It's nearly finals week, which means that the end of the semester is almost here, and final projects are to be handed in soon.
So our final blog assignment is on writing, work shopping, and blogging. Work shopping was interesting. I have never work shopped before this class and it was cool to get feedback from your peers. It helps you to see things that you wouldn't necessarily find yourself. Blogging for a class was interesting, as well, and I hope to never have to do it again. Just kidding. It was cool to blog about things for school after I stopped blogging personally. Blogging is also a different kind of writing. It forces you to be more concise and write to grab people's attention. Overall, I think blogging and work shopping are both very helpful in helping to shape someone's writing and I've learned a lot.
Well, this is it, probably my last post of the semester, but hopefully not forever.
May 02, 2014
April 10, 2014
Fiction Writing Blog Assignment #7 - Point of View
Okay, so for this assignment we have to talk about point of view.
Point of view is basically the perspective from which a story is told. There are two points of view that are the most often used and one that is rarely used.
The two points of view that are used most are:
First person
A story using this point of view is told by the main character or protagonist. It often uses the pronouns "I", "me", "we", "my", "mine", "ours", and so on and so forth.
Third person
A story using this point of view is told either by someone close to the main character or by an omniscient narrator. The main character is referred to by his/her name or using pronouns like "he", "she", "they"... you get the idea.
Now the least used point of view is one that I'm sure most people haven't read since they were kids. Well if you don't read self help books that is.
Second person
A story using second person point of view uses the pronoun "you" to make the reader the main character. Some of the best known examples of this are Choose your own adventure stories. One of my favorite books that used second person view when I was a kids was this book:
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this blog. I mean, how couldn't you enjoy it? There's a picture of a monkey wearing a lab coat and mixing chemicals in front of you.
March 27, 2014
Fiction Writing Blog Assignment #6 - The Pink Institution
I think it's kinda funny how we have a week long break from papers and stuff, but before the break more assignments are given. Kind of defeats the purpose of having a break. Anyhow, for our Fiction Writing class we had to read The Pink Institution by Selah Saterstrom and do a short blog about it. This was actually one of the only things I didn't mind doing for school over the break. I read through The Pink Institution the first Saturday of the break before my shift at work and was thrown off a bit because of it.
The Pink Institution is a story about a multi-generational family and all the fucked up ways they damage their children. If I could give this book a subtitle it would be The Pink Institution: A How-to Guide On How Not To Raise Your Children. There are suicides, attempted suicides, drunken debauchery, children watching sexual events unfold in front of them, and all around weirdness. The Pink Institution is darkly unsettling and it paints a twisted portrait of a dysfunctional, Southern, white trash family, which is I guess the point. I just wish the story was a little easier to follow. There are so many characters that I don't quite remember the names of people, just some of the events.
Overall, this was an interesting read and I wouldn't mind checking out some more of Selah Saterstrom's work.
March 14, 2014
Fiction Writing Blog Assignment #5 - Literary Blog
Okay, so for this blog assignment I have to post about a literary blog that I've discovered. So the literary community I've found is called Scribophile.
I'm not a member of it but I think I may join. It's cool because you have to earn the right to post your own work by earning karma points. You earn karma points by leaving critics on other writers' work, and you're guaranteed 3 critics on your own work. There are workshops you can take, bulletins you can post, and you can make friends.
There are premium accounts you can pay for, but there are also free accounts as well. It seems like a pretty cool community.
I'm not a member of it but I think I may join. It's cool because you have to earn the right to post your own work by earning karma points. You earn karma points by leaving critics on other writers' work, and you're guaranteed 3 critics on your own work. There are workshops you can take, bulletins you can post, and you can make friends.
There are premium accounts you can pay for, but there are also free accounts as well. It seems like a pretty cool community.
February 27, 2014
Fiction Writing Blog Assignment #4 - Unassigned Story From Our Book
So, as instructed, my class had to pick a story that was not assigned to us in our collection of short stories and post an excerpt from the story. From there we're supposed to talk about the excerpt we posted in one of three ways. The three things we have to choose from are:
1) a great (or horrible) opening
2) good (or lame) dialogue
3) sharp (or weak) characterization.
The story I chose to talk about is Thom Jones's (I tried to find a good website to link to find more info about the writer, but Thom Jones isn't all over the internet. So, Wikipedia it is!) "The Pugilist At Rest." Here's the first paragraph from "The Pugilist At Rest":
Hey Baby got caught writing a letter to his girl when he was supposed to be taking notes on the specs of the M-14 rifle. We were sitting in a stifling hot Quonset hut during the first weeks of boot camp, August 1966, at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego. Sergeant Wright snatched the letter out of Hey Baby's hand, and later that night in the squad bay he read the letter to the Marine recruits of Platoon 263, his voice laden with sarcasm. "Hey, Baby!" he began, and then as he went into the body of the letter he worked himself into a state of outrage and disgust. It was a letter to Rosie Rottencrotch, he said at the end, and what really mattered, what was really at issue and what was of utter importance was not Rosie Rottencrotch and her steaming-hot panties but rather the muzzle velocity of the M-14 rifle.
I feel like this is a great story opening. From the opening paragraph I was hooked and wanted to know more about what was going on and who these people were. I don't really know what else to say about this. Post-Office by Charles Bukowski is one of my favorite books ever and this story kind of reminded me of it for whatever reason. I might have a new book to try to find next time I'm looking for a new book to read.
1) a great (or horrible) opening
2) good (or lame) dialogue
3) sharp (or weak) characterization.
The story I chose to talk about is Thom Jones's (I tried to find a good website to link to find more info about the writer, but Thom Jones isn't all over the internet. So, Wikipedia it is!) "The Pugilist At Rest." Here's the first paragraph from "The Pugilist At Rest":
Hey Baby got caught writing a letter to his girl when he was supposed to be taking notes on the specs of the M-14 rifle. We were sitting in a stifling hot Quonset hut during the first weeks of boot camp, August 1966, at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego. Sergeant Wright snatched the letter out of Hey Baby's hand, and later that night in the squad bay he read the letter to the Marine recruits of Platoon 263, his voice laden with sarcasm. "Hey, Baby!" he began, and then as he went into the body of the letter he worked himself into a state of outrage and disgust. It was a letter to Rosie Rottencrotch, he said at the end, and what really mattered, what was really at issue and what was of utter importance was not Rosie Rottencrotch and her steaming-hot panties but rather the muzzle velocity of the M-14 rifle.
I feel like this is a great story opening. From the opening paragraph I was hooked and wanted to know more about what was going on and who these people were. I don't really know what else to say about this. Post-Office by Charles Bukowski is one of my favorite books ever and this story kind of reminded me of it for whatever reason. I might have a new book to try to find next time I'm looking for a new book to read.
February 17, 2014
Fiction Writing Blog Assignment #3 - Inspirational Quotes
I know it's super early, but here is my blog post for this week. We have to post an inspirational quote about writing for our classmates, but I chose three. Anyway, here they are.
For my fellow sci-fi and fantasy writers in class, I want to post this quote:
“I have never listened to anyone who criticized my taste in space travel, sideshows or gorillas. When this occurs, I pack up my dinosaurs and leave the room.” ― Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing
I also, would like to post the following quote, because I feel that too many people are writing to be meaningful, deep, or seemingly intellectual and not to write a good and entertaining story. Personally, I want people to enjoy my stories. I want people to read my stories and not want them to end. With that said, I think this quote is important:
“A good writer is basically a story teller, not a scholar or a redeemer of mankind.” ― Issac B. Singer
I found this while looking for a writing quote that I felt strongly about and thought that it was humorous enough to post. There have been plenty of times that I've heard classmates say things like, "That professor doesn't know what he/she's talking about." So, I think it represents how most pompous writing students feel about their professors instead of making the best of their classes/teachings.
“Yeah, I know what your English Professor tried to tell you. But if your English Professor could make a living writing fiction, they would have been doing it.” ― Dean Wesley Smith
Funny thing about this author, I've never heard about him before finding this quote and, upon looking him up, found that he's known mostly for his Star Trek novels, as well as film novelizations. Well, that's all I have. Enjoy guys!
For my fellow sci-fi and fantasy writers in class, I want to post this quote:
“I have never listened to anyone who criticized my taste in space travel, sideshows or gorillas. When this occurs, I pack up my dinosaurs and leave the room.” ― Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing
I also, would like to post the following quote, because I feel that too many people are writing to be meaningful, deep, or seemingly intellectual and not to write a good and entertaining story. Personally, I want people to enjoy my stories. I want people to read my stories and not want them to end. With that said, I think this quote is important:
“A good writer is basically a story teller, not a scholar or a redeemer of mankind.” ― Issac B. Singer
I found this while looking for a writing quote that I felt strongly about and thought that it was humorous enough to post. There have been plenty of times that I've heard classmates say things like, "That professor doesn't know what he/she's talking about." So, I think it represents how most pompous writing students feel about their professors instead of making the best of their classes/teachings.
“Yeah, I know what your English Professor tried to tell you. But if your English Professor could make a living writing fiction, they would have been doing it.” ― Dean Wesley Smith
Funny thing about this author, I've never heard about him before finding this quote and, upon looking him up, found that he's known mostly for his Star Trek novels, as well as film novelizations. Well, that's all I have. Enjoy guys!
February 13, 2014
Fiction Writing Blog Assignment #2 - Story Beginnings
I don't really know how to describe my feelings on story beginnings. There's not any one thing I like about them. If I enjoy the way the story/book starts, it compels me to read more. That doesn't mean the story or book will hold my attention or enjoyment permaneantly, however. I've come across plenty of books or stories that had interesting beginnings, but failed to keep me wanting more. The most recent book like that being The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman. Alternatively, if I don't like the beginning, I may not be deterred from a story or book, if I like the writing style or characters. If the story continues to not live up to expectations, that's when I may drop it completely. Beginnings are a strange thing for me, I don't know why or if it's just me, but that's just how I am.
That being said, we had to look at the beginning of Jhumpa Lahiri's "A Temporary Matter".
The notice informed them that it was a temporary matter: for five days their electricity would be cut off for one hour, beginning at eight P.M. A line had gone down in the last snowstorm, and the repairmen were going to take advantage of the milder evenings to set it right. The work would affect only the houses on the quiet tree-lined street, within walking distance of a row of brick-faced stores and a trolley stop, where Shoba and Shukumar had lived for three years.
“It’s good of them to warn us,” Shoba conceded after reading the notice aloud, more for her own benefit than Shukumar’s. She let the strap of her leather satchel, plump with files, slip from her shoulders, and left it in the hallway as she walked into the kitchen. She wore a navy blue poplin raincoat over gray sweatpants and white sneakers, looking, at thirty-three, like the type of woman she’d once claimed she would never resemble.
She’d come from the gym. Her cranberry lipstick was visible only on the outer reaches of her mouth, and her eyeliner had left charcoal patches beneath her lower lashes. She used to look this way sometimes, Shukumar thought, on mornings after a party or a night at a bar, when she’d been too lazy to wash her face, too eager to collapse into his arms. She dropped a sheaf of mail on the table without a glance. Her eyes were still fixed on the notice in her other hand. “But they should do this sort of thing during the day.”
“When I’m here, you mean,” Shukumar said. He put a glass lid on a pot of lamb, adjusting it so only the slightest bit of steam could escape. Since January he’d been working at home, trying to complete the final chapters of his dissertation on agrarian revolts in India. “When do the repairs start?”
“It says March nineteenth. Is today the nineteenth?” Shoba walked over to the framed corkboard that hung on the wall by the fridge, bare except for a calendar of William Morris wallpaper patterns. She looked at it as if for the first time, studying the wallpaper pattern carefully on the top half before allowing her eyes to fall to the numbered grid on the bottom. A friend had sent the calendar in the mail as a Christmas gift, even though Shoba and Shukumar hadn’t celebrated Christmas that year.
From the first five paragraphs of "A Temporary Matter," we get a clear indication of the characters, the setting, and the inklings of there being trouble between the story's main characters, Shoba and Shukumar. The characters are human and completely relatable.
The story beginning I chose to compare it to is Philip K. Dick's "A Scanner Darkly", a book that I've been meaning to read for a while, but just picked up. It starts:
Once a guy stood all day shaking bugs from his hair. The doctor told him there were no bugs in his hair. After he had taken a shower for eight hours, standing under hot water hour after hour suffering the pain of the bugs, he got out and dried himself, and he still had bugs in his hair; in face, he had bugs all over him. A month later he had bugs in his lungs.
Having nothing else to do or think about, he began to work out theoretically the life cycle of the bugs, and, with the aid of the Britannica, try to determine specifically which bugs they were. They now filled his house. He read about many different kinds and finally noticed bugs outdoors, so he concluded they were aphids. After that decision came to his mind it never changed, no matter what other people told him...like "Aphids don't bite people."
They said that to him because the endless biting of the bugs kept him in torment. At the 7-11 grocery store, part of a chain spread out over most of California, he bought spray cans of Raid and Black Flag and Yard Guard. First he sprayed the house, then himself. The Yard Guard seemed to work the best.
This is a very different story beginning than the one that we saw in "A Temporary Matter". In "A Scanner Darkly", there is no clearly defined main character, the only character we have is "a guy"; the setting is unknown other than the fact that it's set in California, which is incredibly vague; and the main conflict of the story isn't depicted, only a problem a character is having at the given time. The beginning is, overall, very mysterious and, personally, makes me want to know more about what is going to happen next.
That being said, we had to look at the beginning of Jhumpa Lahiri's "A Temporary Matter".
The notice informed them that it was a temporary matter: for five days their electricity would be cut off for one hour, beginning at eight P.M. A line had gone down in the last snowstorm, and the repairmen were going to take advantage of the milder evenings to set it right. The work would affect only the houses on the quiet tree-lined street, within walking distance of a row of brick-faced stores and a trolley stop, where Shoba and Shukumar had lived for three years.
“It’s good of them to warn us,” Shoba conceded after reading the notice aloud, more for her own benefit than Shukumar’s. She let the strap of her leather satchel, plump with files, slip from her shoulders, and left it in the hallway as she walked into the kitchen. She wore a navy blue poplin raincoat over gray sweatpants and white sneakers, looking, at thirty-three, like the type of woman she’d once claimed she would never resemble.
She’d come from the gym. Her cranberry lipstick was visible only on the outer reaches of her mouth, and her eyeliner had left charcoal patches beneath her lower lashes. She used to look this way sometimes, Shukumar thought, on mornings after a party or a night at a bar, when she’d been too lazy to wash her face, too eager to collapse into his arms. She dropped a sheaf of mail on the table without a glance. Her eyes were still fixed on the notice in her other hand. “But they should do this sort of thing during the day.”
“When I’m here, you mean,” Shukumar said. He put a glass lid on a pot of lamb, adjusting it so only the slightest bit of steam could escape. Since January he’d been working at home, trying to complete the final chapters of his dissertation on agrarian revolts in India. “When do the repairs start?”
“It says March nineteenth. Is today the nineteenth?” Shoba walked over to the framed corkboard that hung on the wall by the fridge, bare except for a calendar of William Morris wallpaper patterns. She looked at it as if for the first time, studying the wallpaper pattern carefully on the top half before allowing her eyes to fall to the numbered grid on the bottom. A friend had sent the calendar in the mail as a Christmas gift, even though Shoba and Shukumar hadn’t celebrated Christmas that year.
From the first five paragraphs of "A Temporary Matter," we get a clear indication of the characters, the setting, and the inklings of there being trouble between the story's main characters, Shoba and Shukumar. The characters are human and completely relatable.
The story beginning I chose to compare it to is Philip K. Dick's "A Scanner Darkly", a book that I've been meaning to read for a while, but just picked up. It starts:
Once a guy stood all day shaking bugs from his hair. The doctor told him there were no bugs in his hair. After he had taken a shower for eight hours, standing under hot water hour after hour suffering the pain of the bugs, he got out and dried himself, and he still had bugs in his hair; in face, he had bugs all over him. A month later he had bugs in his lungs.
Having nothing else to do or think about, he began to work out theoretically the life cycle of the bugs, and, with the aid of the Britannica, try to determine specifically which bugs they were. They now filled his house. He read about many different kinds and finally noticed bugs outdoors, so he concluded they were aphids. After that decision came to his mind it never changed, no matter what other people told him...like "Aphids don't bite people."
They said that to him because the endless biting of the bugs kept him in torment. At the 7-11 grocery store, part of a chain spread out over most of California, he bought spray cans of Raid and Black Flag and Yard Guard. First he sprayed the house, then himself. The Yard Guard seemed to work the best.
This is a very different story beginning than the one that we saw in "A Temporary Matter". In "A Scanner Darkly", there is no clearly defined main character, the only character we have is "a guy"; the setting is unknown other than the fact that it's set in California, which is incredibly vague; and the main conflict of the story isn't depicted, only a problem a character is having at the given time. The beginning is, overall, very mysterious and, personally, makes me want to know more about what is going to happen next.
January 20, 2014
Fiction Writing Blog Assignment #1- Favorite book and quote
I don't know if it's just me or something, but I always have a really difficult time deciding what my favorite [insert topic here] is. So rather than say what my favorite book is, I'm just going to pick a book that I am immensely fond of and choose a quote from that.
The book I chose to take dialogue from is David Benioff's City of Thieves. I love this book and I've been meaning to read more of Benioff's books, but haven't gotten around to it yet.
Anyway, here's the chunk I chose from the final few pages of City of Thieves:
She grinned at me, that infuriating curl of the lips that seemed more smirk than smile, her blue eyes watching mine to see if I recognized her. If I were a little better at playing the game, I might have pretended not to, I might have said, "Hello, are you looking for someone?"
"You're not as skinny as before," she said. "But you're still too skinny."
"You have hair," I replied, and immediately wished I could take it back. For three and a half years I had dreamed of her---literally, she had marched in her oversize coveralls through half the dreams I remembered---and all I could think to say when she finally arrived was, "You have hair"?
Anyway, here's the chunk I chose from the final few pages of City of Thieves:
She grinned at me, that infuriating curl of the lips that seemed more smirk than smile, her blue eyes watching mine to see if I recognized her. If I were a little better at playing the game, I might have pretended not to, I might have said, "Hello, are you looking for someone?"
"You're not as skinny as before," she said. "But you're still too skinny."
"You have hair," I replied, and immediately wished I could take it back. For three and a half years I had dreamed of her---literally, she had marched in her oversize coveralls through half the dreams I remembered---and all I could think to say when she finally arrived was, "You have hair"?
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