Blog
"If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that." - Stephen King
Hullo. This blog post is an analysis of the discourse community of my English Composition I class, more specifically an attempt to capture the spirit of the community. To help me identify the spirit, I will be Becky Thompson's "To You I Belong", James Paul Gee's "What is Literacy?", Pablo Neruda's "We Are Many", and "Our Community Values" by my teacher, Dr. Mangini.
Hullo. Blog post number 8, as the title suggests, is an analysis of the current condition of my digital portfolio (this website) as of this moment. It's going to be a simple procedure; simply give a grade on each of the aspects of the portfolio (flourishing, sustaining, or suffering) based on the Digital Portfolio Assessment and go into how and when I will be able to improve it. Like I said, simple procedure.
G'day. As the title suggests, this is a reflection of the first half of my English Composition I course. The main points of reflection being about how my author identity has changed during this course, how the course has affected my definition and values on writing and what concepts I value most, comparing and contrasting my past writing experiences and my present writing experiences, and finally how I may use my growing writing knowledge and concepts in my future writing endeavors. I'm also supposed to do a vlog of this in place of a traditional blog post, but I'm just going to do a blog post instead.
G'day. This post contains a fairy-tale styled story of me presenting a narrative project to my class. The fairy-tale will be based from these guidelines, giving essentially the basics on writing a - you guessed it - fairy-tale. Not much more to say, so let us begin. Just as a side note, the fairy-tale takes place while I was in high school - not college. Not so long ago, around the time of fall, there was an English class in a high school. The teacher, to coincide with the season and what her class was learning at the time, had her class do a research project on local lore; research a folk lore story on the website the teacher provided. These project weren't necessarily restricted to the state of Pennsylvania, the state where the school was located, and required to be in PowerPoint to present to class.
One student, named Austin, decided to keep it in PA and chose from the three categories. He went with the town of Centralia from the "ghost towns" category. There was one flaw with this choice: Austin was required to make a slide about whether or not he believed in the folklore he chose. The problem comes from how the Centralia coal fires actually happened, and caused the town to be uninhabitable. When he asked the teacher for advise, she just told him to give his thoughts on why it took so long for the citizens to evacuate. Cut to presentations, where Austin is very anxious about presenting. See, Austin was a rather reclusive person; kept mostly to himself, doesn't speak in class unless spoken to (or when necessary for help), and doesn't particularly like attention. It also didn't help that, during presentations before him, his classmates had a bored, almost dead, look in their eyes. It was understandable; it was the last class before they could go home. So when it was his turn to present, Austin initially refused. He didn't want to waste his breath on people who clearly looked like they didn't care. He reached a compromise with the teacher; he would present to her - and only her - after class at the cost of having his grade cut a bit. He did just that and explained his plight to the teacher, which she understood to some degree. It was left at that, and everyone went on as normal. They lived (presumably) happily ever after. Greetings. The subject of this post is to give an analysis of sorts of my memoir "Symphonic Dream". The analysis was constructed based on some scenes from "The Wizard of Oz". Surprising, I know. The scenes in question include the "If only I had the..." scene, the "Meeting the Wizard" scene, and the "You've always had the power" scene. That said, let's dive in. Symphonic Dream is, for the most part, a recollection of how I somehow managed to make probably my biggest dream (at least top 5) a reality. From the time the anniversary show was announced to when my dad and I managed to snipe the tickets, I just remember my mindset being split between "It's actually happening" and "Gotta get those tickets!" Actually, there's a quote from the "Seek & Destroy" track from Metallica's "Binge & Purge" album that sums up my thoughts during the near end of that period: "Now you guys know your lines. Don't fuck up." From between after I got the tickets and the nights before the show, I was mostly just anticipating the show and speculating the set list. As of this moment, my thoughts are mostly consumed by ideas of how I'm going to get my show on my phone, so I can relive it forever.
I remember feeling a combination of excitement, desperation, and fear before the show. Excitement because, as previously stated, this was a shot to attend my pie in the sky show. Desperation for how much I felt I needed to go to the show. Quoth SpongeBob "I NEED IT!" And fear because of the more-than-likely possibility of me missing my shot to attend the show, which did in fact happen (I still sniped the fan club exclusive show though). After the tickets, I remember feeling relieved and impatient/excited, but also still afraid. Afraid because of something going wrong (thankfully, nothing did). I was relieved when I got the tickets and excited for the show. Impatient due to the half year wait. At the show was mostly bliss, self explanatory, and a bit of discomfort. The less you know the better. Afterwards, and still now, I feel both content and disappointed. Content because... Well, you know already, but disappointed because of the ending. Long story short, it was the same finisher they always used in this modern era (Enter Sandman). There aren't many stakes involved in this, at least not to me. Before I got the tickets the biggest risk was simply missing the shot to get tickets. Between after getting the tickets and before we (my dad and I) got to the show, the biggest risk was something coming up/something happening for the flight/show to be canceled... Amongst the other things involved in planning a trip across the country. After that it was just making it to the show on time and getting home. Looking back, I'm glad everything went off without a hitch, especially since the lead singer is currently in rehab. Just got lucky, I suppose. I never really viewed myself as "in control" of how my life was to flow. Just go with the flow and see what happens. Whatever happens, happens. Know your role and shut your mouth. Stuff like that. While writing my memoir, none of these thoughts really changed. My opinion was, and still is, that I just happened to be lucky enough to get a shot at a couple of tickets for the show and I just happened to be lucky enough to get the code to my dad when I did. And of course he was lucky to be able to snipe our tickets (the wait thing had like 2000+ people) and for how cheap he got them for (about $100 for the both of us). It's circumstantial, in my opinion, for what shapes our identities between life events and the stories we tell about the events. On one hand, I believe that a story can only exist, or be triggered by, an event. Whether it's an event that you recall actually happening or just an event that caused you to create something new, the story is dependent on the event that triggered it. On the other hand, I also do believe in the saying of "the pen is mightier than the sword." The saying essentially means that, no matter what actually happened in history, it is what is recorded by people like scribes that is actually placed in history. In short, the "author" of the story can twist actions, motives, and/or words around and call it "what really happened." I stand in the middle of the road, if only because stories and events are dependent on each other; stories may have more reach than actions, but said story cannot exist without the action(s) that led up to it happening. In this post, I will be composing an emotional scene and comparing similarities to Ernest Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants". With that said, the connection I drew was how, in both works, the characters were discussing very important issues that would ultimately change the lives of those affected. I recall the day my dad told that he was moving out. It was the first week of summer vacation some 5 years ago, and my dad decided to spend the week with just myself and my sister. When he did reveal that he was indeed moving out and planning to live with his parents for a time, both he and my sister broke down into tears over the news. I didn't shed a single tear. Literally nothing. And looking back, I'm not exactly sure how I managed that. At the time, I remember saying that "It was probably for the best" or "It was inevitable" or something among those lines, but as of now I can't help but think there might have been another factor. It could've been because I simply hadn't a tear left to shed over the matter, as I had cried many of times whenever my parents would argue, at least before I grew into the role of comforting my sister whenever they argued. It could also be because I knew it was bound to happen eventually, given the frequency of the arguments and how my mom would frequently go across the street in the evenings. Or hell, it could be because it would at least put an end to arguments. I don't know. I don't really remember much of that week, aside from how it wasn't exactly eventful. We mostly just spent our time together; watching movies, playing Mario Kart, spending the nights together in the living room. It was a fun week. It was really somber by the end, but that's to be expected.
Looking back, I'm still not sure why I didn't cry over the news. My only other guess might be because, at this point in my life, I live to help others. Whether it's simply doing a job or being a comfort/venting wall, I try to help others if I can. Perhaps that was part of the start of that helpful mentality I carry now. Or maybe it was just my Autism kicking in. Like I said, I don't know. I can only speculate. The purpose behind this blog post is to compose a narrative about an emotional point in my life and try and draw parallels to Maya Angelou's "My Name is Margaret." Click the link if you want to see where the parallels were drawn. With that said, the parallel I drew from this post is the themes of anger and defiance towards something. It becomes more clear as the post goes on, so read for the parallels. During my freshman year of high school, I had moved to the house across the street. Long story short, my parents were splitting up and my neighbor, specifically my mom's current boyfriend, was also splitting up with his wife. Because they were together, and to minimize bills, myself, my mom and (at the time) my sister moved in with him and his daughter. Now me and his daughter had been friends for years, but we hardly talked due to age difference and difference in interests. So when we moved over there on a school night (story for another time), we didn't really get along. Everything always had to be her way and she would enforce rules on us that she herself wouldn't follow; all because she was the "adult". She also seemed to always be sick, so my sister and I couldn't really spend time together in the halls or the living room because of noise. We'd hang out in one of our rooms, but we wouldn't interact much with each other like we would want to. She would also go to her father when we did anything that went against her so he would drop the hammer on us. All of this festered inside me until I felt nothing but hate and contempt for her, and built to a point where she made me snap.
It was on a day where I was already fed up with her (waiting on her so she wouldn't walk alone made us so late that we needed to hitch a ride every day) and I was enjoying my afternoon with my sister, a friend and his friend. Then she came along, walking the dog with her (at the time) boyfriend. She asked if we (my sister and I) had our phones, to which we said that I had my Phone, but my sister didn't. One would think that would be enough, seeing as how my sister and I didn't really plan on separating, but not her. She told my sister to go get her phone and my sister questioned the order, so I, in an admittedly over-the-top fashion, tried to explain why she should get her phone. My... Mom's boyfriend's daughter, I guess is the correct term, apparently didn't particularly care for my explanation, and she stomped over and got in our faces. She pointed at me and pretty much told me to shut up before pointing at my sister and telling her to get her phone; and that's what broke the camel's back. In an act of defiance, I got right back in her face to essentially say "no" and "you're abusing your power". She told me to not get in her face, which I responded with "I'll get even closer." Or something among those lines. Her boyfriend tried to get me to calm down a bit, with me responding with "She's abusing her power!" They eventually left, completely ruining my fun; but little did I know that wasn't the end. When her dad got home, I assume she told him her side of what happened, because he called me up so I can explain myself. Because I couldn't find the proper words to explain myself, and refused to explain myself in the presence of his daughter (because she clearly didn't give me that same luxury), I got yelled at. Never have I ever had so much hate for a single person in my life. And despite being on better terms with her now, I still don't think that hate will ever truly leave me This blog post is going to revolve around a "what if" scenario where I (the author) am going to interact with three authors (Don Murray, Mary Karr, and Anne Lamott), and discuss their writing processes with them based on their respective words in their respective works; each of their works are linked to their names if you wish to find where I got their quotes from. Do know that Anne Lamott's quotes will be specifically found between pages 28 and 34. The year is 20XX. Technology is improving at breakneck paces and information is more readily available than ever before. Right now I'm on my way to this... Convention of sorts, for lack of a better word. It is here that I am going to meet a few authors of the past to gain some insight on how the writing process works for each of them; as an aspiring writer, this seems like good reference material for the future.
As I walk into the building I take notice to the large group of people gathered around a doorway; this is a seminar we're all attending, after all. The doors open at promptly 11:00 am and we're all let in side. We take our seats and are informed of the schedule. From 11:10 to 11:30 will be the Don Murray portion of the event, from 11:30 to 11:50 will be the Mary Karr portion, from 11:50 to 12:10 will be the Anne Lamott portion, and from 12:10 to 12:30 will be a final Q&A and reflection portion. With that out of the way and everyone ready to take notes, the stage was set for the hologram of Don Murray to appear. The hologram, and each of the following holograms, were created based off of actions each writer was reported to exhibit during their times, making them exceptionally lifelike when they spoke before us. I'm saying this now because, even as a hologram, Mr. Murray was a very passionate man when it came to writing with some very interesting, albeit somewhat contradictory, ideals about the subject. This held true during his time educating us about writing. When he opened the floor for some questions a few hands shot up. I remember someone asking "How do you know if you have what it takes to be a writer?" To which, with a sincere smile, he responded with "Writing is primarily not a matter of talent, of dedication, of vision, of vocabulary, of style, but simply a matter of sitting. The writer is a person who writes." Another attendee had questioned how someone would know what they should write, like poetry or fiction or journalism. He responded more seriously this time, saying "I believed that there was an aesthetic genre hierarchy: 1. Poetry, 2. Literary fiction, 3. Essay of literary criticism, 4. Drama, 5. Popular fiction, 6. Screenwriting, 7. Essay of personal experience, 8. Journalism. At age 77 I realized that I am a storyteller who must tell the stories life has given me. The genre must come from the story to be told not from the literary ambition of the writer." The last question he responded to went something along the lines of "How do you deal with writer's block?" And he responded with almost what I would describe as a scowl on his face, saying "Don’t look back. Yes, the draft needs fixing. But first it needs writing." He was referring to how It's always good to get your ideas, even the bad ones, down on paper, as it's better than having nothing down at all. He went on to explain his view on writer's block, comparing it to roofer's block and electrician's block on how nonsensical it was, before his time was up. He thanked us for our time and disappeared, making way for Mary Karr. Ms. Karr was very... Blunt, for lack of a better word. A lot of her section was focused on revision, so I assume that's one of her big writing strategies. Near the end, she summarized with "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." When the floor was opened for questions, amongst the first asked was "How are you able to do it?" After a brief moment to think, she had responded with "Every writer needs two selves: the Generative Self and the Editor Self. In the early draft, the generative self shakes pom-poms at every pen stroke and cheers every crossed t. In a month or so, this diligent and optimistic creature gins out, say, two hundred pages. The editor self then shows up to heft the pages, give a sniff, and say: Yeah, but . . . The editor condenses two hundred pages down to about thirty." The final question she was asked was "Is there any other advise you can give us?" She seemed more prepared for this one, as she responded pretty quickly. She then gave us this to think about: "After a lifetime of hounding authors for advice, I’ve heard three truths from every mouth: (1) Writing is painful—it’s “fun” only for novices, the very young, and hacks; (2) other than a few instances of luck, good work only comes through revision; (3) the best revisers often have reading habits that stretch back before the current age, which lends them a sense of history and raises their standards for quality." She went on a bit more about reading things from past generations before taking her bow and setting the stage for Anne Lamott. Ms. Lamott, much like Mr. Murray and Ms. Karr, made it a point to revise our work and write multiple drafts. She told us how, more often than not, those initial drafts aren't going to be good, in fact they're probably going to be garbage. She made it a point to share this interesting tidbit about how most writers operate: "Very few writers really know what they are doing until they’ve done it. Nor do they go about their business feeling dewy and thrilled. They do not type a few stiff warm-up sentences and then find themselves bounding along like huskies across the snow." That one really sticks with me. When she got to the end of her seminar, she had closed out with this bit of dialogue: "Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something— anything—down on paper." She also talked about how the following drafts were the editing drafts, but I think you get the point already. The Q&A session wasn't anything new compared to the previous authors, with a major exception of one lady who asked Ms. Lamott "How do you deal with your inner critic?" Ms. Lamott had an almost sincere smile when she responded with this: "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. Quieting these voices is at least half the battle I fight daily. But this is better than it used to be. It used to be 87 percent." She went on for a bit longer on how she dealt with things before her time was up and the other holograms joined her on stage. After the holograms were joined together on stage, we had one last Q&A session before were asked to reflect on what we learned and to forge our own writing processes. And as I sit here, staring this screen down, trying to create a good process, I realize I'm completely forgetting everything I just learned. I take a moment to breathe before piece together a... Hopefully half decent process. "My first and foremost step is to just get what's in my head out of my head and onto the paper, even if it's garbage or off topic, at least it's something." If there's one thing to take away from this little seminar, it's "Revise, revise, revise! No quality literary work is written in a single draft... Unless you're incredibly talented and/or lucky..." The final thing I took away from this little seminar is that "Writing isn't exactly easy. Like anything, it takes time, effort, and a passion for writing to be good at it. Creativity isn't randomly generated, nor is it a learned skill. It's something that just sort of... Happens." With my new mentality, I exit the seminar building and head home, eager to see what my future endeavors in writing will bring me. Greetings fellow readers, and welcome to my first blog post. As the title implies, this blog is going to revolve around me answering the questions of the Proust Questionnaire. For those of you who don't know, the Proust Questionnaire is a series of questions composed by the revered French writer, Marcel Proust. There are 35 questions in total, so let's not waste any time and get to it. __1.__What is your idea of perfect happiness?
I honestly never really thought about what my perfect happiness would be. Usually I find myself wanting to make others happy, at least just as often as I think of my own happiness. I suppose my happiness would be where I wouldn't have to worry about anything. I could just be free to do whatever I want. __2.__What is your greatest fear? My greatest fear... I can sum this up in the words of horror writer H.P. Lovecraft: "The oldest and strongest type of fear is the fear of the unknown." I can't agree more with this statement. I fear the things I cannot predict, the unanswered questions that are better left unanswered. __3.__What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? The thing I hate most about myself is my indecisiveness. I have a history of debating with myself over trivial things, like what I want or what I should do. I prefer to go with the flow and see what happens and as such, I don't really like thinking for myself and would rather be told what I want or need to do. In retrospect, I guess that is my biggest blunder. __4.__What is the trait you most deplore in others? I don't really have a specific trait that I deplore in people aside from more or less preferring to not have to deal with them in general, but that's more of a me problem than anything else. If I had to choose, I don't care for those who are very attention seeking. Those people usually annoy me to a very vast degree, though there might be an exception... Might... __5.__Which living person do you most admire? I most admire my parents, for being able to make things "work" so to speak. __6.__What is your greatest extravagance? My greatest extravagance is my tendency to try to go above and beyond expectations, or at the very least go through things very thoroughly. Whether it's going my music for the best quality following orders to the letter (at least to the best of my ability), I take pride in doing my best to do the best job that I can. __7.__What is your current state of mind? My current state of mind... I guess it's just to go with the flow and see what happens. I'm a casual observer at my core, and a such I have this "whatever happens, happens" mentality. I guess that makes me a pushover, but I think it makes me really accepting or patient with things. __8.__What do you consider the most overrated virtue? For the sake of this making this easier on me, I will be going by Aristotle's 12 virtues. Borrowing this, I believe magnificence is the most overrated virtue. The mentality of wanting to be the best at something, while not necessarily bad, isn't something that I think I want. I'm always told of how much I can do, and yet I find myself just wanting to be average. __9.__On what occasion do you lie? I lie when it is most beneficial, be it for myself or for someone I care about. For example, say I know something that needs to be kept a secret from someone; I'll do my best to feign ignorance for the sake of that person. This also applies for when I need the benefit of lying. __10.__What do you most dislike about your appearance? I suppose the physical trait I most dislike about myself is how I fit into the "stereotypical nerd" architype. Not the most well-kept, looks overweight/not physically strong, has an air of "shut in" about him. Stuff like that. __11.__Which living person do you most despise? That's a little tricky, all things considered; I'm not someone who really hates many people. I mean, I hate my generation, but that's a different story. I suppose I just hate those who are entitled, greedy, and are generally unpleasant to be around, or make things harder on others. __12.__What is the quality you most like in a man? Um... I don't exactly swing that way... __13.__What is the quality you most like in a woman? I just want someone who will love me for me. Someone who will be able to understand and get along with me, and also remain loyal to me as I would to her. __14.__Which words or phrases do you most overuse? My overused words consist mostly of "uh's" and "um's" and things that make me seem smarter than I actually am, but I thought it sounded cool in my head. Kinda like Jeff Goldblum in retrospect... __15.__What or who is the greatest love of your life? The high I get off of being able to help others is probably what I love most. That, or being lazy... __16.__When and where were you happiest? I'm happiest when I'm: someplace I can be myself, helping others, or spending time with those I care about. __17.__Which talent would you most like to have? I'd like to have a higher affinity for risk taking. Some wouldn't consider that a talent, but I do with how much trouble I have taking risk. __18.__If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? I'd either change myself to take more risk or to be less indecisive. __19.__What do you consider your greatest achievement? I feel like making it this far in my life, having a job, good place to live, people who care about me, and going to a good school, is an achievement in it of itself. Though if I'm being picky, I'd choose being able to make it to San Francisco to see Metallica's "S&M2" on 9/8/2019. It was a beautiful show I wouldn't trade anything for. __20.__If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be? Were I to die and be reborn as something or someone, I'd like to return as a muse or as someone better than I was when I died. A muse because I'd like to provide ideals or inspiration to those who really wish to improve our world. As for the latter, it's so I can be a better human being, or at least better than I currently am. __21.__Where would you most like to live? I have no specific location for this one. Just being away from stress or with those I care about is enough for me. Ideally both if possible. I personally like where I currently live, if I'm being completely honest. Though if I had to choose somewhere not where I currently live, I choose Japan, as it's somewhere I've wanted to go for a while. __22.__What is your most treasured possession? My most treasured possessions are my memories. They are mine and mine alone, and I'd never trade them for anything. __23.__What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? In my opinion, the lowest depth of misery is lacking a drive to do anything. I find myself at my lowest when I can't bring myself to do things, be them big or small tasks. __24.__What is your favorite occupation? My favorite job is just helping people. That's actually my dream job, to be able to help others, as that's what makes me happiest. __25.__What is your most marked characteristic? My eyes, I guess, are my most marked characteristic; they're this amalgamation of color I usually have trouble describing, though I just identify them as gray. __26.__What do you most value in your friends? I'm just grateful the friends I have spend time with me, though due to their situations, as well as my own, that might get more scarce at this point... __27.__Who are your favorite writers? Depends on what you mean. My favorite musical writer is probably Metallica. My favorite writer of stories, as of this posting, goes by kdog2201 on Wattpad (link to his page on his name). __28.__Who is your hero of fiction? I don't really have an actual "hero" in fiction, so I'mma just go with Vegeta from the Dragon Ball series because he's my favorite "heroic" character in the series. __29.__Which historical figure do you most identify with? In retrospect, I identify with people like George Lucas or Stephen King. My reason being that, at least in their more cinematic works, they both have a tendency to be good at creating concepts, just not great in execution. (ex. the Star Wars prequels and the Shining Miniseries). __30.__Who are your heroes in real life? My IRL heroes, simply put, are those who have helped or are helping me excel in life. __31.__What are your favorite names? Depends on if you mean just names for people or names for things, or hell even name brands. __32.__What is it that you most dislike? It's pretty self explanatory, but my biggest dislike is idiocy. __33.__What is your greatest regret? I have too many to name just one. However, they are all linked to me not really trying, so I suppose that will suffice as my greatest regret. __34.__How would you like to die? I want a quick and painless death. I don't need anything fancy or extravagant, just something simple and easy would do just fine. And when I say "painless," I mean that on both my front and the fronts of those who care about me. __35.__What is your motto? There's a quote I'm growing quite fond of in recent times, that being "Another day in the office." I'm fond of it because it's how I would like to live my life. Nothing super exciting, nothing super boring, just an average routine for an average day. |
AuthorI'm not one for talking about myself. I'd much rather listen to others. Please comment on my posts so we can start a discussion. Archives
November 2019
Categories |