happen. I did. I was nervous when I went to trade school and I was fine and I just like.

But sometimes I was like, nervous, like. But when I started community college, I was, like, really nervous because I did not know if I was going to be acquainted with anyone.

Is anyone going to be friendly? Because I had experience of people in trade school that were really mean, especially with my kind of.

Let's call it a quirk. Okay, so what are the first couple classes that you took here?

My first couple classes I did were compositions and intros in psychology.

Okay, so you had my class in your first semester?

Yeah.

Oh, okay. I didn't know that. All right.

There was also 2D design and then the first year experience.

Okay. All right, so when you think about all those classes together, what surprised you? Let me ask you that.

That the teachers were really friendly. Especially some of them had, like, special ways.

Like Professor Snyder, let's say her comment of the bear every single time she was mentioning about bear in class.

Okay.

Heading into the classroom.

And which teacher was that? Which class?

Intros of psychology.

Okay. All right. And then your first year experience.

A lot of community colleges have a first year experience just to kind of like, you know, get used to community college and figure out, you know, what's up. Was that course Helpful.

It was kind of helpful, but sometimes I thought it was not really necessary.

Okay.

But I did, like, learn, like, a lot of things. Like, I learned that ammunition was connected to psychology while us knowing it.

Mm. Okay. That's pretty important for you?

Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. And did you do a map and kind of plan out your education, which different courses are going to lead up to where you're going to end up?

Not really yet.

Okay. Do you know what kind of degree you're aiming for?

I'm mostly trying to aim for, like, an art degree here. And then I'm probably going to think about going to CMU to.

Oh, nice.

To continue on, like, ammunition and everything.

Okay, beautiful. Well, let's talk about writing. Tell me a little bit about what kind of writing you did in high school. So kind of think back.

I don't really remember the writings I did in high school. After high school, I did, like, a bunch of writing just to keep my mind sharp and everything.

Don't remember any writing in high school?

No, I don't remember I wrote in high school.

Did you have an English class?

I did. Had English class. I did have a really nice teacher in English class. I did have another English teacher, but she's no longer with us. She.

Okay. Sorry to hear that. What kind of stuff did you do in your English class?

Well, we did, like, writing, like, practices and everything. Like, you know, like, making sure that we write properly and everything.

There was, like, a lot of different things we had to remember, like the conjunctions. There was a lot of different things we had to learn. Basic rank.

Okay. Kind of like grammar and mechanics, but not so much content creation and writing essays and putting your ideas down on paper.

We did do the practice for college, like how we write college essays. But there's also. Sometimes I was like, okay, that's interesting.

To me because sometimes students do work in high school that they think is going to prepare them for college. And then they get to college and they find that they actually need different set of skills. And.

And then, of course, sometimes the stuff they do in high school does prepare them for college in the way that they expect. Which camp are you in? Did the stuff that you did, did you feel like it helped you or not?

It did help me.

I did remember some of the important things from what we learned from class, but sometimes I did not actually know that part of that would actually not really help in composition.

Okay.

It was like kind of like hitting a wall When I first came to the college. Like, I did not know what was going on.

Like, I felt like a couple times it felt like an anime character, you know, like an anime and cartoon characters. You know, like Roadrunner. You know, the cartoon of that.

Yep.

I felt like Wiley Coyote sometimes when I was trying to chase the Roadrunner. But also I hit a wall. Like that kind of.

So that was when you were actually trying to do the writing? Is that what you mean?

Yeah, sometimes I felt like that too. Like, certain classes, I did feel like that. Like, I. I was frustrated. I felt like I was gonna crash out.

I felt like I was gonna flunk classes and everything.

That's pretty normal. I think a lot of people feel that way. Was it because the content was challenging or you didn't understand what you were being asked to do?

Kind of both.

Okay, all right. What steps did you take to negotiate that?

I mostly was trying to cool down, trying to think and stuff. Some things I did actually were able.

Like, especially when I was trying to, like, look back at what I found in my research, I kind of, like, misplaced in my research. So I had, like, go like, oh, shoot, I have to go and, like, look it up again. Like, I go, like, type it in everything. Like, what am I doing? Like.

So is that more of, like, an organizational thing? You had to find ways to make yourself more organized?

Yeah, I had a bad. I have a bad habit of not organizing myself.

Okay, so when you found that yourself, feeling kind of, like, disorganized and chaotic, it sounds like what you said is you kind of, like, try to tell yourself to take a step back, assess where you are, and then move forward to try and pull yourself out of that chaos. How do you do that?

It's kind of hard for me to do that, but sometimes when I slow down, when I do, like, really slow down, like, I understand what is going on around me, especially if I didn't, because my parents tell me if I don't slow down, I ended up like, if I talk too fast, it's kind of like, part of, like, that. If I talk too fast, then I'm not able to give a clear message out there.

Okay, so I know this might seem obvious to you, but I'm still curious. How do you know when you need to slow down and how do you know that you're talking too fast?

Because it must feel fine to you when you're talking, right?

I don't really notice it sometimes. Like, it's like having a sugar rush. You never know when you're. The sugar is gonna happen. Sometimes when you're, like, need to slow down.

You just need, like, breathe in, take a break, you know, just like, take, like, take it slow.

But how do you know when it's time to do that?

It's when you need to focus real hard.

Okay. So I'm wondering, do people tell you, ooh, you need to slow down, or do you find yourself getting tangled up in ideas?

I'm just wondering, is there an external cue outside in the world that you see? And you're like, oh, when I see that thing, that means I need to slow up. How do you know when it's time to slow up?

I think the best way to tell it's time to slow the slow up, slow down is like, when you need, like, the focus really hard on something.

Okay.

I do, like, a lot of wattpad, and I, like. I have, like, a hard time, like, focusing on that.

But sometimes when I have, like, a big idea and I just, like, slow down, like, think of how the idea would work.

Like, put that piece into where, like, sometimes I do misspelling when I post it onto Wattpad, and, like, when I go, like, finally go through it, I'm like, oh, shoot, I accidentally do that. I'll quickly go back in and just fix it.

Okay. There's brain research that shows that when people are thinking and like you described, you're coming up with all these great ideas.

And so a lot of creative people have that. Right. Your brain just goes super creative stuff, and it just starts thinking everything.

And so that the side of your brain that handles spelling and grammar and mechanics can't function as well when this side is, you know, blown up and excited. And so that's why you're likely like.

A monkey in a cage.

Yeah. You're likely to misspell stuff because your brain is busy thinking of cool, creative things.

Yeah.

So it sounds like you figured that out intuitively. And then you can kind of separate.

Okay, now it's time to focus and look at the spelling in the sentences and kind of chill on the creative ideas for a minute.

Yeah.

And kind of moderate yourself back and forth.

Especially with the one writing I'm doing. Like, it'd be like, a future thing I hope to post one day.

I did the writing contest, and I posted a chapter, and I noticed when I was finally going through and just typing, I noticed I missed a word in there. It was the word boy.

Okay, well, in your brain, when you read it a lot of times and you're in that high state of creativity, your brain will just put the word in there and you can't see that it's missing. Yeah, it's very common.

I think that some people think that there's some kind of connection between being a good speller and writing good, clear sentences and being creative at the same time. And I find that that's. That's not possible and it's not necessary. Right.

Yeah.

So you can just let yourself be who you are in the moment. And I think that that's pretty amazing. What kind of writing are you doing on wattpad?

I do, like, a lot of romance fanfics.

Okay, all right. Fan fiction or new content? Where's it?

I mostly do, like, fanfics of, like, certain characters and stuff, like everyone's favorite cartoons or, like, game content. Like, I am doing one for the Amazing Digital Circus. There is one for Zenless Zone 0. There is one for Lego Monk Kid. There was.

Okay, I still haven't even got some of them done. Like, I, like, I was like, I gotta do this idea. I can do this idea, but I need to learn to slow down. Just stop and just do one at a time.

I have other ones I haven't done. I haven't finished on my shadow ones. I'm like, oh, my gosh.

Yeah, I think that's a very normal part of being a creative. Also is having multiple little half unfinished product projects all over the place. Why fan fiction?

What is it about fan fiction that is intriguing to you?

Well, fan fiction, when I started it, when I was just like, just still figuring myself out and everything, one day I was just like, what is fanfiction? I was curious about it. I went on this one website, which wasn't wattpad, and I started reading about these fanfics or just like another new world.

It's like inserting yourself into these worlds and it's like you interact with the characters and everything. They're talking to you. Like, you're actually part of that story.

That's pretty cool. And also, are you also entering into a conversation with other people that also love that same.

Yeah, I do get a lot of comments on the stories I write because I wrote stories before that. But then I was like, I should not post this because I was scared that somebody was gonna, you know, take my writings. I did on this one page.

It was web novel, and I couldn't take it down afterwards. That was like, I stopped myself entirely. I didn't write anymore.

And after I got into fanfiction, I found myself again and I started writing and stuff. I found my. A little bit of my calling A little bit.

Not only as a YouTuber myself, and I just found my little key piece now have like balance out being a fanfic artist and an actual YouTube artist.

I love that that you moved into the fanfiction as a way to express yourself and also to connect with other people.

Yeah.

You kind of came to a party that was already going. Right. There were already people at the party having a good time and you just moved in and started contributing your own spin.

Yeah, that's.

That's pretty awesome. Most people that I talk to about fanfiction don't do what you did, which was do some research first and figure out what it is.

Well, I do do research. I did play like some view games.

Like, I do understand some of the content that I do research on, but sometimes it will be like hard, like, to understand. Like there is like different places that are like, for example, let's say the Zenless Zone 0. Like I did this first try.

I went in blindly without knowing anything about the world or its content play. But once I played a little bit of Zenless Zone 0, I understand the world a lot better the way it's built and everything. And I kind of like put my.

Like, I had to rewrite what I did, so I had to like restructure everything I know from like what I thought at first to what it's actually like.

Yeah, that's basically how academic research works as well. Right. You go in thinking you know what you know, and then you move into it and figure out what you don't know.

And then sometimes you have to go back and fix it. So that's pretty beautiful. Let's talk about composition. I class, we wrote three different essays.

Comp one is our freshman comp here at Lansing Community College. Basic stuff. We do the personal narrative first.

Then we move into writing two, which is a basic research paper using databases and writing about local issues. And then our third one is our pop culture essay using traditional and non traditional sources.

Which of those papers would you like to talk about first?

Let's start with the Black Wukong one.

Okay, so that's writing three.

Yep.

All right, tell us about your process. How did you make that happen?

The process of. About the black myth, Wukong. Sorry if I say Wukong. Weird.

Tell us a little bit about what that is.

Black Wukong is a video game that is by a game company called Game Science. And they went and built this world of, you know, the story of Journey to the West.

And it is basically you are this character that is known as the destined One and you're trying to, like, piece together back this. Like, trying to get all the relics of Sun Wukong, but in the end, you become Sun Wukong. And it's like, basically all this.

Like, when you, like, play the game, I seen some gameplay. The world around it, it's, like, based in China is, like, beautiful. There's, like, there is some decayed buildings in it.

Like, there is, like, structure, each of it. It's like a building block to what it actually is. Then that's part of, like, animation. There's a building block to each part.

And part of its design is actually having, like, that key detail of making the story, like, stronger.

And how does the key detail contribute to making the story stronger?

Like, myths. Like, our stories are basically myths. Like, there's myths, legends. Like, that's part of our everything community.

So, like, for example, the myth of Bigfoot. Bigfoot has been here for a long time. It's part of our culture.

Mm.

Like, for example, another example is Japan. There is a myth of a kitsune. There is myths everywhere. We just don't know it.

Is that their equivalent of Bigfoot?

No, a Kishune is actually. Okay.

I have no idea.

Kishune is a fox.

Oh, okay. Well, at least it's another, like, creature, animal sort of thing. I was close. At least, you know, it's a fox.

With eight, you know, like, Pokemon. Ninetales. Yeah. That is based on it.

Okay. All right. So their myth brings meaning, is connected to their culture, just like Bigfoot is connected to our culture.

Yeah. So I decided to. Because I wrote about a little bit about Sung Wookong, like, the game of it.

I remember because it's tied to Journey to the west, and Journey to the west is a myth. And we did not. We would not know that that myth is actually part of our culture.

We actually have, you know, Chinese Americans that are part of our culture, and they actually share some of their stories. Like, there is, like, how they put in the, you know, the Chinese zodiacs.

There is, like, a bunch of things that people bring over from their country that we like. For example, their myths, we would not even know. This is a part of our culture. That America is actually part of multiple cultures.

It's not just, like, one culture. There's multiple.

Mm. And so the animation contributes by illustrating different aspects of the myth is that.

Yeah. The game actually shows, like, not only just. It's just a myth. Actually, it's part of our culture. It connects all of us without knowing.

And talk a little bit about your process of writing the paper. What challenges did you come across?

I did not know what to write.

No one does when they start.

I was just like typing, typing. Then I. Because I had a little bit help. But then I thought because myths were actually part of our culture.

I did not know that because of our vault culture. Because there's a lot of things that like we talk about.

For example, there is some movies and shows based on Sun Kong that we don't even notice that is actually connecting to. Like for example, Lego Monkey Kid. It's actually connected to Journey to the West. They actually. It's a Lego show.

It's based on Journey to the west and it's about this kid that retrieves Sung Kong's staff and Sung Kwong becomes his mentor. And it's like basically shows like a lot of the paramount of the myths and the stories. That is usually in Dream to the West.

And sometimes there be little bits of the actual Chinese culture. Like you ever heard of Chang' E, the Moon Princess? They do actually show a little bit of that in the show of the. The Moon Princess.

But she does her own cooking channel in that. Okay, that show. But basically back to Black Moon Phukong. There is more than meets the eye.

Like for example, when the Dustin one turns into a bug to fly around certain locations. That is like us, we never know that it's there at first until it actually shows itself.

That's pretty cool. I remember when you did your presentation, you were talking about different kinds of characters. Do you remember when you did your presentation?

Oh yeah, my Minecraft one.

Talk a little bit about that one because I think that it blends in. So what I hear a lot of what you're saying is your appreciation of the myths and.

And the way that myths pull people together even when they don't realize it. And I remember when you did your Minecraft presentation to me, there were aspects of that same theme in there. So I want to see if you feel the same.

So talk a little bit.

It kind of feels like it a little bit. Like there has been like a lot of people get blended to the community of Minecraft. There is. I didn't even know it was a subculture at first. So I.

When I started doing research on Minecraft, like it was kind of like Minecraft has been part of my life ever since middle school to high school. And when I finally got the game, I played it for some time and there was some creepy entities they added in there a little bit.

But Minecraft, that's been around for a long time.

For Me, like, it's, like, building, like, you know, like, when I was talking about myths, it's, like, part of our communities, like, around the world. It brings people together, and they add, like, new stuff every, like, year.

Mm. Yep.

So when I first designed my. My character is. I did not know, like, how to, like, design her. Like, I just, like, had, like, her hair.

Okay. All right. It'll be interesting to see where it is, like, three, five years from now. I kind of hear a theme of.

When I'm listening to you talk about your processes in all these different ways, it sounds like. And I appreciate this. I think that's super cool that you just go in and let it all go. Like, what is going on here?

Like, you were describing writing, and you just wrote and wrote and wrote, and. And I read some of it, so I know you just let it all go onto the paper, and then you kind of move back, and you're like, what is it?

How do I sort it out? And then you move things around that way.

I think that's really beautiful, because sometimes people are too intimidated to even start because they can sense that it's all kind of crazy and chaotic in their head, and that stops them from writing because they feel like they think it has to be organized when they put it down. And I like that about you, that you're like, I know this isn't organized, but here it is.

Yeah, I'm a natural chaos.

Okay. All right.

But you have found ways of stepping back and evaluating it and then, you know, reworking the way that you need to and making it work for you. Talk a little bit about writing, too.

So that was our local issue, where we were using standard databases, like, from the library, and I'd ask you guys to identify a specific local issue. And I remember you kind of zeroed in on Halloween because it was around Halloween, which makes sense.

Talk a little bit about that paper, because that one is quite different from the other two that we've already talked about.

Yeah, Halloween was because I like dressing up and everything, especially because I'm a cosplayer.

The one issue that we overlook on that is, like, our pets and everything, especially, like, a lot of different things, because if you have, like, a pet or something, it's like, what's going on with our pets? Because I seen and heard, like, a Lot of things that can happen with our pets.

And I didn't even know it at first that it's a much deeper issue than we let on, especially with allergies and everything.

Yeah. Cause Halloween traditions affect our pets in ways that we don't understand.

I remember you wrote a lot about the food and food safety, but you also came up with something that, as you said, we don't talk about, which is kind of like the emotional safety of the pets. All the chaos.

If you take your pet trick or treating, how stressful that can be on the pet because everybody's wearing costumes, it's in the middle of the night, it looks really kind of weird. It's not their usual, you know, walk.

And I thought that was, you know, really cool and unique because that's a lot of what we work to do in our essays is to figure out what aren't people talking about and what do I need to tell them.

Especially, like, for example, this is also related to kind of like a little bit of the Fourth of July. You know, like the fireworks. Sometimes people light up fireworks during Halloween.

There is actually some animals that actually aren't able to be locked down inside the house. Like, for example, horses.

If you shot fireworks near horses, you might either spook them to death or you might end up making them break out of their pen and run away.

It could be quite shocking for them. If I remember right, you also did some interviews and included the interviews in your final essay.

Yeah.

Tell us a little bit about that.

The interviews I talked to were my parents. So my mom actually worked at rescues before.

So she had a little bit of details of what is important about keeping the animals inside, how it would be safe. I even talked to my dad about it as well. There was, like, a lot of things that I didn't even notice until I figured it out fully.

For example, black cats. I actually have a black cat. And black cats are not able to be sold close to Halloween or on Halloween.

Oh.

Because a lot of people, like, oh, this is like, we get a cat and like, it's a black cat. They're thinking that it's a decoration or. Cause black cats are, you know, superstitious.

And some people, like, will dispose of them after Halloween or just, like, mistreat them during Halloween. I don't do that. I don't do that because of Cubby. Cubby is her family's cat's name. And we just make sure that we mostly watch where we step.

Right. I hear what you're saying, though, that black cats need A little extra protection around Halloween.

And I also think it's really cool that you talk to your mom, who happened to be close by and handy, but also a credible source on this particular topic, because she's done work at shelters and works with animals.

Yeah. She used to work at a cattery called Zay by Zade, and she used to help with feeding the little babies that didn't have any moms.

And, like, these animals are part of our families. Like, we should protect them.

Like, for example, making sure that reflectors on animals vests to make sure they do, like, if they do accidentally get in the road, they are actually seen.

Yep. Also especially important on Halloween because people are looking for kids, but they probably aren't looking for pets. Yeah. All right.

Well, let's kind of think about the writing class as a whole. What surprised you or what was unexpected about it?

What expected for me was, like, there was, like, a lot of, like, I was able to, like, research all this stuff, and I. It was like a rabbit hole. Like, you know.

Oh, yeah.

I went down, like, one rabbit hole. I ended up on another side. I accidentally fall into another one.

Right.

End up falling on another one after I get out of that one.

Yep. That's research. Totally. It's very normal process. Other things that were surprising or I.

Did, like, doing, like, the. The activities.

Okay.

Some activities that were actually pretty fun.

Okay. Fun is good. Fun is a good way to learn. For sure.

Yeah. Even though that I was spacing out most of the time, I mostly tried to do my.

You loop back in. Like, we already talked about that. You know, when you need to clue yourself back in. And I think that's pretty awesome. Anything that you.

When you think about the class and you think about somebody who was considering taking a composition class here at lcc, what would you tell them?

Just, like, relax. Just figure out the pieces. Like, slowly figure out the pieces. Like, it's a puzzle.

You never know when that puzzle, like, it looks like it's like a bunch of weird pieces at first until you're just like, put it together.

Yeah, I think I would agree with that 100%. And to add onto that, as you go on in your writing career, the puzzles will always, like, reconfigure themselves.

What works one time may not work the next time, and you have to do the exact same thing all over again. Step back, evaluate each of the individual pieces and see what they are, and I guess trust the process.

Yeah.

Yeah. All right. Well, I'm really glad that you came on today. Thanks a lot for coming in.

Thank you for inviting me.

Thanks for stopping by the audio town square of the Washington Square Review. Until next time, this has been the Washington Square On-Air from Lansing Community College. To find out more about our writers, community and literary journal, visit lcc.edu/wsl. Writing is messy, but do it anyway.