now it's working...let's give this a go...

in close to the knives, there is so much imagery. using colorful words to describe the surroundings and situations always gets me hooked. adjectives are my best friend, we connect quickly. this is because when i see those descriptive words, i can imagine the scene and the characters and they play the story in my mind.

the other thing i noticed is, what was with the whale facts? how they are, what seems to be, randomly placed in the story just confuses me a bit. why would you put random facts in a story that has nothing to do with the plot? i don't understand.

which leads to the structure. with the random what facts and the long paragraphs give a sense of rambling...like the narrator isn't really sure what is going on in his life and he'll talk to anyone that will listen to him. not going to lie, it drives me crazy a little bit as he beats around the bush.

My computer won't let me download the second essay packet...it says that this file will harm my computer if I download it just to read for this assignment. This blows! It's the last blog assignment for the semester and I can't even write about it! Man!!!!...I've tried to write it, but the same thing keeps popping up on my computer...

Maybe my computer is as tired of schoolwork as I am...but let's try some more!!!!

Second to Last one...

It's been busier than ever as the semester winds down. Eight papers, 3 group projects, 3 exams, *and a partridge in a pear tree* I sing as the Christmas season is coming in full swing. Only 23 more days until the day comes when everyone's families try to act "normal" and people give gifts that are well over the price range they established at the Secret Santa meetings. Don't get my wrong, I'm really excited for Christmas and the long break that comes with it. Singing carols, eating good food, being with family and close friends, and giving people gifts and seeing their faces light up (or they act surprised, it doesn't matter I love it!) It's waiting for it to come that's the big deal. Anyways...onward!

Essay Packet 2. Three Voices and The Fine Art of Sighing. Both are interesting. First Three Voices:

Three Voices, again, is one of those stories/essays that I just cannot figure out. I have read it a few times now trying to understand the underlying meaning of it, and I simply cannot put it together. It is full of sensory imagery! The colors, the sounds, the tactile images, it's very well put together. Reading it, though, I get the sense that this story is about a couple. A man who does many things to make his wife comfortable, and she doesn't really give him any credit, so she runs off with a Russian Acrobat in the circus, as if he can give her more support than a man who grants her every wish.

The Fine Art of Sighing:

Now, this one was interesting because it brought up a bunch of things I hadn't thought about before. We sigh for many different reasons. We sigh when we think, when we're comfortable, or when we drink a coke. We sigh sometimes as if our lives depended on it, taking in a sweet breath and letting it all go so we can relax. Everybody sighs at some point in their life. The paragraph was what got me though. The talk of Venetian prisoners who were escorted to their execution over the Bridge of Sighs connecting on breath to the next. Just very...spine chilling. How a sigh can connect people in their darkest hour...even if the sigh isn't an actual breath.

Essays

Two essays we're suppose to talk about on here. Honestly I can't bring myself to print out 29 pages of essays, so reading them on my laptop late on a Thursday night will have to do. The two essays I chose were "Mint Snowball" by Naomi Shihab Nye and "Things to do today".

"Mint Snowball" is a good essay. I mean I really really liked it. It's as if I can taste this chilled treat as I read it, and not because I had brushed my teeth with minty-fresh crest toothpaste moments before reading it. The imagery Nye uses is wonderful. How the counter has a shining face, the clinks of nickels, wide summer afternoons, the drugstore, the fresh mint leaves that wouldn't wash off of grandfather's hands, everything is just so fresh and lovely.

I can also tell that Nye really wants to go back to that time. She looks at the things she can do now: use a fax machine, change a plane ticket, and other very modern activities...but she wishes that she could go back and visit that drugstore. I don't think you can get anything from a drugstore that's a nickel anymore. She wishes she could just go back to an easier going time.

Things to do today is just very strange. It reminds me of a bucket list. Things to do before you do, defy what you believe in and be as bad as possible. But that's just me...maybe it's just a crazy person who's OCD about everything...even his sadistic thoughts. I guess i'll find out tomorrow.

As I sit here at 10:19 on a Thursday night...

I try to finish up my writing assignment for this week. It has been an exciting week for me, but scary as well. Figuring out your future isn't easy, and neither is waiting for an important phone call. And I am sure the more that I talk about it, the longer my wait will be - if this call will come at all. Hopefully it will though...just hopefully.

Sitting here at my desk that I just cleaned off (so much clutter) I read the blog assignment that we are suppose to accomplish. Listening to Taylor Swift's new album (which is very very good by the way)I reflect on things that I have been reading. The three stories that we were suppose to have read are coming across as very difficult to me, so I figure why not change it up and incorporate another assignment I am suppose to be doing.

For one of my other classes, I have to find a prose piece to perform (isn't it funny how classes that aren't related to each other end up crossing paths?). My teacher says that we cannot perform something from a play, because that is not prose, but rather a short story or a chunk of a novel. So I have been reading bits and pieces from my favorite books over the past few days and trying to find something that I could perform in front of the twenty-some-odd people in my class. Pulling out my favorite books that I read at least once a year (because once I find something I love, I keep it forever), and I have to say I love them still.

One of my favorites is a fourth grade reading level, historical fiction, battered book that I read whenever I can if I have a day to waste. It's called Fever 1793. My all-time favorite! A girl named Maddie goes through adulthood faster than ever once yellow fever hits Pennsylvania, where she lives with her mother and grandfather. I don't know why, but I have kept that book for years. There is something that just draws me to it. Maybe because it's a tragedy (and aren't all people drawn to the bizarre and gruesome?) happening to a young girl. Maybe because it is a part I would love to play in a movie or something. The words on the pages draw me in every single time I pick it up, which is how a book should be. I can't describe it, it is just amazing.

To after That

Let's see if I can do this again. Like I have said in the past, I fully do not understand our readings until a huge discussion comes about in class about the meaning of it all. I guess I will try and give it a go.

My first impression of To After That was...well it's very dry. Honestly I like books that have a clear story in them. A narrator, or character, that illustrates their life in such a way that it draws you in. Reading about a woman who has just printed off a ninety seven page paper and puts on a sweatshirt is not very interesting, but alas I read on.

As I read on, the book seems to be a prequel to the true book called "After That". "To After That" seems like it is indicating to another book. Still seems dry to me. Even though Gladman has taken time to add such describing words to her life, I really do not follow it. Telling us how she adds to her book and what she thinks is good and bad, does not seem like a good story to me.

I read on, and it is more like reading someone's journal. Writing bits and pieces of conversations and what is going on in her head. That is fine, I do that often (like now). I guess I will have to see what the class thinks.

People in Hell want Water...of all things...

I picked this long short story just because of the title "People in Hell Just Want a Drink of Water". Of all things, that is what those people want? I would have guessed salvation, absolution, heck there's even a movie called "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell" (hey if you're going down there, might as well be a bit comfortable right?). It just set off something in my head, it's funny. Just a drink of water...who would have thought?

I have to say, my track record has not been the best with some of these responses. This is mainly because most of the time, when I get an assignment to read something, I read just to read. I don't really look far into it and try to figure things out. I read to find a point. It isn't until I come to class and discuss these poems and stories with my fellow students then I get a better picture of what the author is trying to portray or the point they are trying to make. The "underlying message" if you will. Even though I'm not doing very well (it started with Blood Dazzler I tell ya) I guess I will give this a shot.

So it starts with the story talking about this man, who apparently is a farmer, and lives with his family. He has five sons, a wife, horses, fields, etc. His sons all have different personalities, each of them have their own paths (which is the way I find most siblings to be like...they really aren't the exact same). Then the story starts talking about a different family, their problems, they live on a farm, etc.

What I am really getting from this story is that farm life is hell. I mean you're living in an area where you are probably about five miles away from your neighbors, getting places is a hassle, and living with your family (and sometimes others) can be tough. This does take place in 1908 as it says in the beginning. Would that drink of water be something refreshing in life? Something different happening than what farm life is day by day? That's what I'm thinking anyways. That may not be it, but I guess I will see when class comes.

Blood Dazzler

The Blood Dazzler, a book of poems either by Patricia Smith or put together by Patricia Smith. I have to say that the poems I have read in this book, I do not enjoy. This is a bit odd for me because I always seem to find one way or another to enjoy reading or analyzing poetry. This book, however, has found a way to break my pattern. The wording is beautiful, the subjects are pretty ordinary, and for some reason I just cannot get through to them. It is possible that I am distracted from these works, but I do not know for sure.

For instance: the poem looking for bodies (even with me being distracted) stands out to me the most. The poem is about finding a body in a household (or that is what I think it is about, but I could be wrong). There are so many details about how to properly enter the room, look at the scene to see if some sort of theory can be made, and then catching the scent of death and finding what use to be a human being. The last stanza especially "guide the gold of her into your arms blessing the droop and blown skin marveling at the way her soul rides slickly on the outside of everything how it ripples the water how it so deftly damns your hands"..it is so poetic and disturbing, but I am just not into it.

Overall the book was okay. Maybe I would personally have better luck with other poems in trying to decipher them and share with the class. I will admit, though, Patricia Smith did know what she was doing in putting all of the poems together (whether she had written them all or not). The all flow in some sort of order as if telling a story in separate chapters. I did enjoy that.

More Poetry

Last week friday we did the writing prompts and discussed Writing down the Bones. We also talked more about the poetry in our packets and discussed, discussed, discussed.

The point I made in class was how in the writing down the bones, Goldberg said that you should write as if you are digging down deep, or writing down our bones. This would include the deepest things that we could think of to write down. It relates to what the writing prompt was about.

The writing prompt was all about writing down what came to our minds. Professor Darling would say a word (a prompt) and we had to write down everything that came to mind when that word was said. Surprisingly, when those words were said the words flowed from my pen onto the paper. A good paragraph was written for each prompt, I was overcome with a feeling of accomplishment when I read my paragraphs full of memories, thoughts, and other phrases that was almost poetic. That lead to this week's writing assignment.

Writing poetry about these feelings and words that only make sense to me may sound easy, but it is difficult. Trying to find a flow for the one prompt, to make it look like the other poems we looked at in class. I know I am not a professional poetry writer, but to make poetry that I think is good enough to share with others is very difficult. Let's see how it goes.

Sonnets and Poems...Sonnets and Poems

Last Friday we read some sonnets. One of Shakespeare's, one of Mullen's, and one of Berrigan's. I have to say, even though I do not appreciate sonnets as much as a poem fanatic, I did like these ones.

The first sonnet was Shakespeare's sonnet 130. In my group in class, we discussed how this woman that the narrator was talking about did not seem like an attractive one. Her eyes are nothing like the sun? Black wires grow on her head? YIKES! At the end, however, the narrator seems to be more attracted to her. Possibly by her personality, maybe just because opposites attract, or maybe he just feels bad for her. We were not sure, but we were sure that this love that the narrator was experiencing was more of a true love.

The same went for the second sonnet by Mullen. Mullen's sonnet was more of a revision of Shakespeare's, meaning that it was more modern. Her peepers are nothing like neon and the special at Red Lobster is redder than her kisser. Like Shakespeare's sonnet, he claims that he loves this woman more than any movie idol or lanky model that walked the earth. We thought this was also more of a truer love than the superficial "love" you hear and see in this time. Honestly, these two sonnets were really romantic.

The last sonnet by Berrigan, however, was hysterically funny. It was funny because it was pretty much true. This sonnet was more about the physical superficial attraction that we see so much of. The narrator speaks about going to the movies, having sex, and suddenly becoming pregnant. In this society we live in we see much of that. "Teenage love" is nothing more than raging hormones and having children young. Kids are raising kids nowadays! I did like this sonnet because of the humor and truthfulness in it, but it was completely opposite from what Shakespeare and Mullen wrote about.

Hopefully more poems will be like these in future readings!!!!

First Post: Introduction

Our first assignment for creative writing is to make an introduction about ourselves and the course.

My name is Eileen, I'm a sophomore at EMU, and have an undecided major as of right now. Some things came up last year and right now i'm taking classes and trying to figure out what my interests are and what I want to major in. I'm think communications because I love to talk to people and I love the performing arts..but who knows?

This class is creative writing. I'm taking it because it is always a good idea to take writing classes for whatever major you are looking into. I have much experience writing papers from the past (high school mainly) and now I thought it was time to take a writing class that is more fun. Who knows, maybe creative writing will influence what major i choose?

For right now I'm taking life one day at a time and seeing what life has to offer.