Free Write Makeup

My final post :(
I wrote this is class the other day using the words "umbrella" and "bright."

Kurt grabbed an umbrella and slipped on his new pair of running shoes. He had a long way to run to her place. He ran in place a couple of times to get his heart pumping. The sun began to paint moisture onto his skin. With the umbrella tucked under his arm, he started to run. His footsteps were methodic as his feet married with the concrete—a new piece of pavement with each step. Always new cracks to skip, new pebbles to slip on, new gum left by some other riff raff before him. Kurt’s gut began to scream—only a little ways left. His skin was beginning to cook and his body was begging him to stop this mad dash. Useless, and he wasn’t going to get anywhere anyway. The thudding inside his chest began to pump faster than his legs were moving, and the umbrella was chaffing his underarm. Kurt closed his eyes because the sun was bright. And Pam was bright, so he kept running. As he went, he began to feel to his heart slowing to a crawl.  Finally, it crawled to a gentle buzz. His chest felt concave and he tried to just keep walking. The sound of his footsteps reverberated in his ear. The lampposts turned on and were bright, but artificial when compared to the sun. The darkness lapped the perspiration from his skin and his heart was completely stopped. He got to her house and hit the door. Pam opened it. He handed her the umbrella for when it rained.

Class Exercise. Word: Reflection

In the Psychiatric Ward

The guy next to me was snoring, even though he was awake. The sounds from his Mario game were muffled by the people talking in the rooms surrounding us. Sitting in the alcove waiting room, we couldn’t see anyone.  We could hear their footsteps and the doors creak as they opened and shut them. There was a picture of a parrot on the wall that was screaming “yellow.” It was all loud. I leaned my head against the wall. There was another picture on the wall of a skull and it said “death.”  There was a man in a top hat that had been staring at it ever since I had been there. He never even blinked, but he just started ahead. I stood up because my legs hurt and I was curious. I walked to where he was standing and looked at the picture. I was startled when I saw myself looking back. And  I realized the skull and my twin were reflections. I looked at the man in the top hat. His face was covered in flesh. Then I looked in the mirror and: bones. I looked at myself in the mirror and thought I looked pretty okay, until green smoke started to flit out of my mouth. Slowly the green smoke began to tear away my skin, too. I flinched but it didn’t really hurt. Not really. I looked at the man with a top hat for an explanation.  He said, “It is just beginning.”

Three Reading Responses (make up)

Here are three reading responses in one—all revolving around chapter 10. 600 words. Ugh. : p

 Crowding and leaping—two techniques that I had never considered until this chapter of Steering the Craft. Ursula K. Le Guin in reference to crowding says, “It’s what we mean when…never use ten vague words where two will do.” I am guilty of overcrowding.  I remember once in high school a friend was editing a manuscript of mine and she crossed out words that were “unnecessary.” I didn’t understand her logic—I thought more words meant longer and that longer meant better. Through this class, I’ve begun to realize that I actually prefer to be shorter. I thought about what would I like, as a reader. I am drawn to shorter stories and poems, and I think most people would agree there. I have discovered I have short tolerance when it comes to short stories or poetry. When I wrote my first short story for this class, I was working toward page length and trying my hardest to make it long. I look back on that particular short story and am really embarrassed by it. I know there was some great use of language imbedded in it, but the story itself was cliché. I remember then one day when I was writing another story and happened to be short on time. That short story ended up being only a page long—but it’s one of my favorites that I have written. I’m learning that length really almost means nothing….and perhaps the shorter, more concise, less wordy a story or poem is—then all the better.

Leaping is the technique that I am making myself familiar with. I have a fear of confusing my readers. I know a lot of times I will let my parents or friends read some of the pieces I have written and I get the typical, “It’s great! But I have no clue what you’re talking about.” I get really frustrated when that happens, so I then try to include details and make my message clearer. I’ve realized lately that sometimes details make a short story messy and really cliché. A lot of times my explanations are outright boring, and really don’t even help with the story. Sometimes the reader doesn’t want to know why Bill just walked into the bank…they want to know the action—what is he doing? What does it look like? Where is the action? When practicing leaping, certain “unimportant” informational details are left out so that the story can progress. I all actuality, I think this technique is one of the best that I have learned in this class. I’m learning what is important to leave in my pieces, and what I can do without. Crossing out portions of my work sometimes is really painful…taking all the time to write something to simply discard seems like a waste of time. I was mulling this over when I started to consider my English Classes—in English, we right multiple analytical responses about whatever text we are reading. Through this process, we throw out the irrelevant “junk” to get to the “meat and potatoes” of our Essays. I have found, though, that sometimes the responses that I discard end up being the introduction or conclusion to my Essay. In the same way, some of the sentence that I cross out for my poetry or short stories could most definitely be incorporated in some other work piece that I’m writing. Nothing anyone ever writes should be “thrown away” completely…who knows when it might be needed again.

Classmate Response 4/23/11

A doll, like one of those models in my mother's magazines, she was beautiful. Her hair a golden color, like crushed lemon on sun. I was born to follow in anticipation. My jealousy would one day engulf me, suffocate me, and I would die. Green and cold, beneath the grass, never achieving, never smiling, never knowing I was beautiful. I became aware of the fluff of my hips at sixteen. Awaken: a winged umbrella, an arm, my hip soaked with the beginning of the end.

I think I posted about something of Emily's last week, too; but I liked this so much that I had to give some feedback. The clast two sentences are freakin AWESOME and should go much further, in my opinion. I also love the line "like crushed lemon on sun." Beautiful. This piece as a whole is beautiful, though. Emily uses soft and sweet language to discuss an unhappy topic. The way I read is that the blonde girl is potentially a sister that the narrator is jealous of and eventually dies (suicide?). So sad...but love the way this is written. My only criticism is that it should be longer!! :)

Junkyard Quotes 4/23/11

"If people don't like you, you must be doing something right."

"The way I see it is the more people that hate you, the less you have to deal with."

"I'm so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I'm saying."

"The average woman would rather have beauty than brains because the average man can see better than he can think."

"Just remember--if the world didn't suck, we'd all fall off."

Free Writes- 1 for last week, 1 for this week

Two more letters. Sorry if anyone finds offense in these...I'm really not a pessimistic person and I seriously don't hate the government at all...it was just more interesting to write about a potentially bad situation than an optomistic viewpoint (which I ironically have).

Letter 2

            Trillions of your dollars are buried into the camps. They were once your dollars and borrowed dollars. Now they are hidden camps. I’ll call them camps, because camps make it sound better than it really was and my intention isn’t to scare you.

            Well, maybe it is.

            I bet you’re picturing something really horrific now. Bet it doesn’t come close to what I’ve seen. Instead of giving you a picture, I’ll give you a sound: A never ending belting of human voices, screeching, terrifying, nauseating sound that make your heart beat fast and glaze your body with sweat. Salt. Once you’ve been underground for a while, this sound becomes normal. I think if there had ever been silence, we all would have died. There were rumors of what made people scream. A withered old woman once told me that it was a pasta machine…but for people. Population control at its finest. Did you ever wonder why everyone was pro-choice? Or the worries of global warming because there were too many people on the earth? Well, we’re taking care of that problem…down here in hell.

Letter 3

This is my final letter because I’m about to take the walk for the last time. It was a long walk, and down a hallway of sorts. The smell was earth blended with human. There was no ceiling, really. Just mud. I began to wonder what exactly was holding this prison together. It felt like some imaginable force had burrowed its way through the underground and carved out a nook for us. God. Science. Technology. I think we should have stuck with the first one.

 I’ve done this walk for what seems like a million times since I’ve been here. But I know today’s the day. They told me, isn’t that sad? To tell someone they are about to be killed? I wonder what it will feel like. I know I’ll turn left at the end instead of right, which led to more “prison cells.” I know what I go left, I won’t come back—they never come back.

If you were walking down the hallway with me you wish you were wearing shoes. You would wish that you had light, but we don’t have light anymore. I don’t think Hell has light either, actually. Maybe flames. If you had light, you wouldn’t need someone to lead you like will be leading me this afternoon. I don’t even know who that guy is…a guard? The president? Charlie Sheen? Who the heck knows. Whoever he is, he’ll be my last contact with this world. I’ll pretend that it’s you and that you can save me. Read this, and read it carefully. Pay attention to what’s happening and take a stand. Don’t let this happen again…

Reading Response 4/15/11

I've been thinking more and more about what I didn't like about Willi since Professor Edwards asked me in class this week. In English class, I wrote a paper about the irony of Willi's mother's modest attire and his sexual attraction to her. I guess the more that I analyzed that, the more I found myself not enjoying the story. Though this is something that occurs in life, it was distasteful for reading to me. So basically, I just don't like the story. I can't really find any other way to say it. I don't like the scene with Willi's father and the dogs; it's blunt and I just personally do not enjoy reading it. Like I said though, I can appreciate the text. When someone brought up the potential of it being an allegory of World War 1, I found myself liking it a little more. I can't say that I would particularly "change" anything about the story because everything in it is crucial. And I can say positively that I like the language in the first few pages, even though I needed a map to traverse through it the first time. I realize that most people would say that my evidence for not liking it is minuscule. Simply put, however, it isn't my taste. Yet, I can appreciate it for what it is--I just don't want to read it again.

Classmate Response 4/15/11

I wasn't sure who I was meeting, a stranger in black, the mystique, the curiosity beat thoroughly, circulating blood throughout my body. A surge of anticipation shot through my sweaty palms. I'd seen many men before, dressed in nice coats with fat wallets, but never before a religious man; furthermore, one interested in me. My heels hurriedly clanked, as I paced on the concrete slabs, awaiting my mysterious guest. I took a puff and exhaled, allowing the smoke to encompass me, like a cloud of serenity.
The stranger approached slowly as if allowing a surrender to be known. His face was different than I had imagined, softer, more soothing, while his eyes remain lifeless, deserted years before. I wondered what had tainted him and what kept him alive, minimally at best, to bring him to this street. My heart began to ring rather than pound, similar to a siren, echoing deeply in my thoughts.


I really enjoyed reading this. In class I also tried writing something from Stella's perspective and quickly abandoned it because it became SO dramatic; therefore, I appreciate the way that Emily wrote this after attempting (and failing) to do it on my own.

What I like: The first section is great; the anxiousness is conveyed extremely well. I suggest maybe adding a few nervous gestures for Stella to make to even further solidify her nervousness. This way, you can "say it without saying it" in a sense...use actions to depict what is being said. My favorite part is that Stella noticed his eyes and wonders what keeps him alive. This literally could be part of the story, because Leo also is entranced by Stella's eyes. So...I love this.

Suggestions: There are some awkward comma-providing run-on sentence that should be edited. Particularly, the second and third sentence of the second section (I have labeled it in bold font.) Other than that, I think this is great!

Random Impulse

This is a prologue to the collection of letters that I have been writing for the past couple of weeks. After posting one last week, I felt that there needed to be some sort of disclaimer so that my audience would not be too confused. Basically, these letter were written by someone who has been captured by the government and held in a human population control center. These letters are found sometime after these incidents in the distant future. I haven't yet decided on whether or not the government has lost complete control--my plot is loosely bound and developing as I go. This is when some person comes across these letters. I write this in class as the exercise of a scene without a particular character. Enjoy--

The treeless forest. Burning, that's what it looks like when the trees lie around in black powdery fragments. Once earth has been burned, it becomes barren. The scene is nnestled in a detached alcove, one that only a very adventurous traveler could happen upon. In the ground are metal doors, built adjacent to Hell. rusty hinges suggest that they wouldn't even open anymore, not matter how hard they were pulled. No matter what type of strength was exerted, no matter how they were prodded or convinced. Still, they want to open their mouths and tell a story, but the crust of dirt and the threat of exposure silences them. A green tin canister is half buried in the earth--evidence. It's lock has been melted off; the contents vomited on the . ground.  Crumbling parchment, words written in red ink. Blood? It's screaming. Screaming...

Junk Yard Quotes 4/15/11

"One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon--instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming right outside our windo today."
-Dale Carnegie

"Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile."
-Albert Einstein

"This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Courage is doing what you're afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you're scared."
-Eddie Rickenbacker

"Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to you're own.
-Robert A. Heinlein

Free Write (last week)

Forgot to post this...it's what we wrote in class about The Magic Barrel.

Salzman peered out his office window. She should be here soon, he had basically begged her--and this had to work. He squinted through his smudged glasses and caught a glimpse of her in a crowd full of strangers. She was impossible to miss; dressed head to toe in yellow, with a sun hat and parcel to match. Embarrassing. He watched her walk. She was beautiful, if nothing else. Why couldn't her actions match her face? Salzman rubbed his withered hands together, formulating the words he would say to Stella, hoping they would make sense. He was ready to set her on that long train to redemption, and never, ever look back. The bell on the door gave a ring when she walked in. Salzman stayed poised, looking out the window through his dirty glasses for a moment before he turned to tell Stella his great news.

Reading Response 4/10/11

“The Fat Girl” is not one of my favorite short stories. It’s not really the genre that I prefer reading, so maybe that is the reason; but even besides that, I was really unsatisfied with the ending. I wanted the main character to be released from her food addiction. While I thought it was great that she accepted her body and herself the way that she was, if only for health reasons, I wish that she could have been delivered from what I consider to be an addiction. A lot of people that over-eat do it because of an emotional trauma. I think that the main character over-ate because of rejection from her mother. When that wasn’t resolved or even considered, I found myself a little disappointed. When we discussed this text in class, someone brought up the fact that the main character was never content when she was skinny. Yet, I would also argue that she wasn’t very happy overweight, either--until the end, that is. Even still, I felt that that happiness was not going to last. Food can’t replace companionship; and I feel that is was the main character was lacking in the first place that drove her to overeating. Besides what I consider flaws in the storyline, I liked the author’s writing style and would probably read more of her work in the future.

Reading Response 4/10/11

I loved reading "The Magic Barrel." I also had to read it for English 1102 and write a paper on it. For my paper, I discussed Stella's white dress and red shoes, in opposition of Leo's vision of her in a red dress with white shoes. My interpretation of the story was that Salzman's perception of Stella was either flawed or exaggerated and that because of this, he led Leo to believe that she was an immoral person. In class we discussed whether or not Salzman intentionally set the two up; I still firmly believe he connected the two of them because he wanted his "immoral" daughter to connect with a "religious" man. I think Salzman used reverse psychology on Leo to make him want Stella. In regards to the end, my interpretation now is that Salzman is praying for the redemption of his daughter. Though he believes that Stella is "spiritually dead," I believe that Salzman believes that there is still hope for her to be "saved" or "religious." After talking thinking on this more after class, this is my official reading if this text. I'm probably not going to change my mind again...probably.
 

Classmate Response 4/10/11

Skittles of the rainbow
dropping off
one by one into a dark maze
heading to the bottom
of the slate rectangle
that holds this candy
in the palm of it's hand
until it's all eaten by the shark
that controls it's taste.


    This poem is different and I think it deserves more explination and detail.  My first question is what or who is "It?" "It" holds candy in the palm of "it's" hand until the shark eats the candy. And then, where did the shark come from? What does this shark symbolize or represent? Whose taste does the shark control? And what do you mean by taste? It's such an interesting image, so I think it should be played with a little more so we can see what you're really saying.
   I like that you're talking about skittles--I suggest playing with a color theme more or the taste. Since you've got taste later on, I think it would be neat to pick that one. Play with the sourness of the lemon, tart line, sweet cherry, medicine like grape. :) You could go so many diffrent directions by playing off the different taste of each skittle. Keep playing with this piece, it could really be awesome!

Free Write 4/10/11

Letter one:

Dear Stranger,

  I'm still wearing stripes, because I have to. They don't let you off easy anymore; not like they used to. Long gone are the days when criminals lounged in comfortable jail cells, putting off punishing them for murder with mediocre evidence against them. That is the past...this, well this is now for me. Hopefully it's the past for you. Hopefully you aren't living what I am.
  My mother always told me things were changing. It is easy to ignore what you don't want to hear. I would tune out her words, change the television channel, ignore the newspaper headlines. I liked hearing, "United! United under no one! United under ourselves!" It made me feel empowered. Sounds good, right? Who knew that would lead to our own demise?
  I'll tell you that I stole. I did it with no shame or depth. When you're cold and starving, you'll do more, go further, than you ever imagined. And when you're still wearing stripes, you'll never forget what you did. You'll still be theirs. Wandering in their territory, letting them devour you...I'll stop their. I don't know how much you can take, how much you can understand, how much you already know.
  I do wonder, though, if people will remember us. Or if this era will continue forever...or if it will be forgotten. That's why I'm writing it down.
 
 

Junk Yard Quotes 4/10/11

Tennyson Quotes

Better not be at all than not be noble.

Dreams are true while they last, and why do we not live in dreams?

Knowledge comes but wisdom lingers.

Love is the only gold.

Words, like nature, half reveal ann  half conceal the soul within.

Three Makeup Reading Responses

Got a tad behind on reading responses! One of these is for the week of (3/21/11) and the next two are from last week (3/28/11)


Steering The Craft Chapter 3

   Chapter three is all about sentence length. I find myself varying on sentence length occasionally when I'm writing something, but I think I should take it into greater consideration from here on out. I believe I have always understood the theory of sentence length having great impact on my work, but I have not given it enough attention in the past. Ursula K. LeGuin said that "Prose consisting entirely of short, syntactically simple sentences is monotonous, choppy, a blunt instrument." While I agree with this statement for the most part, I find myself recalling a short story that I wrote. In my story, I was trying to play up a little "emotionlessness" and felt that short sentences did the work for me. I guess this is one of those rules that are allowed to be broken occassionally! Otherwise, short sentences just remind me of third grade. On the opposite side, I find long sentences exhausting. I skim them so rapidly that I miss half the beauty of the words. The example from Jane Austen's Mansfield park really is a beautiful piece, but I would be able to follow and appreciate it better if it was broken up in a few places. Just my oppinion. :)


Steering the Craft Chapter 5

  This chapter was on Adjective and Adverb. The exercise that we did in class oracticing this was one of the most effective exercises I have ever done. Though I wasn't thrilled with the outcome of what I wrote, I saw the effectivenss of the adjectives and adverbs that I chose. To be honest, I didn't even realize what I was doing. I was just changing words here and there, not entirely seeing the effect until after a couple of different themse. Another reason I enjoyed the exercise was because I find myself writing in the same voice with a lot of my prose pieces. Though I do believe consistency is a good thing--too much is simply too much. This exercise allowed me to play a little with my voice, which I found very helpful. A good point that Ursula K. LeGuin had in the book was the overuse of adjectives like "great" and adverbs like "suddenly" had cause them to really lose their meaning. I never really lean towards the word "great" but I know without doubt that I have used "suddenly" in a cheesy fashion. I love how LeGuin says that "somehow" is a weasel word. I agree one million percent! In tutoring, I've read the "somehow" sentences that students have written in their essays. These sentences are weak--just make up something for goodness sake! ;)


Steering the Craft Chapter 6

   Chapter six in entitled, "Subject Pronoun andVerb." The first section of this chapter is about passive voice. This is something else that I may have neglected in past writing. The book later discusses verb tense. This is something that I take a bit to the extreme. I absolutely love writing in present tense. Something about it seems more alive and genuine. Writing in present tense is more natural to me...I have to force myself to write in past. But I also love reading books in present tense, too. It's always somthing that stands out to me.
   The book then addresses person of the verb. The exercise we did in class on this was loads of fun. I have known for a while, though, that I perfer writing in first person. However, I thought it was fun playing around with third and second persons (especially snce I had never tackeled second person before). The hardest part in writing a story or a novel in first person is that you have to solve ever problem you create with one character, whereas with third person, the reader is able to see different perspectives and learn about situations before the main character sometimes. I have read books that are in first person where the author still jumps around to other characters to avoid this problem. (I actually even did it myself once.) Later, I felt like this was almost cheating. The beauty of first person is that readers feel more intimate with the main character. When the author abandons him even for a brief while, that connection is lost.