Category Archives: Writing

Recently Watched

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A couple weeks ago, my friends and I decided to rent a movie for a girls night. We were going for “Big Hero 6,” but ended up with “Blended,” a comedy with Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore.

I usually am weary when it comes to comedies, especially romantic comedies, but I loved this one. What’s great about it is that is not wholly a traditional romantic comedy. So called “Rom-Coms” usually involve two single people who have great jobs and are typically gorgeous, but not a lot of responsibilities. In this movie, however, the main characters (Lauren and Jim) are both single parents.

Lauren and Jim are both relatively new at being single parents: Lauren is divorced and Jim’s wife died. And both of them have handfuls to deal with: Lauren has two incredibly boisterous boys who remind me somewhat of the Weasley twins and Jim has three girls, one of which is struggling with puberty and a dad who treats her like a boy.

Inadvertently, they end up at resort for families in Africa. Lauren and Jim (like Benedick and Beatrice, Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger) don’t like each other at first, but eventually end up becoming mentors for each others’ children.

What struck me about the movie is that it does not pretend that there is dark in the world. While it is clearly a light family movie, it hints as much as it can at deep social issues. It sympathizes with those who do not have it together and the children who are starting to grow aware of themselves. It is thanks to the writers of the screenplay that audiences can see themselves in the teen girl, the boy who complains of his mother, but is incredibly protective of her, and the two parents who fail to connect to their offspring sometimes.

One example of this is a scene in which one of the girls leaves a spot at the table for the mother who she hasn’t let go of yet. Lauren tries to sit down in the reserved seat and the girl (sorry, I don’t remember her name) tells her its taken. Lauren takes a couple seconds to comprehend the situation and then moves to another seat. Throughout the movie, Lauren makes sure that the girl’s mother has a place to sit.

Not only does this attest to the strength of the writer’s minds, but also to the potential for brilliant human understanding and kindness.

On a scale of 1-10, I would give it an 8.5.

Currently Reading

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The book that I am in the midst of is J.K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy. I have wanted to read this book since it came out, but only just recently made the decision to get it.

The novel is about the aftermath of the death of Barry Fairbrother, a council member, in the town of Pagford. Although the town seems idyllic, it soon becomes clear that a war is brewing between its members.

It is difficult to not view J.K. Rowling’s writings like you would the Harry Potter series. But just because they are written by the same author, doesn’t mean that they will be similar.

Indeed, they are extremely different. While I can still hear the voice of Rowling that I know and love, it is adult. It uses vulgar language that belongs to the adult world. And there are less metaphors in this book as in Harry Potter because the issues are more overt. For example, werewolves in the Potterverse have been labeled by the author as metaphors for sexually transmitted diseases, especially AIDS. In Casual Vacancy, there are no metaphors for abuse. It is not taken lightly; it is quite explicit.

One of the aspects of the novel that I particularly like is how she sections off the novel. She does not use chapters in the normal sense. Instead, they are separated into the days of the week. The first day is Sunday, during which the actual death is described and then on Monday, everyone’s reactions are recorded. While the sudden introduction of the characters in just a few pages makes it a little confusing (it isn’t as confusing as the characters in As I Lay Dying, I have to admit), it emphasizes the fact that everyone experiences moments, days differently. Going a little off-topic: that is one of the major reasons why I am fascinated with creative nonfiction. When I write a piece based off of memory, I remember certain details that other people may not or I remember them in a different way.

One thing that I have always admired about J.K. Rowling’s writing is that she makes her characters so incredibly human. Some of her characters are not likeable in the slightest and some only have a few redeeming qualities and the same time others are good people that make mistakes every once in a while. A good writer can write about likeable and mostly good people, but a mark of a great writer is being able to write unlikeable characters.

Speaking of great writers… Looking back at all her books, I can definitely see how far she has come. In Sorcerer’s/Philosopher’s Stone, she definitely had talent and wit, but grew immensely by the time she wrote Deathly Hallows. Some have worried that she would loose her writing prowess after Harry Potter, but she hasn’t. If anything, she has gotten better.

It truly is inspiring to know that such a great writer and woman has overcome her struggles and has increasingly improved and honed her skills. It gives hope to me, an emerging writer, that I too can improve and be successful.

I am…

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“Astronaut John Glenn says a standard test for astronaut candidates was to have them give twenty answers to the question ‘Who am I?’ ‘The first few answers,’ he said, ‘were easy. After that, it got harder.'”- from Challenge: A Daily Meditation Program Based on ‘The Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius by Mark Link, S.J.

This is same question that I was given as my first creative nonfiction prompt. I think it is, in essence, what the genre is all about: self-identity. Also, it explores how humans can turn into monsters and just generally what it means to be human. But before I get off topic…

John Glenn is right. It does get harder after the first few. Believe me, I tried. After the first five, I started to struggle with how else to describe myself. Somehow, it would be much easier if I used metaphorical language. For example: I am purple (it is not only my favorite color, but has always meant ‘passion for survival). But in plain speak, in regular old English, it is much harder.

Here are a few that I came up with:

I am a human

I am a human with strengths and weakness.

I am an observer.

I am an eavesdropper.

I am the daughter of two amazing parents.

I could have added that I am a child of God and a player of Bananagrams and a night owl, but I didn’t think of those options this time. But that’s the beauty of this prompt: It is always changing. If I sat down and did it tomorrow, it might be different. I’m excited to do it in a year or two and see how differently I see myself.

I ended this list with “I am a complicated person,” mostly because I couldn’t think of anything else to write, but also because it is very true. I don’t like the fact that I’m complicated, but it reassures me to think that other people are as complicated as me.

All of descriptions on my list are from myself. They are about how I see me as a person. However, I know that my list might be altered either dramatically or subtly if it was made by my family and friends.

A related quote that I would like to leave you with is: “If I saw myself as my friends and other people see me, I would need an introduction.

Currently reading/openings

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This weekend, I opened up one of my used books for American Lit to start reading it. The person who owned or rented it before me had written all over it. I usually find marks in books annoying, especially since I can’t stand writing in them myself. But her notes are amusing and sometimes even spot on. The remark that first caught my attention was on the page opposite the first page of prose. It says,” Why does he open with this?”

In all of my high school English classes (not so much my college ones), the teacher often started with a variant of this question when beginning a novel or short story. With The Raisin in the Sun, we discussed why Lorraine Hansberry took the title from Langston Hughe’s poem, “Harlem.” And with Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, we talked about the nature filled opening. It is a common question for an English major to ask to themselves or out loud. But I think it is also a common question for humans to ask.

Sometimes it comes in different forms. “Why do we do this?” “Why do we do that?” Why when we greet each other do we say “Hello” or “Good morning/afternoon/evening?” Why do we not say “Eat well today!” or “Sleep well tonight!” Well, the answer is: because our normal greetings make sense and are expected.

But let’s return to the original question: “Why does (do) he (we) open with this?” We do not have a choice about how we start in this world, but we do have many other choices after that. That is one thing that I have learned: we have choices that we make every day, whether it be the clothes that we wear or the food we eat. Our beginning does matter, but our middle matters more. The end is simply a denouement, a resolution.

In case you are wondering, the book that I found this thought provoking remark in is Cane by Jean Toomer. Published in 1923, it is a collection of short stories, poems, and drama, all on the subject of black life in the South. It is not autobiographical, but quite a bit of it is informed by Toomer’s biracial identity and his brief stay in Georgia.

I will not say much about the book, except that it is not the easiest book to read and it is quite brilliant. One thing that I would recommend if you wanted to read it would be to research the Harlem Renaissance and Jean Toomer. It is not necessary, but I think it is nice to know the background of literature that is so tied to history.

The Taste of Reading

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Sorry for the delay in posting. The last two weeks have been more than hectic with the end of the semester. My last thing isn’t due until tomorrow, but I saw a news report about the Taliban attack on a school and I decided publish something more uplifting. Something that is proof that the world is not just full of darkness.

My sister and I walk to the library. It is a nice day with a blue sky and sunshine.
At one point, we cross a driveway. We think the car is going to stop for us, but it jerks forward at the same time that we start walking. “Always try to make eye contact,” my sister tells me as she grabs my arm.
She heads right for the reserved shelf. I want to peruse the young adults section, but I already have a few books from the last time we were here in my room. She finds the bright green paper that proclaims our last name in black permanent marker and pulls the book that we had chosen together off the shelf. It’s Pride and Prejudice.
It starts to rain while we are checking out using the new “do it yourself” system. We walk quickly out of the library and down the hill. My sister tucks the book under her coat to keep it safe. No cars bother us.
We are both cold and fairly wet when we duck into a restaurant. We are eating later, so we just order two hot chocolates and sit in the slightly comfortable chairs in the corner next to the fireplace, which is thankfully turned on.
My sister suggests starting the book and I lean over as she reads the famous first sentence: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”
Always mindful of the time, I allow her to finish the first two chapters before I say that we should be going; we have a movie to catch.
It is yet again sunny and bright outside as we walk over the highway to the dine-in movie theater that is a few blocks away from my house.
One half of the theater is dimmed and the other still has its lights on full power. My sister and I sit in the lighted side and order one Mushroom and Swiss Burger each. While we wait for the food to come and the movie to start, she pulls out Jane’s Austen’s work. She gets through half a chapter before the lights start to dim.
“I guess they don’t want me reading out loud,” she says as she closes the book

Pride and Prejudice wasn’t the first or the last book we read together. First, we read The Hobbit. Some of the reading took place on the hammock in our backyard. One chapter was read in the dark with a flashlight. And in middle school, she would pick me up after school and we would walk home where sardines and crackers would wait with our latest book. We read A Great and Terrible Beauty and Timothy Zahn’s Dragonback series.

While my sister was reading, I would sink into her voice and all thought would be suspended temporarily as I crawled into the minds of the characters. And throughout all these experiences, I would be happy. Because you see, books are love.

25 Reasons to Love Life

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This entry is  based on Kim Dana Kupperman’s “71 Fragments for a Chronology of Possibility” and her writing exercise in Blurring Boundaries: Explorations to the Fringes of Nonfiction (edited by B.J. Hollars).

25 Reasons to Love Life
“Wherever she was, she was at the center of the world. That one lives at the center of the world is the world’s profoundest thought.” Wendell Berry, Whitefoot

1. At the center of my world is purple. Purple for passion, passion for survival.

2. At the center of my world is my heart, its beats going unnoticed most of the time. It pumps, provides, pushes blood through me and guides my every step.

3. At the center of my world are the dreams I dream about the future someone who will be my other purple.

4. At the center of my world, a mountain stands.

5. As I write this, I understand the center of my world.

6. As I write this, I know that the center of my world is solitary, but not alone.

7. As I write this, I realize that the center of my world is circling and always, always, always changing.

8. As I write this, I am certain that I center my world on writing.

9. I need to be strong for the center of my world.

10. The center of my world is silence and taking time off for myself.

11. The center of my world is love and loving myself.

12. The center of my world is chaotic.

13. The center of my world is difficult and arduous, like rapids in a swollen river.

14. The trees in the center:
a. Aspen
b. Blue Spruce
c. Oak

15. The colors:
a. Mauve
b. Forest Green
c. Royal Blue
d. Rose Pink
e. Gold

16. The couch on which I sit now in my apartment is not the center of my world.

17. The pillows with prints, although they are nice to rest on, are not the center of my world.

18. The politics of my work, school, and nation do not belong in the center of any world.

19. What is the center:
a. Music
b. Breathing
c. Warmth of a friend

20. I hope that the center of my world will be like an oval. Or a labyrinth with a clear beginning, middle, and end.

21. I hope for hands to hold mine.

22. I wish for magic.

23. The center of my world is why I should love myself.

Why?

24. A reason: Hope.

25. Another: Life and the beautiful mess that it is.

I believe…

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I believe in words. I believe in those times when you are forced to talk and also those times when you should be silent. I believe in their restorative power as well as how well they destroy. I believe in words. I believe in “the thing with feathers that perches in the soul.” I believe in comparisons to summer days. I believe in the road less traveled. I believe in the stolen plums from the ice box and the white chickens. I believe in voltas. And speaking of change, I believe that “thee” and “thy” have morphed into “you” and “your.” I know and believe that slang has become modern and then outdated as culture moves on.

I believe…

I believe in light. I believe that it dispels the dark and the dark is afraid of it. I believe that when the sun creeps into your bedroom in the morning, it is saying good morning and get up because I want to see what you are going to do today. I believe that electricity can be expensive, but brightens your day. I believe in light. I believe that light bathes you. I believe that it can take your breath away. I believe in the yellow light and I believe in the pink. I believe in the hazy light at dusk and the brightness of midday.

I believe…

I believe in breathing. I believe that it is vital, but somehow unnoticeable.  I believe in friendship. I believe it brings a voice to the heart and wings to the soul. I believe in family. I believe in water. I believe in peace. I believe in the sky. I believe in words, light, breathing…

Currently reading

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Lately in my creative nonfiction class, we have been reading and writing memoir. To help me write my own (short) memoir piece, I read Chasing Daylight by Eugene O’Kelly.

Eugene O’Kelly was the CEO of KPMG before he died in 2005 of brain cancer. The memoir, written in the three months between his diagnosis and his death, was published posthumously in 2008.

If someone hadn’t read memoir before, this book would be a good one to start with. It does not use extensive figurative language, it has a lot of summary, but it is relatively short and extremely powerful.

The subtitle of the book is How My Forthcoming Death Transformed My Life. O’Kelly didn’t have much time to live, but he had enough to obsess over it and let it ruin him. That is not what he did. Instead, he thought of the dying process similar to how he approached his business organization. Instead his first line of the first chapter is “I was blessed. I was told I had three months to live.”

I do not usually recommend reading the end before reading the middle of a book, but O’Kelly’s wife, Corinne, wrote a phenomenal afterword. In it, she wrote about the events right around his time of death, the events that he could not. In the afterword, a hospice doctor visits and tells her about patients who was not close to his family and was severely agitated until he died, restless. The hospice doctor told Corinne that “Your husband isn’t agitated. He’s peaceful.” He had accepted his disease and resolved any unresolved relationships.

I can’t help think of my grandma who has Dementia. Her husband made a choice not to tell her what disease was setting in, so she never knew what was happening. And when she dies, she will have no concrete memory of the past six years. At least Eugene O’Kelly knew and could say goodbye, could make amends.

Death has always puzzled us. It has intrigued us. It is an unknown that many have conquered, but none truly understand.

Why I Write

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This is from a paper that I recently wrote for a class. Therefore it is a little longer than normal.

 

I do not know why exactly I am a writer. Maybe I am one because my experiences made me one. Maybe I am one because I was born to be one. Whatever the reason, I know that my family as well as my school experiences are big part of how I am able to write.
My father has always been a huge supporter of my writing. He sometimes jokes (Or at least I think he’s joking. I am not altogether sure.) that when I get to be a famous author like J.K. Rowling, he and my mom will come and live in the mother-in-law apartment of my fancy house in the mountains. Before he started saying things like that to me, he was my first critic. He read over my academic papers for school as well as my poems and stories and taught me how to take constructive criticism well. And always, without fail, he will answer my questions about something out of the blue that I decided that I wanted to write about. In fact, he has come to learn that when I say, “I have a random question…” it means that I am writing something new.
I have always done well in English and it has always been my favorite subject, which is part of the reason why I’m an English major. It is also part of the reason why I am a writer, although I know that not all writers are English majors and not all English majors are writers…

In a way, I have always been writing. My sister tells me that I started when I was second grade. But of course, I started out as a reader. Or rather, a listener. I listened to Is Your Mama a Llama and Green Eggs and Ham and The Horse and His Boy. I listened and I imitated. I imitated my sibling’s ability to read, much like I imitate cursive before I learned it in school. My parents have a picture of me sitting next to my oldest brother in the living room, him in the rocking chair and me on the couch, both of us perusing magazines. His is a Nathional Geographic and mine looks like it’s about Astronomy. It looks like a snapshot of a teenager and a toddler fairly advanced for her age, until you peer closer and notice that my magazine is upside down.
As soon as I did start reading, I did it everywhere and any time I could. I read secretly after my lights were supposed to be turned out. I read on my way to church when I was supposed to be cleaning my room. And several times in school, I would become so engrossed in my current book that I would have to be reminded that class was starting. I read to draw closer to my family and friends and I would read to escape.
My sister recently told me that “when you like something, you really like it.” That is especially true with books. I read The Boxcar Children over and over until the first book of the series literally split in two. I read A Little Princess and The Secret Garden until I could have recited them verbatim.
It was The Secret Garden that really started me writing, I think. I copied each chapter into notebooks and when I got tired of that, I made up my own endings for Mary, Colin, and Dicken. Or maybe my writing started even before that. Perhaps it started in preschool when I would dictate stories to my dad and I would illustrate the little booklets he made with my scribbles when my neighbor, MaLia, and I created an invisible spy who had adventures in my backyard.
I might have always been a writer in some fashion, but I did not actually start considering myself one until I was in middle school, maybe even in high school. It started with poetry. I have to admit that they were not all that good, but I wrote them anyway. I pasted them on homemade candles and gave them as gifts for Christmas and showed them to my dance teacher. I once showed a poem to my sixth grade English teacher and he said, “Ooh! Someone’s in love!” I was so incredibly angry at what he said that I did not show anything to anyone for quite a while… But I got over it when I was entered into an advanced English class in eighth grade, which seemed more like a Creative Writing class than any English class I had ever taken before. In it, we were required to participate in NanoWriMo (National Writing Month) and write a good portion of a novel as well as the script part of a graphic novel. Then, I tried my hand at fiction, even though I still preferred poetry at that time.
At the beginning of eighth grade, I entertained the idea of applying for Denver School of the Arts for dance. I told my dance teacher this and she told me that I should also consider their Creative Writing program because I had a real talent for writing. I did not listen her because my heart was so set on dancing and I did not believe I was good enough at writing. I ended up attending a different high school as I figured out that dance would not make me happy in the end.
My freshman year, I discovered darkness and my writing became more meaningful and much better, in my eyes, as I had something hard and deep and dark to convey. I also started journaling. My first journal was very succinct, but my next couple became more involved and much longer. I had to ask for a new journal every year for my birthday because I filled them out so fast. The act of journaling introduced me to the genre of Creative Nonfiction, even though I did not realize that the genre had a name at that time.
During my freshman year of college, I took a Creative Writing class and the teacher talked about this relatively new genre called Creative Nonfiction. I immediately fell in love with it and found that I was more at ease with it than fiction or poetry. And in my first two years of college, I manage to get two pieces published in riverrun. I hoping to get published in national magazines, starting with the ones that are specifically geared for emerging writers.
The idea of getting published is a scary thing. Exciting, but scary. It means that I might be able to join the likes of Sylvia Plath and Joan Didion. Or I might not. But whether or not I get short pieces entered into recognized journals or get my novel which currently has only two chapters written, I will be a writer.

There are many reasons why I am a writer. Maybe it is because of my experiences. Maybe it is because I was born to be one.
Or, maybe I am a writer simply because I write.

 

Writer’s Toolbox

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I created this post/story using “The Writer’s Toolbox,” which was created by Jamie Cat Callan.

In this delightful box, are three bundles of sticks. As I wrote, I drew one stick from each bundle and tried to include it in my story.

The first stick I drew was “The only way John could pass the exam was by cheating.” The second: “If you don’t take chances,” said the man in striped pajamas, “you might as well not be alive.” The third: “He was skating on thin ice – that’s all I can say.”

Here goes:

The only way John could pass the exam was by cheating. John was ashamed to be even be thinking of doing it. He had never had to cheat before, but his life had become quite chaotic and suddenly, he found that he didn’t have enough time for his studies. He was a junior in high school who got straight As, but now he felt like everything was falling apart.

It started last week (how could have it only be a week?, he constantly asked himself) when his father came home drunk for the third time in four days. John’s mother was in one of her moods and screamed at her husband until he left, the screen door slowly coming to a stop. The next day, John found his dad dead on their neighbor’s driveway. He had been driven over as the car rushed to work. The funeral was set for tomorrow, the day after this miserable exam.

The day that John saw the body and called 911  was frozen. It was the first day that John had missed in a year. He remembered a man in striped pajamas was there watching the body bag’s route to the ambulance. John asked the man who he was and the man turned to him with eyes that were turned inward and said, “If you don’t take chances, you might as well not be alive.”

His father’s funeral was set for tomorrow and he had to pass this stupid test. He thought of the strange man’s words and thought that whatever he did with this exam was a chance. But if he cheated, he might have a bigger chance of getting a better score. He tried to see the paper of Samantha Goldstein, who sat on his right and who he had an on and off crush on for years. The first question asked who Henry VIII’s first wife was. John was pretty sure it was Catherine of Aragon, but Samantha had selected Anne Boleyn and now he wasn’t sure.

He considered the man’s words again, closed his eyes, and picked the first answer his pencil alighted on. Well, he thought. At least I’m not a cheater. He looked through the rest of the test. There were a couple answers that he knew right away, but on the rest he executed the eyes-closed-pick method. He was skating on thin ice, he was sure, but he did it anyway. His life had changed and so had he.