Workshopping and Blogging! Our last post

Workshopping 

Workshopping can be a little nerve racking in the beginning of every semester because you don't really know everyone too well and for all I know someone can be like "think stinks." But really it's very helpful and all our classmates are nice and have great advice. My peers have seen so many ways to improve my work that I was pretty much blind to. So I give Workshopping two thumbs up.


Blogging

When I found out we had to start a blog for class I was all for it. Doing homework through a blog is a fun way to go! I also like that I can read my peers blogs and learn a little something from them. But seriously less IS more because no one wants to read a novel on a blog.

Living writers

Hi bloggers,

So basically I just want to write a little bit about the WPU Writers Conference I went to a few weeks ago. It was a little boring sitting through the lectures (not gonna lie) but overall it was helpful.
I learned about revision which is very important and basically little things like writers block tips. My favorite part was of course the actual workshop. I joined professor Liu's workshop and he's obviously amazing ( and also my adv. creative writing prof). He talked about poetry and line breaks. Who knew line breaks were so important? He did of course! So when you break a line in poetry it puts emphasis on the last word before the break. It makes it somewhat more dramatic and can make a big difference when it comes to interpretation.
P.s i thought this was extra credit but it's not ...boo.

P.O.V

So the topic of this blog is "point of view" which seems pretty simple . Point of view is exactly what it sounds like. The view in which the narrator is telling their "point".  Basically, how the story is told. The complicated part is that there are multiple POV you can choose from.
1.    First person reliable.
2.       First person unreliable.
3.       Dialogue only intro.
4.       Third person close – following the main character.
5.       Third person “authoritative”
6.     Other ( This reminds me of when you are filling out the questionnaire on the SAT's and they have other as a choice along with female or male...just saying.)

The point of view in which I prefer is first person because that is the way I think so it makes it easier to write. Other than that ill use third person.


Here is a website explaining everything (sorry about the annoying adds on the side)

#6

Ok so we had to read "The Pink Institution" over spring break and I can honestly say I enjoyed it. This book was refreshing from the ancient novels I've been reading in my other classes. The style was all over the place in a creative way and the story was totally out there. After reading the book I was so happy that I didn't know the family in the story, or that I wasn't one of their daughters.
Seriously, they were one messed up family. The author is very creative and has a sick imagination

Litterary Blog

     A cool literary blog/website to check out is called TheNervousBreakdown . Here you'll find a bunch of must reads, interviews, news, and much more. They also have a link for a podcast which I though was interesting. They have a twitter account too!

Also another website I found that has a lot on short fiction is called  RobAroundBooks. Here you can look at the reviews and enter your own work.

Female Trouble

"Female Trouble" by Antonya Nelson


       McBride found himself at the Pima Country psychiatric hospital in the middle of the day. "Don't visit me here," Daisy told him. She slid her palms over her frizzy  white hair as if to keep it from flying off like dandelion fluff. "It embarrasses me, these crazy people make me ashamed."
      "I thought you wanted to see me. I thought that was the point. Why else are you in Tucson?" Daisy, McBride's girlfriend of the year before, had been discovered on the highway near the Triple T truck stop carrying a portable typewriter, trying to hitch a ride. Native New Yorker, she'd never learned to drive; maybe that was why McBride had assumed she would stay in Salt Lake City, where he'd left her. He certainly preferred to think of that chapter as a closed one, a place he had chosen against.


   I choose this story because I wanted to see what possible kind of "Female Troubles" this could be about. Starting to read the story I was drawn in right away from the opening. In the first paragraph there is already a conflict and an interesting one at that. While reading I was dying to go on to know why Daisy was put in a psychiatric hospital.


Antonya Nelson has a bunch of short stories read this to find out more.

“And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you 

have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to 

improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.” 

― Sylvia Plath

“Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly -- they’ll 

go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.” 


― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World


Reading these quotes i found something inspirational and interesting. If you want to read others like these click here !

Blog #2

"A Temporary Matter"
-Jhumpa Lahiri 

      For me i personally like a story that throws the reader right in . I enjoy knowing the characters right away and having them be relate-able. Other than that i enjoy stories that begin in such a crazy fantasy like way that its hard to not read. I enjoyed the beginning of Lahiri's story because I felt compassion towards the characters and I felt as if their situation was very easy to relate upon. When I read the line "The baby had been born dead." (pg 322)  it hit me hard. Automatically I was forced to read on to see how this couple dealt with this tragedy. 

     One of my all time favorite novels is "The Great Gastby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Although the beginning of the novel doesn't throw you right in like i said, it makes you want to know more. The narrator starts off by telling you just enough about Gastby to make you want to know more about the mysterious character. The beginning of these text differ from each other greatly which i think is fair considering one is a novel and the other a short story. When reading a novel you know you have time to get to know the characters, while in a short story you have less time. What these two texts do share is the their ability to make the reader want to know more about the situation and characters.

Here is some dialogue from one of the greatest classics around. This book has always stuck with me ever since I had read it in high school.

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger

Boy, I rang that doorbell fast when I got to old Spencer's house. I was really 

frozen. My ears were hurting and I could hardly move my fingers at all. "C'mon, c'mon," 

I said right out loud, almost, "somebody open the door." Finally old Mrs. Spencer 

opened. it. They didn't have a maid or anything, and they always opened the door 

themselves. They didn't have too much dough. 

 "Holden!" Mrs. Spencer said. "How lovely to see you! Come in, dear! Are you 

frozen to death?" I think she was glad to see me. She liked me. At least, I think she did. 

 Boy, did I get in that house fast. "How are you, Mrs. Spencer?" I said. "How's Mr. 

Spencer?" 

 "Let me take your coat, dear," she said. She didn't hear me ask her how Mr. 

Spencer was. She was sort of deaf. 

 She hung up my coat in the hall closet, and I sort of brushed my hair back with 

my hand. I wear a crew cut quite frequently and I never have to comb it much. "How've 

you been, Mrs. Spencer?" I said again, only louder, so she'd hear me. 

 "I've been just fine, Holden." She closed the closet door. "How have you been?" 

The way she asked me, I knew right away old Spencer'd told her I'd been kicked out. 

 "Fine," I said. "How's Mr. Spencer? He over his grippe yet?" 

 "Over it! Holden, he's behaving like a perfect--I don't know what. . . He's in his 

room, dear. Go right in." 

Here  is some info on J.D Salinger himself.