Before composing this blog post, I read two pieces of writing called What is Creative Nonfiction? (Lee Gutkind), and Making Scenes in Memoir (Lee Martin). The authors of these readings wrote all about putting together and creating scenes in creative nonfiction pieces. In this blog post I will be creating a scene of a moment in my present life. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ It is a beautiful Sunday afternoon as I lay on a stiff rainbow of threads, slowly swinging back and forth. Back and forth my thoughts are swaying, mimicking the leaves on the plant in front of me. My eyes are wandering, gazing into the ómbre blue sky. Salty fumes flowing consistently, creeping up and into my nose. I can hear the sound of the waves crashing, as well as the click click of the grill turning on. What a wonderful combination. My family is gathered in the kitchen whipping up a seafood smorgasbord. I can feel the hidden sun rays beaming on my forehead, as if it switched my brain into gear.
“A penny for your thoughts?” My aunt approaches me with her gentle yet strong voice. I snap out of my daydream. I didn’t even get a chance to think before responding. This is how I knew it's time to acknowledge my daydream. “It’s time. I need to begin a new chapter of my life. I can’t stop thinking about it.” I respond. My aunt waits for the right moment to slide on the hammock with me. She wraps her sun-kissed arms around me. “You have to do what’s best for you” she assures me. I can feel the heat of her skin seeping through her white t-shirt. “I know I do. But I know you know how terrible I am with handling change. I am so used to my routine. Working at that daycare for the past 3 years has brought so much joy to my life. I don’t want to abandon my babies.” I felt myself choking up. “All good things must come to an end in order for even better things to grow” my aunt responds as she swings off the hammock, leaving me to rock back and forth some more. She always knows how to get me to believe in myself. I wait for the swinging to slowly come to a stop. I lay still and imagine all 50 ways the conversation of me giving my notice would go. I know I can't work there forever. I also know I can not truly excel in college while taking care of 12 babies when I should be studying. I am at a point in my life where I should be thriving. Learning. I don’t want to feel so incredibly drained anymore. I love taking care of those children. However the toll it takes on me mentally and emotionally can not be justified. I sit up and place my bare feet onto the cool, smooth deck. I look out into the dunes, and let out a sigh of relief. I can finally clearly see a glimpse of the future ahead of me. The smell of the freshly steamed seafood and the vegetables on the grill is lingering over towards me. I get up and make my way back into the kitchen, feeling the love of the room smack me back into reality. I can do this.
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For this post, I have chosen inspirational quotes that stuck out to me regarding an author’s writing process. The three readings the quotes are from are Teach Writing as a Process Not a Product (Don Murray), Against Vanity: In Praise of Revision (Mary Karr) , and Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (Anne Lamott). I have also created three of my own quotes which relate to my personal writing process. This blog post will be composed as a writers’ round table.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Drip. Drop. BOOM. Drip. BOOM. Tap. Tap tap. Tap tap tap tap tap. I have been sitting through this dreary, dark Sunday trying incredibly hard to concentrate. It’s to the point where I’m focusing in on each drip drop. Counting the seconds between the booms. And contributing to the noise with a consistent smack of the backspace key. Hours go by and I have yet to written a complete paragraph. Burnt bean juice has raided my nostrils, and my ears throb from analyzing nearly every boring small talk convo in this place. I buried my head in my arms and proceeded to pretend I knew how to gather my thoughts. Just as I was finishing up my mental breakdown, I lifted my head only to see a beaming light from God bursting through each opening of the revolving door. The sun. The storm was over. I sat up straight and decided to get the heck out of that place. Still admiring the silence of the light, I see three sophisticated-looking adults follow eachother in and make their way over to the table besides me. Just like that, three shots of expresso make their way to the table as well. Wow. They must be legit, I thought to myself. They glance over at the reading on my table, The Daily Writing Routines of Great Writers (Maria Popova), and their faces light up like the beaming ray of sunshine that took me out of my funk. They introduce themselves to me and tell me how amazing it is to see someone else here that can contribute to their conversation. I let out a nervous laugh as I had no idea who they were. They told me who they were; Anne Lamott, Don Murray, and Mary Karr, and what exactly they were there to have a nice chat about. You know what it was? The Writing Process. Hallelujah!!! Anne, Don, and Mary asked me to start off by sharing a piece from Maria Popova’s reading that stuck out to me. I reply with, “A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper” (E.B. White). Anne nodded immediately agreeing with that statement. “You don’t have to see where you’re going, you don’t have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you.” (1) The same went for Don. He stated, “Writing is primarily not a matter of talent, of dedication, of vision, of vocabulary, of style, but simply a matter of sitting. The writer is a person who writes.” (2)“There is always magic in this for me, and wonder because I do not know what I am going to say until it is said. The writer within is always a stranger, with a grin, a top hat and long, quick fingers which produce what was not there before. I shall never know this magic man well, although he has been within me for sixty years. He entices me with his capacity to surprise.” (3) “Hmmm. Very motivational” I felt my eyebrow creeping up as I tried to think about his response in a deeper way. “What about you, Mary?” She cleared her throat. “I find generative me harder to get going. But through sheer hardheadedness, even I grant myself permission to run buck-wild down the page with sentences dumb as stumps and few glimpses of anything pretty. The idea is to get some scenes down. Let your mind roam down some alleys that may land in dead ends---that’s the nature of the process.” (4) “That’s how I like to think of it. Something I always tell myself is sometimes you know what you want to write, just now how to write it. Just write it. Then figure out how you want it to be written. Anne, What are your thoughts on drafts?” I was loving the intellectual conversation here. “The first draft is the child’s draft, where you let it all pour out and then let it romp all over the place, knowing that no one is going to see it and that you can shape it later. You just let this childlike part of you channel whatever voices and visions come through and onto the page.” “Just get it all down on paper, because there may be something great in those six crazy pages that you would never have gotten to by more rational grown-up means. There may be something in the very last line of the very last paragraph on page six that you just love that is so beautiful or wild that you now know what you’re supposed to be writing about, more or less, or in what direction you might go---but there was no way to get to this without first getting through the first five and a half pages.” (5) I was fascinated with that response. “I never thought about it like that. When I am trying to sit down and write, I like to take a shot of expresso, get comfortable, stare at the wall for a little while and just let my fingers go. What do you do if you get stuck?” Anne quickly replied with, “I would pick up my one-inch picture frame stare into it as if for the answer, and every time the answer would come: all I had to do was to write a really shitty first draft of, say, the opening paragraph. And no one was going to see it.” (6) Don chimed in, “Don’t look back. Yes, the draft needs fixing. But first it needs writing.” (7) I glanced over at Mary as she has been pretty quiet during this conversation. I asked her if she had any advice from her own writing process. She zoned back into reality. “In the beginning, when there are zero pages, you have to cheer yourself into cranking stuff out, even if it later lands on the cutting room floor. Each page takes you somewhere you need to travel before you can land in the next spot.” (8) “The point is to have more curiosity about possible forms the work could take than sense of self-protection for your ego.”(9) “You have no idea how helpful you guys have been. It has been fascinating listening to such intelligent writers come together and give their different approaches on writing processes. I have learned that if you try and force yourself to stay on track, you get stuck thinking about random things like the reason you’re not on track, which causes you to really lose track of what you were almost about to write.” I looked outside and let out a sigh of relief. Now it was really time to get out of there. “I’m going home to compose a nice shitty draft.” (1)- Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (Anne Lamott) (2)-Teach Writing as a Process not a Product (Don Murray) (3)-Teach Writing as a Process not a Product (Don Murray) (4)-Against Vanity: In Praise of Revision (Mary Karr) (5)- Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (Anne Lamott) (6)-Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (Anne Lamott) (7)-Teach Writing as a Process not a Product (Don Murray) (8)-Against Vanity: In Praise of Revision (Mary Karr) (9)-Against Vanity: In Praise of Revision (Mary Karr) The Proust Questionnaire is a series of personal questions that are intended to give others insight on ones personality. Below I have responded to each of these questions so you can get to know me, and what goes on in my brain a little better.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ __1.__What is your idea of perfect happiness? I am not entirely sure what the “perfect happiness” is supposed to feel like. What I do know, is that I am genuinely happy when my family and closest friends are healthy and happy. Having and being surrounded by peaceful, positive energy is something that is important to me as well. __2.__What is your greatest fear? My greatest fear, besides losing the people that I love, is losing myself. Sometimes I get lost in my anxious world and begin to question myself and my decisions. __3.__What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? When I truly care about something, whether its a loved one, a friend, a job, an idea, I tend to care more about that than anything that has to do with my own life. I focus all of my time and energy on making sure other people are satisfied and happy, while I ignore my own issues. __4.__What is the trait you most deplore in others? Arrogance. There is no reason why certain people should feel that they are “better” than other people. There is also no reason why those certain people feel they have any right to make other people feel “less” than they are. __5.__Which living person do you most admire? My grandfather is the person I admire most in my life. Not only does he have the best sense of humor for an old man, he has the most inspirational, motivating stories to share each time I talk to him. He came to America with nothing when he was young and worked extremely hard for every penny he earned. __6.__What is your greatest extravagance? My greatest extravagance is shoes, specifically sneakers. I love to treat myself more often than I probably should! __7.__What is your current state of mind? I would have to describe my current state of mind as determined. Trying to juggle a full time job, school, and down time for myself, is definitely overwhelming. However I am determined to remain determined! __8.__What do you consider the most overrated virtue? Who in this world is truly "pure"? I don't believe purity has any relevance to the type of human being that you are. __9.__On what occasion do you lie? I do not believe lying is necessary in any situation. It never turns out well in the long run. __10.__What do you most dislike about your appearance? I dislike my pale skin during the winter. I wish I could stay tan all year round. __11.__Which living person do you most despise? There is no one person that I despise in the world. I can say I despise the cruel people of the world who hurt other people. __12.__What is the quality you most like in a man? Loyalty, and a sense of humor. __13.__What is the quality you most like in a woman? Respect. I think it’s very important, especially in the world we live in today, for women to have respect for each other and for themselves. __14.__Which words or phrases do you most overuse? I tend to say "really?" way too much. Anytime someone tells me a story or basically anything, "really" just comes out even though I know exactly what they're talking about. __15.__What or who is the greatest love of your life? The greatest love of my life is traveling. I feel very thankful to have been out of the country multiple times. Traveling is a life changing experience that just fills my whole heart. __16.__When and where were you happiest? I was happiest back in elementary school. When I lived in the house I grew up in, with my parents as a family, my first group of friends, and when I knew nothing about the real world. __17.__Which talent would you most like to have? I honestly wish I was a talented reader/writer. English was never my strong subject in school but after taking Professor Mangini's class last semester I felt I grew a lot as a writer. I look forward to learning more about composing this semester. __18.__If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? I would change the fact that I overthink every situation in my life. It’s pretty draining. __19.__What do you consider your greatest achievement? My greatest achievement is beginning college. I disliked high school, for multiple reasons, and told myself I could just try to be successful without ever going. After a few years I came to realize college is a good thing, and learning is a great thing. I am looking forward to continuing this chapter of my life. __20.__If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be? I’m curious what it would be like to be a man, but only for a day or two. __21.__Where would you most like to live? I would love to live in Greece. Although the economy isn’t well, and the language is hard to learn, it is my favorite place in the world. It is one of my goals to live there at some point in my life. __22.__What is your most treasured possession? My most treasured possession is my car. Even though it eats all my money, I am happy I’m at least investing it into something I get to call my own. __23.__What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? Experiencing somebody you love pass away. __24.__What is your favorite occupation? I have always loved photography, even since flip phone days. I was a photo major in high school and really enjoyed it. My dream job is to travel the world working for National Geographic. __25.__What is your most marked characteristic? I'm a very caring, generous, down to earth person. __26.__What do you most value in your friends? I have two best friends whom I’ve had since 5th grade. I value how loyal and supportive they have always been to me. We know each other better than we know ourselves, and we will forever be family. __27.__Who are your favorite writers? The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. __28.__Who is your hero of fiction? Simba, from The Lion King. He is the perfect example of a well-respected, sincere leader. That is an important trait of a hero. __29.__Which historical figure do you most identify with? Honestly, I feel that historical figures are typically known for either doing something really great, or something really terrible. I find it difficult to compare myself to anyone of the past. I hope to be greater. __30.__Who are your heroes in real life? My heroes are my parents, and my godmother. They have molded me into the person I am today and for that I am forever grateful. __31.__What are your favorite names? I love the name Eleni, for a girl. Brayden and Vincent are some of my favorite boy names. __32.__What is it that you most dislike? Spiders. I dislike spiders very much. I also dislike miserable people, strangers having a bad day, who feel the need to make other people feel miserable and have a bad day. There's a lot of those. __33.__What is your greatest regret? Growing up my mother and I did not get along very well. I regret not treating her with more respect as a child. __34.__How would you like to die? I saw a movie where someone died in space just floating above earth and it was beautiful and peaceful. I think that would be a pretty cool way to go. __35.__What is your motto? Grow through what you go through. In this blog post I will reflect on the things I learned this semester in my English Composition I class.
I remember Professor Mangini telling us we were going to finish this class a different person, a better writer. I did not necessarily believe him when he said that. It seemed like something every teacher says on the first day of class. But he was right. I have learned so much this semester about what being a writer actually means. How they each have their own imperfect process. It wasn’t all about the grammar and other English stuff. All that stuff is definitely important to learn, but it’s not something that will better the quality of your writing. This class had an entire different approach on English Composition. I felt curious each class on how to expand my brain. One of my favorite things we did this semester was watch a documentary called Where to Invade Next, featuring Michael Moore. You can find a summary to the film in my blog. But vaguely, Michael Moore was interviewing people in different countries and comparing them to America and how we’re doing it wrong. After we watched the film we learned what a rhetorical analysis was and wrote one on Michael Moore. I thought it was interesting that a rhetorical analysis focuses on how the writer writes, not the information itself. I analyzed the strategies Michael Moore used to get his point across. Such as; ethos, logos, pathos, telos, and kairos. He does certain things throughout the film to persuade the audiences to believe what he is saying is true. He makes sure he provides plenty of background information so that the viewer is well informed, but also remains persuasive. Now that I learned what a rhetorical analysis is I can use it with other school documentaries. I really enjoyed learning how to blog. The assignments that we had each weekend in the beginning of the semester were really interesting to me. I loved reading the short stories and writing a response on how I interpreted it. Then, relating that story to a time in my own life. It was a cool way of transitioning your brain into something more personal and actually writing it down. I’ve never really written about my personal life before. I have everything stored somewhere in my brain. It was a good feeling to be able to find a way to relate to a piece of writing. The even better part about the blog posts was that each blog post was apart of our process for our two major assignments. The Life Choice Memoir and the Research Paper. I did not realize what Professor Mangini meant when he consistently reminded us that our blog posts will help us later in the semester. The beginning half of the blog posts having us relate to problematic experiences in our lives was getting us thinking about our topic for our memoir. We wrote about a time in our life where we had to make a difficult decision. Then watching the documentary and doing the blog posts for that, helped us with the research paper. I don’t think I would have been able to just write a research paper from a prompt. The movie was a great way to introduce the assignment. We were able to watch someone being persuasive. This class really opened my eyes to the world of writing. In one of our recent class we had to free write about how writing the research paper made us feel. I found this very inspiring. Getting those thoughts off your mind and making room for more important tasks and thoughts is something I need to do regularly. I noticed how clear my mind was after writing a lot of my stressful thoughts down. In this blog post I will discuss my process for before, during, and after writing my research paper. I co-authored my research paper with Kelli Keffer, a student from another class. Here is a link to her blog. Before writing this post we reviewed the video Reflective Writing. This video describes a useful way to write a reflective writing piece. We just finished the first draft of our Research Paper: Eat Great, Perform Greater. We have a lot of revising and editing to do. Our Research Paper provided an argument on how America should serve healthier elementary school lunches.
I set myself up in my basement where there is an oversized desk, put headphones in, and stayed there almost all day. This was the first time I ever did this. Typically I go to Starbucks to do my work because it's easier for me to stay on task when I'm not in the comfort of my own home. I think writing down there is going to be apart of my new process.
While watching "Where to Invade Next" seeing how the French serve lunches in school really grabbed our attention. We are also very into healthy eating and nutrient so we knew it would be interesting to us. We did however think that there would be more information on it. Why wouldn't you want your children's school lunches to be healthier? But it was a little harder to find information on it then we were was expecting.
In this blog post I will provide you with an annotated bibliography for my research paper. An annotated bibliography consists of a summary of the source, an evaluation of the text, and an explanation of how the source is relevant to the topic. I will be co-authoring this research paper with Kelli Keffer; a student from another class. Here is a link to her blog! Our research question is: Should elementary schools in America serve healthier lunches? Source 1
In this blog post I will select three controversial topics from the documentary Where to Invade Next and create a research question for each one. You can find a summary of the film on my previous blog post. #1
This blog post is about a documentary we watched in class called Where to Invade Next, with Michael Moore as the interviewer. I will provide you with a summary of the film, as well as a rhetorical analysis. Below is a picture of Michael Moore surrounded by government officials. He used this false anecdote in the first scene of the documentary. He claimed that they came to him for help with saving America. In the documentary Where to Invade Next, Michael Moore travels to various countries around the world to learn about their methods on controversial topics such as work, drugs, school, maternity leave, and many others. The idea of the documentary is that Michael Moore “steals” the Europeans ideas and brings them back to convince America to use them. In the beginning of the film, Michael visits a middle-class couple in Italy. They begin to explain how each year, they are given an 8 week paid vacation, that even carries over into the following year if they still have days left over. They work short hours and get great benefits. The Italians believe that it is important to vacation. If you don’t, your brain becomes too stressed and too much stress causes illness. He then proceeded to visit France, Slovenia, and Finland. All three of these countries provide amazing, nearly free schooling for their students. France really emphasizes their lunch period. They extended it to be an hour long, with a 4-course meal freshly made by their school chefs. The French see lunch as an opportunity to teach children early about having a balanced diet and proper etiquette. In Norway, Michael visited their maximum-security prisons and was in shock. They allow their prisoners to have keys to their rooms, computers, music, good food, and freedom. They treat them with respect and surprisingly it created a lower reimprisonment rate for their country. This documentary shows you that European countries care more about the well-being of the people than anything else and thats something America needs to take into consideration. Rhetorical Analysis
A Life-Choice Memoir is a narrative written about a specific time in your life where you had to make a personal, difficult decision. I have chosen to write about my decision to not go to college immediately following high school. This blog post will provide you with some insight into how my process affected the writing of my Life-Choice Memoir.
Before I began this blog post, I watched a video on Reflective Writing to get a better understanding of staying focused on reflecting rather than just retelling. Below are a series of questions focusing on my positive and negative thoughts on the completion of my memoir. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hills Like White Elephants (Ernest Hemingway) is a story about a couple having a vague conversation at a train station in Spain. They are sitting together drinking a beer, discussing what they should do in their situation, which is unspoken. They speak as if they are arguing about something. In this blog post, I will give my opinion on whether or not I think she stayed in her relationship with the man. I will then relate this story to when I have had to made a decision to stay in or leave a difficult situation.
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I believe they both knew their relationship was over by the end of the story. After she asks to change the subject, she describes herself looking out at the hills on the dry side of the valley. I feel that this symbolizes her realizing she should lose her feelings for the man, because in the beginning of the story the scenery is described as white, sunny, warm, bright. When the bartender comes out to tell the couple the train is arriving in 5 minutes, the woman "smiles brightly" for the first time in the story. And then she smiles again at the man when she says, "There's nothing wrong with me. I feel fine.". I think this is because she realized she's truly ready to leave their relationship behind by getting on the train.
50 million times of hearing that, 30 million times of reading it off people's faces. It made my decision that much harder. But I trusted my gut. When I was 18 years old, getting ready to graduate high school, I felt so intimidated by all my friends getting into their dream schools. Watching them get excited over acceptance, and planning, and traveling, and everything in between. It honestly made me feel like I was being stupid. But at the same time, I knew I wasn't. I knew I wasn't like everybody else. I couldn't force myself to be ready for college when I knew I wasn't. It was hard for me to decide to move out of my moms house and into an apartment with my best friend, who was beginning her freshman year of college. I was terrified of what was to come. "Focus on you. Work your ass off, and God will provide you with a path. You will find your way to college on your own time.", my family members told me. I didn't even believe them, I swore I would never ever go. I just let them have their hope. In the beginning of working full time and living in my own apartment, I feared I made the wrong decision. I am the type of person who thinks about the future on a daily basis. I didn't know what was going to come of my life, and that scared me. As a couple years went by, I began to understand why my decision of taking a few years off from school was honestly one of the best decisions I ever made. I grew as an individual. I matured, and I see life in a whole new way now. Sometimes you have to go through things in life to learn more about yourself and your "path". |
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