Blog #10: What a Profile!

To help us prepare for our profiles due this weekend, you will need to have interviewed the person you will be profiling for this blog.  This forces you to do today what you could put off until tomorrow :)  Once you've spoken to him/her, take the notes from your interview/conversation and begin to apply them to a potential opening for your profile. Again, you might open with a scene where we see some form of action taking place.  Make sure it's obvious up front who or what is being profiled.  As you zoom in your focus, is there something in particular--a concrete object, a particular action or word--that evokes the tension or complexity of this person's story? (Think of the eyes from The Boy with Unusual Vision or the stethoscope from Difficult Decisions.)  Also, work to capture the character of your subject through his or her own words: we should get a flavor of her through the specific words (does she say "ain't" or phrases like "one would think") she uses as well as the nuances of what it's like to have a conversation with her (long winded, pithy, frank).  Think how you might get creative with dialogue within scene, borrowing techniques from other authors: compressing some dialogue, pacing dialogue with action, experimenting with dialogue tags, etc.

In essence, then, write your opening, which might be anywhere from one to three paragraphs in length.  

Note:  If for some outstanding reason you aren't able to interview your person before this blog is due, then you'll need to do something similar with someone who knows this person in some fashion and move a bit closer to your profile in that way.  Who knows, this might end up being in the final piece in the end.

Blog #9: Get on the Bus, Gus

Find yourself in a public place and record, as verbatim as possible, a conversation you overhear. The point of this blog is to capture dialogue as realistically as possible, paying attention to how we really talk with one another in fragments, how we interrupt, how we meander in a conversation but quite often come back around.

Public transit is one of the best places to capture interesting, evocative details, particularly around rushhour, particularly at the back of the bus. If you aren't able to ride the bus, then any public place will do. You might scope the place and look for a particularly interesting pair of mouths talking. Or, and this would be more experimental, you could even record someone on their cell phone or talking to him or herself. That might be interesting.

Then, as you sit down to write your blog, make this into a scene. We'll want to know where we are, what's on the walls, how the place smells, when the dialogue might be interrupted/punctuated with small actions, how the people are transformed into characters, etc. You might even factor into the scene.  Have fun!

Blog #8: 1 Stranger Project

Every picture tells a story, don't it?

The 100 Strangers Project (http://www.100strangers.com/) has one simple goal in mind: take 100 pictures of people you don't know. Please visit the website and consider how a picture captures that individual in some way and manages to tell a piece of his or her story.

For this blog, our goal is to take a snapshot of one stranger with the pen. So, for this assignment, I'd like for you to find someone you don't know, ask him or her a question or two, and write it up as a scene.  

To break the ice, you might consider this question: If you could be any animal, what would it be and why?  Feel free to tweak the question as you see fit to elicit a response.  Also feel free to blame me if that helps (i.e. I have this class and this jerk professor who's making me ask this question, so...).  Regardless, strike up a conversation and take notes while you do.

Once you've settled down to writing your blog, recreate the scene for your readers, weaving dialogue and actions into this moment.  Make it a scene: pay attention to their clothes, to where you are, to how they react to you approaching them, to your own feelings when approaching, and to what they actually say.  Don't worry about any larger meaning--the whole point is to evoke the particulars of the moment through action and dialogue.

Some of this will, naturally, make you uncomfortable. That's the point, in some ways. But, when you think of it as you're getting to know one person who walks this planet with you a little better, it's actually a pretty cool thing to do.

Finally, anyone who is so inclined to take a picture and if they're willing, please do so.  Looking forward to who you meet!

Blog #7: Research and Voice

How do you write about research without sounding stuffy?  How do you make facts come across as engaging material that flow in and out of your essay?  With this blog, I want you practice just that, taking a piece of research relevant to your personal essay's topic and working to blend it smoothly with the voice you're writing from.

First, you must adopt that voice in which you'll speak from for your personal essay.  Get a good grip on that, then see how transparent you can make your research, almost to the point that we don't realize we're reading research, but just hearing a storyteller giving us interesting facts to consider.  Reread "On Pests" for examples of how her language, how her sentence style, is uninterrupted by facts on mining bees, for instance.  Consider how you might paraphrase or use parts of quotes to bring facts in consistently with your voice.

So, you're not writing a scene here necessarily, but a paragraph or two that uses your writing style to incorporate research into your paragraphs in a seamless way.

Blog #6: Voices in My Head

Next week, we're going to begin discussing voice.  This blog will begin practicing that technique.  First, consider five fads that have come and gone or that soon will, in your opinion--e.g. bellbottoms, toe shoes, reality television, goatees, casseroles, etc.  Choose one fad and write an essay titled "On __" inserting your fad.

BUT, before you begin typing a single word, first imagine what personality you want to speak for this thing.  Are you feeling snarky and sarcastic about the worth of this thing?  Or, are you genuinely curious, perhaps even philosophical, about how it could have achieved such fame?  Does this mentioning of this fad evoke an aggression or, in contrast, a nostalgia for you?  Choose one emotion and write about this fad from that emotion, considering how short vs long lines, simple vs. heightened language, transitions vs. non sequiturs, and repetition all help to convey this mood, this voice for you.  Before you write, in other words, consider what metaphorical clothes you've put on and let those clothes define a particular voice you're speaking from.

Blog #5: On Excrement

Choose a subject that isn't often celebrated--dandelions, flies, ascots, Cauliflower, temper tantrums, etc.--and write a mini-essay that celebrates your chosen topic. Please explore this topic both through personal experience in a scene, as well as through preliminary research done on the web.  Surprise us not only with your topic but where it ends up taking you as well.  Title your blog "On ___" (filling in the blank with your concrete thing to celebrate).

Blog #4: Working the Scene

Our drafts are due this coming weekend.  With that in mind, let's use this week's blog to get ahead.  For blog post #4, share a scene that will be a part of your longer memoir.  Use the blog to practice really fleshing the sensory details out and pulling us deep into the moment.  This might be several paragraphs long.  If so, begin with your camera lens panned wide--showing us the place, who's in the place with you, what the general action is that is occurring.  Be conscious of the details you choose in how they evoke a particular mood and feeling.  Then, begin to zoom your lens in.  Let us see specific details.  Let  us hear dialogue.  Let the scene begin and move through descriptive action from there.

Blog #3: Don't Tell it on the Mountain, Show it Instead

Retell a time in which you stole something (interpret this as literally or metaphorically as you wish).  Take us back to the moment of theft; pepper it with sensory detail; flesh it out into a full blown scene.  Because this memory will hold some measure of conflict for you, I want to understand those feelings of conflict through the details, not what you tell me I should feel.  How might you describe the people in the scene in a way that reveals your feelings towards them?  Which details of the place itself will you choose to include that will help show us how you felt at the time?  If you are nervous, for instance, how might you show us this through physical actions rather than telling us so?  If there is a poster on the wall that is particularly revealing, how might you use it as a prop to show us how to understand the tension in the moment?  While you're not writing a riddle, and telling details have their place too, let's practice recognizing the power of showing rather than telling your reader how to interpret a scene with this blog.

Blog #2: My First...

If Van Meter's essay, "First," is inspiration, for our "first" real blog, I'd like for you to think on a first and write about it.  Title your blog, My first ___, filling in the blank with your topic: e.g.  kiss, encounter with death, taboo, regret, recognition of my race/gender/class, stolen item, betrayal, joyful memory, recognition of who I am, etc.

Write it up as a scene, a moment in time, infused with detail and action.  This may end up being around 500 words or more.  Once you have finished detailing this memory, hit return a couple of times and write a brief paragraph where you consider what this memory has to teach you and your reader.  What internal conflict does it offer up to you?  How were you changed in some subtle or deeper way?

This is due prior to Wednesday's class.

Blog #9: Get on the Bus, Gus

Find yourself in a public place and record, as verbatim as possible, a conversation you overhear. The point of this blog is to capture dialogue as realistically as possible, paying attention to how we really talk with one another in fragments, how we interrupt, how we meander in a conversation but quite often come back around.

Public transit is one of the best places to capture interesting, evocative details, particularly around rushhour, particularly at the back of the bus. If you aren't able to ride the bus, then any public place will do. You might scope the place and look for a particularly interesting pair of mouths talking. Or, and this would be more experimental, you could even record someone on their cell phone. That might be interesting.

Then, as you sit down to write your blog, make this into a scene. We'll want to know where we are, what's on the walls, how the place smells, when the dialogue might be interrupted/punctuated with small actions, how the people are transformed into characters, etc. You might even factor into the scene.  Have fun!

Blog #8: 100 Strangers Project

Every picture tells a story, don't it?

The 100 Strangers Project (http://www.100strangers.com/) has one simple goal in mind: take 100 pictures of people you don't know. Please visit the website and consider how a picture captures that individual in some way and manages to tell a piece of his or her story.

For this blog, our goal is to take a snapshot of a complete stranger with the pen. So, for this assignment, I'd like for you to find someone you don't know, ask him or her a question or two, and write it up as a scene.

To break the ice, you might consider this question: If you could be any animal, what would it be and why?  Feel free to tweak the question as you see fit to elicit a response.  Also feel free to blame me if that helps (i.e. I have this class and this jerk professor who's making me ask this question, so...).  Regardless, strike up a conversation and take notes while you do.

Once you've settled down to writing your blog, recreate the scene for your readers, weaving dialogue and actions into this moment.  Make it a scene: pay attention to their clothes, to how they react to you approaching them, to your own feelings when approaching, and to what they actually say.  Don't worry about any larger meaning--the whole point is to evoke the particulars of the moment through action and dialogue.

Some of this will, naturally, make you uncomfortable. That's the point, in some ways. But, when you think of it as you're getting to know one person who walks this planet with you a little better, it's actually a pretty cool thing to do.

Finally, anyone who is so inclined to take a picture and if they're willing, please do so.  Looking forward to who you meet!

Blog #7: Research and Voice

How do you write about research without sounding stuffy?  How do you make facts come across as engaging material that flow in and out of your essay?  With this blog, I want you practice just that, taking a piece of research relevant to your personal essay's topic and working to blend it smoothly with the voice you're writing from.

First, you must adopt that voice in which you'll speak from for your personal essay.  Get a good grip on that, then see how transparent you can make your research, almost to the point that we don't realize we're reading research, but just hearing a storyteller giving us interesting facts to consider.  Reread "On Pests" for examples of how her language, how her sentence style, is uninterrupted by facts on mining bees, for instance.  Consider how you might paraphrase or use parts of quotes to bring facts in consistently with your voice.

So, you're not writing a scene here necessarily, but a paragraph or two that uses your writing style to incorporate research into your paragraphs in a seamless way.

Blog #6: Trying on a New Set of Voices

Next week, we're going to begin discussing voice.  This blog will begin practicing that technique.  First, consider five fads that have come and gone or that soon will, in your opinion--e.g. bellbottoms, toe shoes, reality television, goatees, casseroles, etc.  Choose one fad and write an essay titled "On __" inserting your fad.

BUT, before you begin typing a single word, first imagine what personality you want to speak for this thing.  Are you feeling snarky and sarcastic about the worth of this thing?  Or, are you genuinely curious, perhaps even philosophical, about how it could have achieved such fame?  Does this mentioning of this fad evoke an aggression or, in contrast, a nostalgia for you?  Choose one emotion and write about this fad from that emotion, considering how short vs long lines, simple vs. heightened language, transitions vs. non sequiturs, and repetition all help to convey this mood, this voice for you.  Before you write, in other words, consider what metaphorical clothes you've put on and let those clothes define a particular voice you're speaking from.

Blog #5: On Excrement

Choose a subject that isn't often celebrated--dandelions, flies, Hitler mustaches, Cauliflower, temper tantrums, etc.--and write a mini-essay that celebrates your chosen topic. Please explore this topic both through personal experience in a scene, as well as through preliminary research done on the web.  Surprise us not only with your topic but where it ends up taking you as well.  Title your blog "On ___" (filling in the blank with your concrete thing to celebrate).

Blog #1: To tell you the truth...

For your first blog, think back to one of your earliest memories that you can recall.  Spend five minutes writing this memory down--what was happening, where was it happening, who was there, what was the weather like, etc.   Write now and read the rest of the instructions once you have finished.  Now, what parts of your memory are hazy or suspect in your mind?  What parts feel right but you're not sure about the exact detail?  If you were to turn this memory into a memoir, would you have any problems calling it Creative Nonfiction?  Why or why not?  Do you agree with author Joan Didion that "if you remember it, then it's true?" Why or why not?