When I read Cameron and how she sketches her work out, it seems really true to me. It all makes sense. I know I get to the point she does where she doesn't know how to keep going and writers block starts to set in. I usually get to that point even before I start writing. I always have a hard time trying to figure out what to write whereas, Cameron says to just start writing things down. I like the part where she said, "Early on in the letters, a 'bug project' showed up. Obediently, I wrote it down. Thinking, a 'bug project'?" (pg. 71). I have never been that good at writing where I could just write down something that has come to me and incorporate that in the story somehow. Usually, I have to know where the story is and where it is going in order to start writing. I understand that there are a whole lot of different techniques but none of them really seemed like they would work for me.
Some of the other options for how to start writing where things like: researching their topics in depth and doing their themselves, planning each scene carefully and then letting them fall into place, and making outlines. I feel like some of these may help me if I put enough effort into them but some of them are just not possible like the researching in depth. I cannot go to Paris and study everything there just to write a story right now. Making outlines and planning out scenes are much more logical options for me. But even if I do start with one of these options to get me going, there will come another point during the story that will give me a stopping point.
"Now that 'I' know what 'I'am doing, I begin to worry that 'I' may not be able to pull it off. In other words, my ego wakes up" (page 74). This quote is awesome to me because I feel like my ego is awake the entire time. I respect Cameron because she can put her ego to sleep and her imagination goes wild. However, I cannot get to that point. I feel like this may be why my stories are so short and not at all that creative and thought out. I try my hardest, but I always keep erasing and rewriting. It is not the easiest thing to spit out topics either. I started just looking around me and picked something or a thought and just started making a story behind it. This has loosened my imagination up a bit but here always comes that thought that it is stupid or I should rewrite it. At that point, I just say no.
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Vacuums
Vacuums
Marsha
went to the most epic vacuum store she could find. See, her cat had made a
hideous mess out of his kitty litter in the middle of the newly carpeted living
room. He seemed to have dragged it all the way form the kitchen. He must have
had some kind of motive. Maybe his food wasn’t enough or it wasn’t his favorite
kind. Anywho, the salesman brings Marsha back to reality.
“Now
this right here is the best in the business”.
“Ill
take it!” exclaims Marsha without hesitation.
“You
don’t want to hear anything else about it? I have the whole informational
speech down pat’ he says.
“Nope,
that’s all I needed to hear” Marsha is impatient. She pays for it and proudly
shows it off to her husband once she got home. She just cannot wait to tackle
that kitty mess on the carpet. She plugs it in around the corner in the kitchen
and goes to turn it on. All excited, she hits the ON button and…nothing. She
keeps on trying.
“Agghhh!”
Marsha exclaims.
“Just
keep trying, sweetheart,” says her husband. So she kept on trying. She checked
all the cords and the outlet and everything seemed to be working. She finally
decided that was it and she was taking it back. As she rounds the corner to
unplug and wind up the cord, her husband sits there giggling like a little school
girl holding the cord in his hand.
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Fiction Packet 3
These are all very interesting stories. Very different than what I am used to. It seemed that a lot of them were maybe written in a different language and then translated. So they are not American stories.
The first story, When It Rains, It Rains a River, was very repetitive. It used the words, "brother", "mud", and " girl" a lot. The sentences were also repetitive, for example, "we fish, when it rains, and us brothers, in the rain, fishing like this, this makes the earth turn t mud". the story seems to take awhile to move on because it does repeat a lot of words and phrases. However, because it does repeat, it was difficult for me to focus on the content and I'm not even sure what the story was about. I know there was a girl that the boys made and there things they did like when she turned into a "cave"and they made her all muddy. The Singing Fish was another part of the story and that one was even more confusing because it started talking about words and then about talking fish. It was definitely different.
I liked the The Falling Girl most of all because the language was a little easier to understand, however, the content made you think a little harder. My thought was that the girl was committing suicide and she was jus seeing what she was missing out on either in her past or her future. I thought it was interesting and different twist that she was an older woman at the bottom floors but only in a matter of one night. The time was a really difficult thing to understand because it was only one night and she was just trying to make it to the party at the bottom on time. At the end, the older man even says you can't hear her thud so it makes you wonder if she actually fell or if she stopped herself and took someones help.
The story, August 25, 1983, was very interesting. the man was seeing himself as an older man who was dying because he committed suicide. The old man told the young version of himself all about their life but told him they wouldn't remember it because it was all a dream. My question is if he really was dreaming because he never really wakes up. I thought maybe he really is dying and the old man is hallucinating. There are so many ways you can interpret the story though.
The last story was also very interesting. I didn't quite get it. I did not understand why there were different titles that had different stories behind them. It got very repetitive o it was not a story I necessarily enjoyed. The language was very different, however and I kind of liked that aspect. One part that stuck out to me was when she said, "in my craving to encounter the statues which my perspiring night has erected". She uses language that has multiple meanings and it makes you read twice.
The first story, When It Rains, It Rains a River, was very repetitive. It used the words, "brother", "mud", and " girl" a lot. The sentences were also repetitive, for example, "we fish, when it rains, and us brothers, in the rain, fishing like this, this makes the earth turn t mud". the story seems to take awhile to move on because it does repeat a lot of words and phrases. However, because it does repeat, it was difficult for me to focus on the content and I'm not even sure what the story was about. I know there was a girl that the boys made and there things they did like when she turned into a "cave"and they made her all muddy. The Singing Fish was another part of the story and that one was even more confusing because it started talking about words and then about talking fish. It was definitely different.
I liked the The Falling Girl most of all because the language was a little easier to understand, however, the content made you think a little harder. My thought was that the girl was committing suicide and she was jus seeing what she was missing out on either in her past or her future. I thought it was interesting and different twist that she was an older woman at the bottom floors but only in a matter of one night. The time was a really difficult thing to understand because it was only one night and she was just trying to make it to the party at the bottom on time. At the end, the older man even says you can't hear her thud so it makes you wonder if she actually fell or if she stopped herself and took someones help.
The story, August 25, 1983, was very interesting. the man was seeing himself as an older man who was dying because he committed suicide. The old man told the young version of himself all about their life but told him they wouldn't remember it because it was all a dream. My question is if he really was dreaming because he never really wakes up. I thought maybe he really is dying and the old man is hallucinating. There are so many ways you can interpret the story though.
The last story was also very interesting. I didn't quite get it. I did not understand why there were different titles that had different stories behind them. It got very repetitive o it was not a story I necessarily enjoyed. The language was very different, however and I kind of liked that aspect. One part that stuck out to me was when she said, "in my craving to encounter the statues which my perspiring night has erected". She uses language that has multiple meanings and it makes you read twice.
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Wreckage of Reason
All of the stories were so interesting, but these seemed to stick out the most to me.
The first story was called, The Blue Girl by Laurie Foos. This was a very interesting story to me because it wasn't happy or funny, but more dark and serious. The beginning of the story slightly confused me and so did the whole story in a way. There is a lot of metaphorical talk in this story. Some examples would be the blue girl herself (is she literally blue?), the moon pies that are full of the women's secrets, and when the blue girl licked the woman's hand clean. My idea about the moon pies is that the women use marshmallows to represent all of their secrets that they keep. When the last woman went into the girls bedroom, she fed her the whole pie which I see as giving her secrets away to the blue girl and the girl took them all and cleaned her hands of them, literally and metaphorically. I think this story leaves a lot to the imagination because it sure did for me. I needed the story with a lot of questions.
The second story was called New York/LA Whirlwind Romance by Karen Lilis. This was an interesting way of writing a story. It was not a narrative where there are two people talking and someone else telling the story about the background of everything. This is just phrases that someone has said. The first part is mostly lovey dovey and portrays a positive person, but once we actually meet the person, their language changes and they become selfish and rude. This is what can happens when you talk on the phone, you can hang up and be done with a conversation but when it is face to face, there is so much more involved in the conversation. I enjoyed this story even more because at the end, Karen said that these are just lines that she has heard people say as they were passing by on their phones. To be able to compile all of them and make a story out of them was a really cool aspect.
The third story that I read was called, More Than Winter or Spring by Jessica Treat. This was styled as a traditional story I would say. There was a little bit of a twist in the story however. In the beginning where the two people are sitting and talking, Jenny was asking her friend how much her friend liked her but we did not know if her friend was a boy or girl. I automatically assumed that it was a boy because it seemed like they were flirty with each other. It seemed apparent that they were younger in age because of their actions and language. We find out later that it is a little girl when her mother is giving her a bath and calls her a 'silly girl'. It was a sweet story of friendship between two young girls but I can see where it can get offensive at the end when they are cursing at God and nothing happens. Overall, it was a good story that was fun to read and kept my interest the whole time.
The first story was called, The Blue Girl by Laurie Foos. This was a very interesting story to me because it wasn't happy or funny, but more dark and serious. The beginning of the story slightly confused me and so did the whole story in a way. There is a lot of metaphorical talk in this story. Some examples would be the blue girl herself (is she literally blue?), the moon pies that are full of the women's secrets, and when the blue girl licked the woman's hand clean. My idea about the moon pies is that the women use marshmallows to represent all of their secrets that they keep. When the last woman went into the girls bedroom, she fed her the whole pie which I see as giving her secrets away to the blue girl and the girl took them all and cleaned her hands of them, literally and metaphorically. I think this story leaves a lot to the imagination because it sure did for me. I needed the story with a lot of questions.
The second story was called New York/LA Whirlwind Romance by Karen Lilis. This was an interesting way of writing a story. It was not a narrative where there are two people talking and someone else telling the story about the background of everything. This is just phrases that someone has said. The first part is mostly lovey dovey and portrays a positive person, but once we actually meet the person, their language changes and they become selfish and rude. This is what can happens when you talk on the phone, you can hang up and be done with a conversation but when it is face to face, there is so much more involved in the conversation. I enjoyed this story even more because at the end, Karen said that these are just lines that she has heard people say as they were passing by on their phones. To be able to compile all of them and make a story out of them was a really cool aspect.
The third story that I read was called, More Than Winter or Spring by Jessica Treat. This was styled as a traditional story I would say. There was a little bit of a twist in the story however. In the beginning where the two people are sitting and talking, Jenny was asking her friend how much her friend liked her but we did not know if her friend was a boy or girl. I automatically assumed that it was a boy because it seemed like they were flirty with each other. It seemed apparent that they were younger in age because of their actions and language. We find out later that it is a little girl when her mother is giving her a bath and calls her a 'silly girl'. It was a sweet story of friendship between two young girls but I can see where it can get offensive at the end when they are cursing at God and nothing happens. Overall, it was a good story that was fun to read and kept my interest the whole time.
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Fiction Packet 2
I would definitely have to say that I liked fiction packet 2 much better. The stories in this packet were much longer then the other one but that is not the reason why I didn't like it as much. I didn't think the stories were very interesting. It was very difficult for me to pay attention to them.
The first story that was called Contagion, was a very detailed story. I think it's funny that the story is so detailed considering the main character had to be very detailed in his writing for his boss. I did like how the story was broken up into different sections like, "My Instructions" and "My Record and Journey". That made me interested in what was to follow in the paragraph, wanted to learn about his journey and records. Some parts, though, were quite dull. The parts where they were going over the Rauchian theory and all the interns learnings, were very boring to me. I wasn't sure if it was important for us to know to understand the story, but I did not rain anything from it at all.
I believe the next story was called "Point and Line". This story was very frustrating for me. It seemed to jump around a lot and it was hard to follow. I couldn't really get the just of the story except for the fact about a little girl in the marketplace and about a cat. I wasn't sure how they went together and it didn't make much sense. I like when stories go in order and it tells a story in chronological order. It is more intriguing to me to read a story I want to read and can understand.
The last story that I read was called "People in Hell just Want a Drink of Water". This story was actually pretty good to me. I thought it was the perfect amount of details, just enough so that you can understand them and put it all together. I really enjoyed reading about the Tinsleys on page 103 of the story. It was very descriptive and I was able to get a picture in my head which makes the story more enjoyable because I can paint even more of a picture as the story goes along. Overall, the stories were ok. I think there is a lot that can make or break a short story. The amount of detail and the order of the story have seemed to be the two that bothers me the most.
The first story that was called Contagion, was a very detailed story. I think it's funny that the story is so detailed considering the main character had to be very detailed in his writing for his boss. I did like how the story was broken up into different sections like, "My Instructions" and "My Record and Journey". That made me interested in what was to follow in the paragraph, wanted to learn about his journey and records. Some parts, though, were quite dull. The parts where they were going over the Rauchian theory and all the interns learnings, were very boring to me. I wasn't sure if it was important for us to know to understand the story, but I did not rain anything from it at all.
I believe the next story was called "Point and Line". This story was very frustrating for me. It seemed to jump around a lot and it was hard to follow. I couldn't really get the just of the story except for the fact about a little girl in the marketplace and about a cat. I wasn't sure how they went together and it didn't make much sense. I like when stories go in order and it tells a story in chronological order. It is more intriguing to me to read a story I want to read and can understand.
The last story that I read was called "People in Hell just Want a Drink of Water". This story was actually pretty good to me. I thought it was the perfect amount of details, just enough so that you can understand them and put it all together. I really enjoyed reading about the Tinsleys on page 103 of the story. It was very descriptive and I was able to get a picture in my head which makes the story more enjoyable because I can paint even more of a picture as the story goes along. Overall, the stories were ok. I think there is a lot that can make or break a short story. The amount of detail and the order of the story have seemed to be the two that bothers me the most.
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Readings
So the first packet I read was the Attack of the Difficult Poems, and it was definitely an interesting one. I wasn't very fond of the how the writer wrote. However, it did have some good insight on how to read those difficult poems like the ones we read in the beginning of the semester. Especially in City Eclogue. There was some language in here that I was confused about but I still got the main points.
I thought the first two reasons she used when she was talking about hard poems were kind go cheesy and I don't necessarily think I have ever really thought those things to myself, the "why me" and self-blame. I realized that maybe those thoughts were directed towards writers possibly? I did like the point she made about how hard poems are normal and not abnormal. " 'Difficult' is very different from abnormal", that was a statement that made sense to me and I believe it is true! "Difficult poems are hard to read" is a very true statement and probably one of my favorites because I can relate. "Difficult poems are not popular" is also a statement I believe true, however I may be biased.
When she was talking about innovation, I thought where it said, "form follows not function but failure" is really cool. I think much more interesting content comes out of failures instead of trying to be perfect. Charles had a good point about how even though something looks minor on the outside of poetry, it is something major on the inside. And sometimes major things are just small and tedious. These are the points that stuck out to me the most because the made sense to me and I could relate to.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading the fiction packet with all the short stories. I really enjoy short stories because they can keep my attention. There were some styles that I like more than others, however. I think my favorite short story was 'Wallet' by Allen Woodman. It is what made the most sense to me and was a true short story in my eyes. It made me laugh which is important to me.
There were a few that I was not that interested in, however. Some were the 'Mystery Stories' by Sharon Krinsky. I know there is no such thing as a short story that is too short but these were just too short for my liking. I just didn't see the point in writing a few sentences and calling it a short story. Another one that I wasn't very fond of was 'The Letter From Home' by Jamaica Kincaid. It was almost like a list of everything she came in contact with or did, which can be a cool way of telling a story, but it just didn't click with me. The rest of the stories however were very good and kept me attention which is what I need.
I thought the first two reasons she used when she was talking about hard poems were kind go cheesy and I don't necessarily think I have ever really thought those things to myself, the "why me" and self-blame. I realized that maybe those thoughts were directed towards writers possibly? I did like the point she made about how hard poems are normal and not abnormal. " 'Difficult' is very different from abnormal", that was a statement that made sense to me and I believe it is true! "Difficult poems are hard to read" is a very true statement and probably one of my favorites because I can relate. "Difficult poems are not popular" is also a statement I believe true, however I may be biased.
When she was talking about innovation, I thought where it said, "form follows not function but failure" is really cool. I think much more interesting content comes out of failures instead of trying to be perfect. Charles had a good point about how even though something looks minor on the outside of poetry, it is something major on the inside. And sometimes major things are just small and tedious. These are the points that stuck out to me the most because the made sense to me and I could relate to.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading the fiction packet with all the short stories. I really enjoy short stories because they can keep my attention. There were some styles that I like more than others, however. I think my favorite short story was 'Wallet' by Allen Woodman. It is what made the most sense to me and was a true short story in my eyes. It made me laugh which is important to me.
There were a few that I was not that interested in, however. Some were the 'Mystery Stories' by Sharon Krinsky. I know there is no such thing as a short story that is too short but these were just too short for my liking. I just didn't see the point in writing a few sentences and calling it a short story. Another one that I wasn't very fond of was 'The Letter From Home' by Jamaica Kincaid. It was almost like a list of everything she came in contact with or did, which can be a cool way of telling a story, but it just didn't click with me. The rest of the stories however were very good and kept me attention which is what I need.
Friday, October 5, 2012
Poems
These Feelings
Before I used to think you were a curse,
Placed in my life to bring me suffering.
A bittersweet gift that made my life worse.
It was because you were so amazing
Now I realize you are my life's blessing
I wanted to be with you for so long
And now I love you more than anything
I have feelings for you that are so strong.
I will never hurt you or do you wrong.
I am no longer afraid to love you.
We are so perfect, I know we belong.
I'll love you forever, I swear it's true.
You are my life, my world, my everything.
I promise forever, my love I'll bring.
Waiting
I plan on making your life better
I plan on going through times of hard
I will never play role of debtor
If given your heart I will stand guard
Because once wronged ones heart is left charred
I would’ve waited forever only for you
Holding you in my highest regard
But by Gods will the waiting I don’t have to do
Unleashing my vengeance of captive love once barred
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