The end of creative writing--well the class that is

What I found particularly interesting reading through the last couple of chapters of "Bird by Bird" by Anne Lamott was her final paragraph of the book.

"'So why does our writing matter, again?' they ask"

"Because of the spirit, I say. Because of the heart...[Writing and reading]They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul...We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again." p 237.

I found this paragraph enlightening. Not only to writers, but to all really. The last sentence to me describes that writing allows an escape from normal day to day activities. In our stories we can alter our appearance, change events, and most importantly change the outcome. If we were to able to travel back into time and change the outcome of past events that occurred in our lives, it would be extraordinary.  If only, if only.

I also agree with her that writing and reading "widens and expands our sense of life." We learn a lot about others and life through reading. Writing about those feelings and experiences helps build a bigger understanding of the big picture. Ultimately, it helps widen and expand our feelings on life.

From this novel, I think the most important lesson Lamott has given me is to get to know your characters. To me this really means to get to know one another. So many times we shoot off our mouths before actually getting to know someone. If we had just taken the time to sit ourselves down and listen to them, we could educate ourselves to our fullest potential.

"Writing Down the Bones"~Goldberg

Goldberg, the author of “Writing Down The Bones" has provided several helpful suggestions to her readers. After reading her material, I found several of her sentences interesting and helpful to my own writing and thoughts on creative writing. However, for the sake of time I have only chosen three.

Writing Marathons: "We are not used to being so open. It's fine, accept it; it is a good state to be in." p 153

Claim Your Writing: "We are good, and when our work is good, it is good. We should acknowledge it and stand behind it." p. 156

Trust Yourself: "Something good will come out. Have patience" p 158

These three most relate to who I am, and how I function not only as a write but also as a person. First, I think at almost every point in time in our lives, we choose not to be open about our lives and in this case our writing. This is true for me. I like to keep my personal life personal and the same with my writing. However, occasionally crossing that comfort line is exciting. It sparks my imagination and helps me understand where I may be struggling.

The next phrase about acknowledging our work being good is meaningful. My Dad always told my brothers and me that if we knew we were right, then to stand behind ourselves and refuse to back down. If you know your work is good, then do not let others tell you differently. Listen to their criticism, but if you know it cannot get any better than stand behind yourself.

Finally, trusting yourself is an important quality to have. There have been times where I doubted myself but in the end, it ended up working out. If I just had the patience and strength to trust my work, and myself I would have been much better off. Learning how to trust yourself and your work is a crucial characteristic to master. In the beginning of this semester, I had little faith/trust in my work. Now at the end, I have grown more open, gained respect for my work and acknowledged that I can produce something decent.  As a result, my writings have become more creative and others seem to enjoy them more.

Fluorescence

I think many of us forget how great our lives really are. Sometimes it feels like the world is never enough. No matter how much positive surrounds us, we always managed to find the worst. Why is this? Do we seek attention? Did we never feel loved as a child? I see this in people every day. They spend so much time making things a struggle and wanting perfection.

Perfection. This word is almost evil. As a teenager, I remember wanting the perfect hair, skin and makeup. Now, I cannot help but laugh at those silly naive thoughts. Nothing in this world is perfect. On page 38, of Fluorescence, written by Jennifer Dick, she does a wonderful job describing the little things in life that we always torture ourselves with on a daily basis. For example "because your nose is too long, hips too large, eyes the wrong color...." This is very true. All of us are guilty of wanting to alter the features of our bodies.

I love every line in this poem. Each line made me laugh because it is so true of our lives. Why do we torture ourselves? Instead of being negative about a parking ticket, why is it that we cannot just shrug it off and laugh? I think the answer to all of these questions is that we are human. We desire the things we cannot have and we want whatever the person next to us has. For some reason, we think the grass is greener on the other side, when in fact it is just as green where we are standing. What I take away from this poem is that we need to enjoy and be thankful for what we have.

My life through "Bird by Bird"

“Bird by Bird” by Anne Lamott has provided me with “some instruction on writing and life” (cover of book).  I say this because Lamott tries to enlighten her readers with life lessons while teaching them how to write as well. In a way, it reminded me of how to be a patient listener. It slowed me down to look at one individual person and to get to know them. I find that you can learn a lot about people and society this way.  Lamott even did this when she was developing her character. She sat down at a community home and really focused on the one older woman. Lucky for me, I experience this every day at work. I get to know my usual customers. Their weaknesses, worries, children, how they like their lottery played, and which newspaper they fancy allows me to learn more and more about them each time they come in. I think if I write another short story it will be based off one of my usual customers.

The next piece of information that really stuck with me was how your plot develops like a Polaroid. I think this describes life. We need to slow down and watch each piece unravel. By each piece, I mean each stage of life the good, bad and the ugly. Instead of throwing those feelings to the side, we need to embrace them and see where they take us. In my stories, I attempt to let the plot and stories unravel themselves to my readers. Slowly like a Polaroid, more and more pieces of the story come together. Finally, at the end, the Polaroid is whole and the story is over. Similarly, when one Polaroid develops, another one is right behind it, ready to be taken and transformed.

"The Falling Girl"

"The Falling Girl" by Dino Buzzati has an underlying meaning that I cannot seem to comprehend. To me this story seems to be about how fast life flies by. In the beginning, the girl was only nineteen and many people thought she was rather pretty. At the end of the story, the last two characters found her to be old and ugly. It seems that each story of the building represents a different age in the girls life. The top of the building represents her youth, and as she progresses towards the ground, slowly she is aging. Finally, upon reaching the ground, it signifies her death.

The setting of this story is rather interesting. Instead of walking us through the characters life through ordinary means, the author describes it through the sequences of events after the main character jumps off a building. This building, judging from the title, is located somewhere in Italy. The floor levels, stand as a symbolic or  underlying meaning which I can only think as years. In addition, we have a sense of the height of the building which has 150 floors (pg. 34). Finally, with each level, the reader is able to gain a sense of other settings or plots occurring in the various levels. Such as the parties, the man drinking his coffee etc. What these individuals stand for, I am not sure. The description of the area surrounding the building allows the reader to visualize a large city. To me, I see this plot/setting in New York City.

I chose this story because it is rather interesting. At first, I thought it was a suicide story. Part of me still thinks it is in some way, but I am not sure exactly. This story seems to have many underlining messages that are unclear to me.

Using Lamott 's "Bird by Bird" to evaluate "Wreckage of Reason"

For this blog post I will use Anne Lamott's book "Bird by Bird" to evaluate the short stories in "Wreckage of Reason".

The first major point is plot. According to Lamott, "drama is the way of holding the reader's attention" p 59. Many of the stories such as "Ten Birds", "Black Wings", and "They Come From Mars" lacked holding the readers attention. For example in "Ten Birds" by the third "When I woke up" I wanted to literally throw the book across the room. In my opinion, the author lost my attention. Lamott said on p 59 "why are we here anyway? To me when I read "Ten Birds" I asked myself this and could not come up with a logical answer. This tells me that the drama she used to help described the plot and push it along was inadequate.

Next, Lamott talks about developing the characters throughout the story. I think that every story does this to one point, but the all seem to leave you on the edge of actually knowing the character. It feels like the authors want you to get to know the characters, but do not want you to know what they are exactly about. This is frustrating yet appealing to me because i think a good character is one where the reader enjoys the characters no matter the ups and downs.However, there will always be those few qualities that are hidden. Which is similar to each and everyone of else. There are select things we do not tell anyone and I think this is how the authors portray their characters.  In "Black Wings" we are able to gather a sense that the character is confused about her sexuality and who she actually is. This was accomplished in a rather interesting yet emotional way. But, we still do not exactly is she leans one way more than they other about her sexual orientation.

Finally, I think dialogue really helps describe a character. In "Bird by Bird" Lamott describes how it is easier to described the different qualities of a character through dialogue (Not sure exactly which page). In another words instead of saying "she was a creepy child", have another character say "man, that girl is always peaking around the corner spying on us". This describes bother characters  in one sentence. First the girl is creepy by peering around corners looking at people, and secondly, the other girl finds it weird that another person would act is such a manner.  The reader is able to make inferences about the characters which makes the story more enjoyable. An example of dialogue further developing a character is shown in "Black Wings". In this short story, the reader is able to gain a further understanding about the character without the author actually telling us. On page 276, they talk about how they see each other and you can infer from the dialogue that the characters are very conservative with each other. They ask leading questions so that they do not offend each other or take the question the wrong way. '"How do you see me?' I asked her, What do you mean? [she said]".

Wreckage of Reson Part II

"Us Vs. Them" by Cris Mazza
This short story out of the "Wreckage of Reason" text I found amusing. In a way, he thought the things that many people thing. We judge everyone and everything on a daily basis. Whether it is someone race, age, sex, physical characteristics etc. The way we classify people is exactly the way the author described it.  On page 141, he states that "[a]n African American woman works at the customer service counter." He goes on further in the box to the left of that sentence to include "[w]hy did I use her race to introduce her?...". I found this rather similar to our everyday lives. Instead of saying the girl at the customer service counter waited on me and was very rude. We include the African American girl at the customer service counter that waited on me was very rude. In addition, he used the example of his seminar class where he had fifteen undergraduates and out of the eleven of them the two African American females he could remember their names better than everyone else because they were not typical Caucasian names (pg. 149). This story overall made me chuckle because we are all guilty of it. It is not a matter of right or wrong it is how our subconscious brain connects names with color and sex.

“Word” by Cynthia Reeves
I chose this next story out of “Wreckage of Reason” because I found it very odd. The author described the literal meaning of words. She used almost every sense. For example how she described her tongue inside her mouth “… [Feeling] like an L, fluid, thrusting itself inside her mouth to form Love” pg 59. I think at this point, I started playing with my tongue and seeing if what she was saying was actually true! Overall, I thought this story was odd, because how many people actually show their love or hate for a particular word? There is no one that I know of that likes or dislikes a word so much that it is nearly obsession. Well, besides my mom. She always says that “hate is for Hitler”.

I chose these two poems for a particular reason. The first is the style the authors chose to write these pieces. In the first story he uses a block style to trap in his actual thoughts or questions to himself about his subconscious thoughts. In the second story she uses italics to portray her emphasis on certain letters and words. Finally, both of the stories were a decent length and did not seem to drag on.Which is why I particularly like them.

"Wreckage of Reason"

"Wreckage of Reason" contains short stories that are emotionally deep. Each character seems to struggle with an internal conflict. For example, in "The Blue Girl" written by Laurie Foos, there was a clear conflict between the mother and daughter and the secrets that they both kept from each other. In addition, several other characters in this short story seemed to keep secrets from each other as well. Specifically from their personal life right down to the ingredients they used to create their half-moon pies.

Reading the various stories in this book was rather mind boggling. When I finished reading one I almost felt like holy cow, what in the world just happened. They were rather deep and I almost felt like I was being sucked down into a black hole. In another words, it felt like drama city. An example of this is found in "More than Winter or Spring" by Jessica Treat. In this short story the two girls have a love-hate relationship. The one character hated being with the other girl because she was mean. But she continued to hang out with her because she did not have any other friends. One thing I found interesting about this short story was how the author made your mind think. Specifically the scene with the girls father. What exactly the father might have been doing in the middle of the night we will never know. But, the way she wrote it make the reader think about it even after she has moved on in the story.

The final short story that really caught my attention was "New York/LA Whirlwind Romance" by Karen Lillis. This story is an emotional rollar coaster. Part one was about basically what he said to lure her in to have sex with her. From telling her she was beautiful to how much he loved her already. Lillis really flipped the table in part two. Part two, is where the characters met and he expressed his dissatisfaction in women. Right down to her periods every month and how disappointment was inevitable. While reading this story I was actually shaking my head because some men are so typical of this. After reading it, I told myself that is why you have such high standards and thank God, my boyfriend is not like that!

Bergen, Woodman, Addonizio

There were two stories in "Fiction Packet 1" that I found interesting. The first is "Ungulated" by Walter Bargen. I liked this short story because I own a garden and can relate to the characters frustration. The deer are disastrous to any garden and it is infuriating when your work so hard and are unable to enjoy its reward. In fact, we were so fed up with them being in the garden that we put up an electric fence that is ten feet high. The character also became fed up when she"stretches costly five-feet-high, woven-wire fencing above the plants to discourage any leaps of faith". That line made me laugh because those deer will do absolutely anything to get into a garden, including taking a running start to jump over a fence. What I also found interesting was that the title of this piece is ungulated. Ungulated, according to Websters Dictionary means hoofed. He made the title sound much more intelligent than just saying hoofed.

The next story, "Wallet" by Allen Woodman was also quite interesting. To me, this short story is spoken through a males voice. In addition, it was rather humorous. It is human nature to seek revenge against those that do harm to us. Whether is be a trespass to a chattel or land. The author did a really excellent job setting up the scene and allowing it to flow graciously. In another words, it was not choppy but the author let the story play out, act by act. From the preparation, to the cane as a "special effect", to the extra effort to bend over to grab the package of socks he dropped everything played out nicely.

This final story "Survivors" by Kim Addonizio, required a second read and some intelligence on the readers part. For example, it is clear from the first line "He and his lover were down to their last T cell's" that the couple is in fact dying from AIDS. From the beginning, the reader is able to understand that the characters are gay even though there is no use of the word "gay" until describing the "Gay Freedom Day" poster hanging on the bedroom wall.  This short story was creatively written because it did not show you what was happening, you actually had to think.

Thursday assignment

Poetry to me, is a way for people to express their emotions and view points. I would compare it to tattoos. People get tattoos because they like the way they look and it also serves as a meaning to their lives, personality etc. Poetry acts in the very same way. People express themselves through writing in various shapes and forms. These styles can arrange from derange sonnets about the love of their life, to poems that have absolutely no style or structure. For example, Shakespeare, Mullen, Berrigan, Wetherington, and Hinako Abe all have different writing styles and structures. Granted, they come from different time periods, but it is important to note that every poet writes differently. I really have come to believe that there is really not set way to write poetry.

After thinking about how poems are made and looking at what I wrote above, I believe there is no set way to make a poem. There are styles people generally follow, but it seems they are only used as a reference. For the most part poems are composed of the same elements. By this I mean that they are written with the use of metaphors, similes, contain ambiguities (at times) and sensory details. However, the way poets organize and arrange words and lines is truly amazing.

So far, I have learned that poems are rather complex. There is more thought that goes into them that most people would think. Between deciding how to structure the poem and deciding its content makes for quite the challenge. Further, I have come to believe that no matter how many time you read or look at poems, there is always more to learn about them. It is quite fascinating how much one can really take away from such a topic.

City Eclogue by Ed Roberson

The major themes that this author seems to reiterate are life, cities, and the destruction of the Earth. It seems that the author is making a push for naturalism or is an environmentalist.

(the collection), on  page 52 first caught my attention because the title was rather interesting. It is in parenthesis an all the letters are lower case. Further, it was unlike other titles in this book because it was not in bold. The structure of this particular poem also caught my attention. Like the other poems, each section is made up of two lines. More specifically, there are fifteen sets of two. In addition to the structure, the author made use of gaps in almost every section. These gaps, I suppose provide a breather or absorption period for the reader. It reminds me of the pauses when playing a piece of music. I think it serves as a beat or tempo to the poem. Finally, I noticed that he included a beginning parenthesis in the fourth line, but did not include an ending parenthesis. "(& abt their papers" this part just did not make sense. He included two abbreviations and I am not sure what he is trying to relay. Maybe and about their papers.

While reading this poem, I was able to sense various details. Such as on page 53 where he talks about someone setting their recyclables to the curb. The wind caused the bottles to bounce about the street. I can picture this scene, feel the breeze, and also hear the bottle hitting against the curbs and pavement. Visually, this poem is alive. Finally, he described our lives as being on a schedule. We know when to pay our bills by, when the take the garbage out for pickup etc. This is very true, our lives our constantly revolving around a clock. But, the one thing we cannot really schedule is when we die. He described it as we only get notices for the things we do know about. However, we never get a notice that we are about to die.

The second poem, Escape Training: Instructor's Flying Rappel  on page 121, also brought my senses to life. From the jumping off a cliff (or building) makes my stomach tense up. Further, when he discusses the fire I can hear the fire alarms, people screaming, the crackling sound of a fire and the sirens from fire trucks. I can also smell the smoke, feel the heat and even feel the moment of panic. Next, the structure is very similar to the poem above, but there are only fourteen sets of two. The gaps or pauses are once again used, and there is also an even larger gap between one section and the next.

It was interesting how he described the life of a fire fighter. He showed the risk of how they do the maneuvers, some times you have to do them with out the aid of a rope and still manage your way down the levels of a burning building.

Emily Dickinson & Natalie Goldberg

Emily Dickinson: Love, hurt and life. These three words capture the meaning of poem 374 by Emily Dickinson. The feelings behind this piece are phenomenal. From her sensory language describing the heart, i.e. "the heart has narrow Banks", to describing the hurt we feel i.e. "Till Hurricanes bisect" when dealing with a troubling issues. While reading this poem I could feel the hurt and love she tried to describe. I think anyone who has every been in love feels what she is trying relay to the reader.

Further, the structure is interesting. She capitalized several words such as "Heart", and "Calm". The meaning behind this is a mystery. Each capitalization, in each line is located roughly in the middle or end. There seems to be no pattern at all to this style of writing.

Finally, there are only a few concrete images that I was able to gather. The first that stood out to me was "narrow Banks". Next, the "unattempted Gauze" and finally the "Hurricane". All of these items seems concrete to my mind. :) Finally, the last thing I noticed was that unattemped is not a word.

Natalie Goldberg: Overlooking a fact can ultimately cost you a case. Therefore, I agree with "The Power of Detail". No matter what, details are very important to any writing. It sets the facts straight and allows for those dark areas to be brought to light. I think the way Natalie Goldberg described it, was enlightening yet true. " Our details are important. Otherwise, if they are not, we can drop a bomb and it doesn't matter" (p 43).  Even in the legal field, attorney's are always telling their paralegals to get the facts. The facts are essential to settling a case. This is probably one of the most important chapters of her books because the little things really do mean a lot. Therefore, writing down the little details can make all the difference in the world.

Shakespere, Mullen, Berrigan

Shakespeares sonnets are difficult to understand. What I am able to gather from studying his pieces is that he wrote about love. The passion he put into describing his love is quite robust. Further, it seemed this piece jumped around. For example he went from writing about loving someone to his "misress' eyes are raven black"(188). This made understanding this sonnet difficult.

Berrigans piece was relatively difficult to understand as well. There was reference to Marilyn Monroe and how he was upset with her for eating "King Korb popcorn"(xv). Next he Continued on to talk about some lady, probably still Ms. Monroe but I'm not sure about what the connection he is trying to make.

Finally, Mullens piece was very short and to the point. He described a ice cream truck and how it would help him cool down with a ice cream cone. This was a descriptive poem yet I could understand what he was trying to get at.

First Blog Post--EVER!

Welcome to my Creative Writing Blog for CRTW-201! Wish me luck--poetry is not in this girls blood.