Writing Stories

In the Lamott packet, there is one so called 'chapter' all about characters. It goes into detail about how to make a character in your story and how to make others enjoy reading about your characters. One point he made is "a person's faults are largely what make him or her likable." It may be hard to remember to make your characters have some type of fault. No human is superman, we all have faults of our owns, and characters should display some of these faults. This also helps the reader relate to the character when they are reading about them, which always makes the reading more enjoyable to read. I believe when characters seem to invincible it makes the story seem very unrealistic. With my writing I will have to remember that characters are to portray real humans, and real humans have many faults.

One section I really found interesting in the Lamott packet, still in the character section towards the end was when he said, " One final reminder: you probably won't know your characters until weeks or months after you've started working with them... just don't pretend you know more about your characters than they do, because you don't. Stay open to them. It's teatime and all the dolls are at the table. Listen. It's that simple." When I read this passage it made me think that once you start writing, never think too far ahead in the story line. Let the thoughts and ideas just come to you as you write. Let your characters change throughout the story, don't even have a set schedule for them because it may not turn out the way you first planned. Be open to your characters and allow yourself freedom to have your characters change. When I would write stories in high school I'd try to figure out the whole story line before I even started writing instead of letting my mind wander while I wrote. Lesson learned, always give your characters freedom to change and develop throughout the story.

The first writing assignment we had was to change the words in one of the short shorts that we read and then add on to it. When I first started I just let my mind wander and went along with the first words that came to my mind. I didn't have a certain path that I wanted to take, and honestly didn't know what the topic was until I was already halfway done. Instead of stressing out about trying to pick a topic and then choose words to fit that topic, I just picked words that popped into my head first and then when I got farther along in the writing I stopped and reread what I already had. After I did all that I finally decided to pick a topic. I felt that this was much easier to do because I wasn't trying to find words that fit a certain topic, instead I picked a topic that matched the words I already had down.

Short Short Stories

Most of these stories all had great meaning and I could have chose any number of them to write about. It was difficult to decide which one to write and analysis about. Some of my favorites were The Wallet and Walking The Baby To The Liquor Store, but I decided to write this blog about one of the stories that we didn't discuss in class. This didn't leave me very many options but in the end I chose to go with Morning News by Jerome Stern.

In this story, the beginning line gives way to the whole story, "I get  bad news in the morning and faint. Lying on tile, I think about death..." I take this line as the main character gets news that he has some illness that is causing him to die sooner then he thought. He reminisces with his wife about a tombstone that they saw a while back that said Peace at last. That makes me think that this guy did not know about his illness, or possibly thought it was getting better, and then the doctor hits him with the bad news. But the saying on the tombstone makes me think that his illness has caused him to be in pain and he just wants peace from it all.

When people find out they're going to die soon they start to think about what they did during their life and what they still would like to do. In this story the man thinks about what he wants to do, and states, "I feel a failure of imagination. I should want something fantastic-- a final meal atop the Eiffel Tower." He can't think of anything that he wants to do that is spectacular like that, and he blames it on not being brought up religious. The thing that I find kind of funny in this story is that at the end he says him and his wife drive to the discount warehouse and they pick out the largest television set in the store. It makes me laugh that that's all he can think of to do when he knows he is going to die soon.

In the end this story makes me actually think what I might do if I was in his situation. I can't imagine knowing that I was going to die soon and possibly be relieved because I wouldn't be in pain anymore. Wondering what I might do to go out with a bang. Something fantastic maybe. Makes me feel a lot of emotions towards this man in the story and his wife even, because as much as the man is going through the illness his wife is right along for the ride with him.

Finally (Short Stories 1)

First, I would love to say how happy I am to be done reading poetry! I love reading fiction, and can comprehend it so much better, but now with my reaction to one of the short stories. Even though it wasn't that short, I read Internal, which is part of Contagion by Brian Evenson.

While reading this I became very interested, and came up with multiple questions. At the beginning this intern works for a Doctor Rauch, which raised the question of what kind of doctor was he? I assumed he was a psychologist because of the section that explained the books he wrote and also he sends his intern to study the behaviors of his brother. Sending his "irregular intern", which brings up another question of why is this intern so irregular? The intern seemed like any other intern, doing their job and following directions. When the intern gets to the apartment to study the brother, it reminded me of a horror flick. The imagery was so vivid, I actually thought of the movie 1408, which is a horror movie about a person getting trapped in a hotel room. One thing that I don't quite understand about this section is why Doctor Rauch would send his intern to an apartment for his brother to be studied when clearly no one has lived in the rooms on either side for some time. Was he trying to study his intern, and just told them that they were doing some research for him?

The second part caught me off guard a little bit. I thought it was going to end the same way the first half did, with the intern going to observe some one and then coming back empty handed, but it took a turn. The apartment seems to be a lot like the first apartment that the intern had to go to to observe. What really through me off was that instead of the intern observing, they in turn are being observed. Which makes me think that Doctor Ragan set his intern up to be observed by his brother, or maybe it wasn't even his brother...   The ending left me wanting to know more about what happened. Who was actually observing the intern, and what part did Ragan have in the whole set up? UGH! The ending is too abrupt, I want to know the whole story!

City Eclogue Part 2

So just like the first half of the book, the spacing is a little weird. In some poems it would have two lines and then without completing the thought until the next stanza, the author would put a lot of space. I noticed that in this half Ed Roberson used a lot more punctuation along with the odd spacing, unlike in the first half of the book when he rarely put any punctuation and just used the weird spacing to help the reader gather their thoughts before they continued on reading. I also felt like in the first half the author was more direct about the subjects of each poem. It was easy for the reader to tell what the poem was trying to say, while in the second half, I had a hard time trying to understand the subject of some of the poems.

One poem that I found particularly interesting was on page 121. The title of it is Escape Training: Instructor's Flying Rappel. At the beginning I thought it was related to somebody who taught rock climbing because of the first few lines, "I jump backwards off the cliff to show how it's done: one   two footsteps hit off the face of the rock then I land.." When I think about this line, I can picture an actual rock climbing instructor demonstrating how to use the rope and trust the rope while doing this activity. Towards the end of the poem my thinking took a turn. "You can't hold a note forever you run out of breath   you run out of rope    There's a limit to all of our maneuvers." This line reminded me of human life. We can't live forever, eventually our "rope" will run out, so there is a limit on what we can do in that lifespan.

There was also a second poem that I believe I understood. Not Brought Up on page 123 was about racism. "..was the numbers of people we wanted justice brought down upon --- that many gone along keeping silent kept in office for---" Even though people knew that bad things were going on towards African Americans they didn't take any action against it. Possibly in fear of being hurt themselves or even killed. Instead of putting them and their families in danger they stayed quiet and just let the torture happen. "The lynchings each   of the thousands of times it happened the whole white town come down  to a smokey picnic.." Many African Americans were lynched just because of their skin color and some whites would even burn their houses down just to run them and their families out of town.

City Eclogue Part 1

Ed Roberson talked about many issues in society through his poetry. Some issues he explained in different ways through the poems were the issue of segregation and pollution of the land. In most of the poems he didn't use a lot of punctuation, excluding just a couple in the first half. Instead he used odd spacing that had the reader pausing. I believed that the spacing was to add emphasis on the part that was to come after, or it could have been for the reader to think through what they had just read. Another thing that I realized is that he doesn't always put a title on the poems, but instead uses a number or doesn't use anything to recognize what poem it is. As we discussed in class, some of the poems were hard to tell if they continued onto the next page or if they ended, and the two pages were different poems.

The song that I looked into further during class was titled Height and Deep Song. I believe that Roberson was trying to explain child birth and the process of in this certain poem. This poem also contained the weird spacing that had the reader stopping and processing what they had just read and anticipating what was to come next. There was no punctuation at all throughout the whole poem, which could be why the spacing is present. 

One line that describes part of the child birth process is when it says, "with the wonder the words can come up with stripped   in the scramble of birth spill--        the speechless" This reminded me of how when the women goes into labor, the pain can leave her speechless. Not being able to bear the pain, but also not having words to explain the pain she is experiencing at the moment, leaving her speechless. Another line that refers to the birthing process is "the body arrives screaming    written all over it" I believe that this refers to the child being born, and already having "things" written on it by the society and family values. The second that a child is born society and values start to develop that child into the adult that they will be in the future. The process starts the second that child is born and the parents start shaping their child. 

Poems, Poems, Poems

And again this week, there were many poems that still didn't make any sense to me. Some of them just seem like the author decided to put random words together and call it a poem. I don't get it how some people can actually get certain meanings out of those poems. One poem that we went over as a class, which I didn't even know where to start when I read it on my own, actually made sense to me during the discussion. This poem was the scattered one with words all over the page, literally. The author was Susan Howe. When I first looked at this poem I thought the ink exploded, or the typewriter went crazy while she was writing this, but come to find out she set it up like this on purpose!

I found out that this poem was about a battle and how writing can become a battle. I know it's about a battle because of certain lines, such as, "Parted with the Otterware at the three Rivers, & are Gone to have a Treaty with the French at Oswego & singing their war song The French Hatchet Messages. This shows some battle going on with some country or army going to have a treaty with the French. Another example about a battle is "Of the far nations over the lakes Messengers say The War Belt & singing their war song The French Hatchet Messages." This is about some soldiers singing a war song while marching.

The author ties this into writing by having some sections of the poem about writing, such as, The Frames should be exactly fitted to the paper, the Margins of which will not per[mit] of a very deep Rabbit." Oddly she states that the frames should fit the paper, while her poem is very scattered all over the pages. There are also more examples of both the way writing should be and of a battle. The two things are linked in this poem because the author is trying to state that writing can be chaotic like a battle, and writing can be a battle within itself. Some writers may even go crazy trying to write a poem, or a story when they can't come up with ideas. The structure of this poem shows the craziness and chaos that can occur while writing and also during a war.

This poem stood out to me, not only because it was crazy, not structured like the others in the packet, but also due to the meaning. I understand what it is like to have writer block. Every time I'm asked to write a poem I end up sitting,  staring at the blank page for ten minutes, just trying to think of something to write down. I often get writers block, even when writing a research paper. I really liked this poem due to the fact because it wasn't structured and writing sometimes has no structure to it.

Poetry of Torture?

The first thought that came to my mind when the class was told that we had to read not one, but two packets of poetry, was you have got to be kidding me! This will be absolute torture. In high school I never understood how simple words all grouped together could come together to make a story with so many meanings. There was always that one kid in class that would come up with an "off the wall" meaning to the poem and I never understood if we were actually reading the same thing, or if I was just missing something. So lets say I was not excited to have to read a bunch of short poems in a row...

To be honest, some of the poems made absolutely no sense to me, but there happened to be one that was more mysterious to me. In the first packet of poems, the poem Where it Passes, Untouchable really stood out to me. I'm still not to certain who the author is referring to in the poem but I really enjoyed the imagery that appeared in it. There are a couple lines that popped out to me. One of them was in the first stanza ending in the last line. "Stubborn as a mirror's tain, that gives nothing" I find that this was clever due to the fact that the tain is the back of the mirror, which is normally a solid color and doesn't give any reflection away. So with this object or person being stubborn as a mirrors tain, meaning they don't give anything away.

The next line that I found quite interesting is at the end of the second stanza into the third one. "Blood powdered my fingers, speckled my cuffs." When I first thought of blood I thought of the red, slimy, liquid form of it, so I didn't really understand how it could speckle the cuffs of his shirt. During the classroom discussion it was brought up by one of my fellow classmates that he thought the same thing I did, until he thought about when blood dries. When blood dries it creates a powder like substance, which then could speckle the cuffs of a shirt. 

I still don't completely understand the poem, I don't understand if he is fighting with himself or if he was betrayed by someone else. The imagery within the poem is powerful though. I can picture almost every single part of this poem. This was the poem that really stood out to me out of all the others. I still may not like poetry and I probably never will, but at least I understood some concepts in this particular one.