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Hi Guys! Thanks for tuning in to my most recent (atm) blog post :) before writing this blog assignment I read the following texts to help me write my first narrative piece scene:
Not A Pity Party. Summer 15’; the summer right before going into high school. It was the summer of growing up, the summer of having my first love, and near the end, finding out my grandma had liver cancer. I first found out before going down to New Jersey for my cousin's birthday party. They rushed her down to the hospital because her skin became extremely yellow, but my grandma still wanted me to go down for the weekend. Going down I had one of my first break downs, it was honestly probably one of the first times my aunt and cousins had seen me cry since I was a kid, I was strong, probably too strong for my good. Fast forward a few days later, I was in the car on the way to see her with my mom and grandpa. The car ride there was quiet and unsettling, which represented all of our feelings at the time. As I walked down the sickly hospital hallways, all I could feel was dread.. This was the first time seeing my grandma after hearing about what happened, my heart was racing. We got closer to the door of the room she was in, “She might act a little different, she’s on a lot of medicine right now,” my mother started to warn me. I started to slow down, and peeked into the room, I felt like a deer in headlights, I was terrified, that- I was not expecting. That was not my grandma there. She was laying on an uncomfortable-looking hospital bed, hooked up to a machine with a breathing tube in, breathing long and slow. She wasn’t all dolled up like she usually was, she was sick, I had to calm down before I totally broke down into tears. I entered the room, my throat beginning to close up and tears in my eyes, I struggled to say hello, she could very obviously already notice how upset I was. “Stop it now! this isn’t a pity party,” she exclaimed jokingly. There she was, even in a shit ton of pain, in this incredibly serious situation, there was my strong, jokester of a grandma. I climbed into bed next to her and laid with her, my head on her shoulder, enjoying just being in her presence. “I love you.” “I love you even more.” It was a short visit, leaving soon after the moment I had with her, which ended up being one of the last full conversations I had with her, she soon passed away a few weeks later. And that, was one of my first feelings of grief, one of the hardest moments in my life. Hello Everyone! In this blog assignment I will be composing a short (super short) story using quotes from three texts: 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). Writing this story was a bit hard for me because not gonna lie, I'm not crazy about writing stories, but I like what I came up with and I hope you do too! :)
What a night. As I was laying on my bed, struggling to finish a blog assignment- sleep starting to call my name, I decided I needed help. Going on to reddit I decided to post my unfinished draft to get some insight, some very much needed help. I began to type, “Really feeling the writer’s block with this English assignment, any advice?” I went back to look at my writing, waiting for a response as I got a notification from a user named Bob__Murray saying, “Don’t look back. Yes, the draft needs fixing. But first it needs writing.” Clearly confused, I asked what he meant and as fast as the first response he then replied with, “Be patient, listen quietly, the writing will come. The voice of the writing will tell you what to do.” Another user named MaryKarr55 responded to his comment, seeming to try to help me understand better with, “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.” “Okay so I get that I need to start writing whatever comes into mind, but what's the point if later on it just gets thrown out, I end up not using it?” “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.” Wow. I sure am lucky to have such insightful writers responding to my questions, I wonder if they’re famous? (;)) Another user named AnneLammot10, I’m sure can see I’m stressing about this draft, very kindly says, “Say to yourself in the kindest possible way, Look, honey, all we’re going to do for now is to write a description of the river at sunrise, or the young child swimming in the pool at the club, or the first time the man sees the woman he will marry. That is all we are going to do for now.” As I begin to slowly write more to my draft, saying my version of that sentence, it starts to help, my draft starts to come together and looks much better than it was from the beginning. I respond to her and the others, thanking them for their help. She reassures me, “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 first drafts.” “But how do you keep going with it?” I ponder, “How do you get past writing that shitty first draft?” “Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts.. What I’ve learned to do when I sit down to work on a shitty first draft is to quiet the voices in my head.” I completely get that, whenever I try to write it seems as though my mind keeps telling me ‘that sounds terrible, delete it!’ or, ‘what are you even talking about?’ Understanding now that writing is key, I ask, “But what about the revision after the writing, what process should I even follow?” After not answering for awhile, Bob__Murray comes back to say, “The writing process itself can be divided into three stages: prewriting, writing, and rewriting.” While MaryKarr55 answers my revision question, “In the long run, the revision process feels better if you approach it with curiosity..Remind yourself that revising proves your care for the reader and the nature of your ambition.” After all of this great advice, I end up finishing my draft for my blog assignment and submitting it, falling asleep, ready for my English class tomorrow. |
CrisaI use this blog to explore the messy processes of writing and to make meaning. ArchivesCategories |