In this blog post I'm going to be rewrites a scene from The Yellow Wall-Paper (Charlotte Perkins Stetson). Two of my goals for this scene is to provide description and action. I'm also going to be writing a short scene where I or someone close to me made a decision that negatively impacted my life. In this scene I'm also going to be trying to provide description and action.
The Yellow Wall-Paper It seems that I'm not getting better as fast as John hoped. I feel that i've been making leaps and bounds lately but John says otherwise, I'm sure he knows best. He says that going to Weir Mitchell's is probably the best for me, so that is where I must go. It's a dreary day; I can't help but think about my old friend who spent some time at Weir Mitchell's, she said Mitchell's is so strict he doesn't allow for anything, I'm sure I won't be able to journal there at all. I'm going to be so far away from John, I know it is what I need, and I know it is what John wants, but it feels like too much right now. Well the time has come for me to leave John loaded up the boogie and send Jennie and I off. It's a long waze away from home. We rode through grassland and valleys, around mountains and lakes and eventually arrived at Mitchells. It's the first time I've been to Mitchell's house in quite some time. Its an old small brick building sits on a lovely piece of land overlooking over the lake. Jennie and I had inside, and Mitchell shows me my room. It's nothing like my last room there's no yellow wallpaper. There's no windows looking over a garden. It's just a quiet room on the first floor tucked away behind Mitchell's office. There's no windows nor color just a small cast iron bed in the corner with a candle holder next to it. I hope I don't have to be here long, I miss John already. I know John is strict but he cared for me, I'll have to get better for him. Seen From My Life It was a cold early January day, my mom and I were heading to chop (Children's Hospital of Philadelphia) we arrived at the woods center, its a big old four-story brick building connected to the main wings of chop. We drove into the basement found a parking spot and get a slip from the attendant. I'm starting to feel pretty nervous wondering what options I'm going to have. We take the elevator up to the 4th floor, sign-in and were told to take a seat in the waiting room. It's a bright room, paintings of elephants, zebras, and giraffes cover the walls. There's little kids all around some coughing and crying as their parents try to console them, another's running around without a care in the world. I heard my name be called and the young nurse escorts my mom and I to room 6. We wait for surgent Adzick to arrive. After waiting about 30 minutes surgeon Adzick arrives, he knocks twice on the door and then proceeds to enter. He's a tall man probably 6 foot 3 with short gray combed over hair. He walks up to me shakes my hand and introduce himself, I can tell by the way he carries himself that is a very confident man. He proceeded to tell me that with my severe pectus excavatum he feels surgery is my only option. I was expecting him to say this but even still hearing it out loud made it almost too real. He told me another kid was getting the surgery in about three weeks and I could have mine done then also, or I could wait a few more months till school ended. The idea of waiting months was overwhelming; I don't have the patience for that. I told him that I'd do the surgery in 3 weeks. Little did I know that this surgery and the time that I picked would end up causing me my job and months of school work, I should have waited. I should have waited till the summer.
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In this blog post, I'm going to be rewriting a scene from Bullet in the Brain (Tobias Wolff). The scene I've chosen to rewrite is when Anders flashes back to his memory of a pickup baseball game he played as a young boy. I also decided to rewrite part of the ending paragraph to better Incorporated my scene. I'm also going to be writing a short scene from my current life in this scene I'm going to be trying to use present tense, dialogue, and symbolism. Rewritten scene from Bullet in the Brain. This is what he remembered. The shrieking of a newborn. The emptiness of the white room surrounding him. The beeping of the heart monitor from the other side of the room. The cold air spitting from the vents on the ceiling. His wife sobbing on the bed in front of him. Her hand holding his. The doctor's yelling “you can do this push you need to push!” Anders feels in touch, connected to the environment around him in a way he's only ever felt through books and poems before. The doctor lifts up Anders newborn baby and yells “it's a girl!” As they take her to get cleaned off. Anders wife looks at him says “she's here our daughter is finally here I can't believe she's here!” for once in Anders life he has no words his internal library of literary work developed to give him the chill on command aren't helping him. His mother, his father, their friends, and family walk through the door. Anders gets hit by the reality of seeing his mother hold his baby girl that this is the world he's been looking for throughout all of his readings. Anders elated this is a feeling he hasn't felt since a childhood baseball game years and years ago. Rewritten scene from Bullet in the Brain (ending scene). But for now, Anders can surely make time for that cold white room, time surrounded by friends and family, time seeing his mother holding his baby girl trying to find the words that can describe his feelings right now. Short scene from my current life. It's early evening and the sun setting to fade, as I'm sitting on my wheel my fingers pruned and my legs tiring with every kick. I push, and I pull, feeling the clay move like the tides. The wind is starting to sway the trees, and as it does, the leaves thrash from side to side. The quiet hum of the wheel fades behind Pretty Papers playing in the background. I push down one last time, and the clay centers on the Wheel. Isaac speaks up and says “ Why did you choose to learn pottery this summer?” I continue to pull the clay keeping my hands slick with water and said: “ I wanted to learn a skill that ends with a product that will show me my progression.” “But out of all the skills to learn wouldn't it be more valuable to pick something that you'll be able to use in your career or at the very least later in life? like learning how to program or learning a foreign language.” “Yeah I mean those are great skills but that's not what this skill is about, I wanted to learn a skill this summer cuz I wanted to learn how I learn. Which is why I felt I needed a product at the end so I can directly compare what works and what does not.” The wind starts to pick up, and the music is getting muffled by the flapping tarp working as a makeshift roof. Suddenly the sky's open up and the rain starts crashing down. Isaac and I quickly grab the tools and the clay and throw it in the rickety old shed. I leave my pot on the wheel to inevitably dissolve in the rain. We both start to sprint for the house, hopping the fence and hoping that the doors unlocked. In this blog post, I'm going to be creating a scene from a moment in my present life. The scene I've chosen to write about is when I went bouldering with a couple of friends at Haycock on September 1st. I have read What is Creative Nonfiction? (Lee Gutkind) | Making Scenes in Memoir (Lee Martin) to help give me some direction on how to composing a present scene. After being a haycock for to the past 2 hours, I walk upon Honeybun Arete. Honeybun is a V2 boulder leaning against a rock face with another boulder sitting on top. There are two little trees growing out beside the rock face. As I walk underneath honeybun, it feels as if I'm in a small cave. I can smell the trees and the damn moss all around. The ground is covered in rocks and moss that has fallen off the rock. Isaac and Ray throw the pads over the most likely places I will drop. I walk up to the problem squeeze on my tight old climbing shoes, coat my hands in white chalk them blow off the excess. I grab ahold of the starting jug. It feels gritty and extremely sharp I can't tell if it's the rock or my fingers that feel like they've been on sandpaper for the past 2 hours. I throw a heel hook and bring my right hand up. I feel confident, the rock's clean and it's only a V2 I should have no problem. I twist my body to the right grabbing the arrest of the boulder then quickly throw my right hand to the next hold. Only my ring and middle finger lock into the small chip of a hold. I realize next that the only way I'm going to hit the top of this boulder is to drop my heel hook, push off and throw for the top. I'm feeling tight every muscle is tensing up trying to hold on, so I don't fall. Isaac sees me tense up thinking I'm going to fall he pulls the mat under me. I hear him yell, Ray joins in also. If I don't move now my fingers are going to pop, and I'm going to fall. I dropped my heel, push for the top and grab the jug. My legs flying behind me as if somebody switched the pool of gravity. Suddenly I can feel my hand slipping it feels wet there must be moss on the rock. My hand pops, and I go swimming off the boulder. I plummeted down on to my stomach, right on the 7-inch black and orange foam pad. My fingertips are pink and purple, my knees scraped up, my toes are squished, and I'm ready to try again. I do not have any pictures of me on the border problem but here are a few pics of it that I've found. After being in the car for what felt like an eternity on this hot July day, I finally arrived at the writers meetup. I find my set inside surrounded by other enthusiasts of the trade. The place feels alive, everyone's excited to hear some of their famous writers talk about their work and what inspired them. As the writers come up and talk about their work I found myself having more and more questions about the trade. As the meetup comes to an end and everyone's filling out, these questions seem to be building up inside me, I decided screw it I'm going to see if I can get into the back and talk to the writers. I can't let an opportunity like this go to waste. I walk down this brightly-lit hallway turn the corner and see the entrance to backstage. I go for it, I can't turn back now I think to myself. I go through the doorway and see Anne Lamott, Don Murray, and Mary Karr sitting there having a discussion about writing process.
I awkwardly invited myself to their conversation by saying “ Hey guys I overheard you talking about the writing process and I was wondering if you could help me answer a few questions I have?” Don Murray Introduced himself and said what questions can we help you answer? I said “Lately I've been really struggling to start writing I feel that all the work I'm doing is repetitive and uncreative. Do any of you have any suggestions on how to start writing?” Anne Lamott seemed quite passionate about this question, I could tell in her voice that this is something she's put a lot of thought into. Anna responds with “The first useful concept is the idea of short assignments. Often when you sit down to write, what you have in mind is an autobiographical novel about your childhood, or a play about the immigrant experience, or a history of---oh, say---say women. But this is like trying to scale a glacier. It's hard to get your footing, and your fingertips get all red and frozen and torn up.”(1) Anne then says “For me, and most of the other writers I know, writing is not rapturous. In fact, the only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty drafts. The first draft is the child’s draft, where you let it all pour out and romp all over the place, knowing that no one is going to see it and that you can shape it later.” (2) Don Murray confidently but in a almost arrogant way states “You stumble into it, mostly. You don’t know what you’re doing, and suddenly, it’s done. You don’t set out to reform a certain kind of writing.” (3) Mary Karr unlike Don and Anne takes a minute, then joins in by saying “ 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” (4) I was kind of confused by hearing their responses It seems so unorganized so counterproductive. Write a bunch, cut out. Wright again, cut out again. how can this lead me to my end goal? It doesn't seem like anything can be put together from this. I pulled out a pen and paper to write down their responses. I can't let myself forget this moment. As I'm writing down their responses I ask “ So with all this material you have written down in the early stages of writing how do you perfect it? how do you get it to the next stage? What is the next stage? Don very kindly waits for me to finish writing down their previous responses and then says “The writing process itself can be divided into three stages: prewriting, writing, and rewriting. The amount of time a writer spends in each stage depends on his personality, his work habits, his maturity as a craftsman, and the challenge of what he is trying to say. It is not a rigid lock-step process, but most writers most of the time pass through these three stages.” (5) Mary is nodding her head in agreement with Don then chuckles and says “I am not much of a writer, but I am a stubborn little bulldog of a reviser.” (6) We all laughed for a moment then I start to write down their answers once again. Mary asked me if I have any more questions about the writing process. I say “just a few more, what stage do you see the most Improvement? And how long do you spend on each stage?” Mary jokingly says to Don, I'll get the first part of this if you get the second? Then Mary precedes to say “For me, the last 20 percent of a book’s improvement takes 95 percent of the effort—all in the editing. I can honestly say not one page I’ve ever published appears anywhere close to how it came out in first draft.” (7) Don takes a second to think about his question then says “ Writing is the act of producing a first draft. It is the fastest part of the process, and the most frightening, for it is a commitment. When you complete a draft you know how much, and how little, you know. And the writing of this first draft—rough, searching, unfinished—may take as little as one percent of the writer’s time. Rewriting is reconsideration of subject, form, and audience. It is researching, rethinking, redesigning, rewriting—and finally, lineby-line editing, the demanding, satisfying process of making each word right. It may take many times the hours required for a first draft, perhaps the remaining 14 percent of the time the writer spends on the project.” (8) I think to myself that can't be 20% of the books Improvement takes 95% of the effortall in the editing, that's not where I've been spending my time. I frantically try to write down their responses but definitely missed some of Don’s. Then ask Anne “ What are some of the biggest mistakes you see new writers make?” Anne says “Beginners always try to fit their whole lives in to 10 pages, and they always right blatantly about themselves, even if they make the heroine of their place a championship racehorse with an alcoholic mother who cries a lot. But beginners are learning to play, and they need encouragement to keep their hands moving across the page.” (9) Well after that I figured I would stop bombarding them with questions. I stood up said my goodbyes and started walking back down that long bright hallway to my long hot ride home. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (Anne Lamott) (1) Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (Anne Lamott) (2) Teach Writing as a Process Not a Product (Don Murray) (3) Against Vanity: In Praise of Revision (Mary Karr) (4) Teach Writing as a Process Not a Product (Don Murray) (5) Against Vanity: In Praise of Revision (Mary Karr) (6) Against Vanity: In Praise of Revision (Mary Karr) (7) Teach Writing as a Process Not a Product (Don Murray) (8) Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (Anne Lamott) (9) Hello all, in this blog post I'm going to be answering the Proust questionnaire. The Proust questionnaire was first made popular by Marcel Proust at the end of the 19th century. At that time the list of questions was more commonly used in early English households to help reveal the aspirations of the speaker or writer at hand. In answering these questions, I hope you as the reader will get the same insight into my aspirations as the early English households did years ago.
Here is a link to the Proust questionnaire https://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/2000/01/proust-questionnaire/amp Here is the basic Proust Questionnaire. What is your idea of perfect happiness? Heaven and hopefully marriage What is your greatest fear? Not succeeding in my career choice What is the trait you most deplore in others? A fear of taking risks Which living person do you most admire? Elon Musk for his passion to change the world What is your greatest extravagance? Climbing gear On what occasion do you lie? When I don't want to hurt someone What do you most dislike about your appearance? My height Which living person do you most despise? I don't despise anyone What is the quality you most like in a woman? Patience and a want to help those in need Which words or phrases do you most overuse? Word What or who is the greatest love of your life? I don't believe I've found the answer to this question yet When and where were you happiest? Senior year of high school at work crew Which talent would you most like to have? Written communication skills If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? How easily I become content What do you consider your greatest achievement? My reading and writing level Where would you most like to live? An island What is your most treasured possession? My car What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? I don’t no maybe always being alone What is your favorite occupation? Entrepreneurship What do you most value in your friends? Kindness Who are your favorite writers? C. S. Lewis Who is your hero of fiction? Peter Parker Which historical figure do you most identify with? Neil Armstrong What are your favorite names? Parker, Walker, Oliver, Olivia, Sophia, and Maddie What is your greatest regret? Not going to public high school How would you like to die? Honorably |
GreinerI hope as you read my blogs you will gain insight into my aspirations. Archives
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