As I was reading through the text, I kept on thinking that creative writing will be more difficult for me than I thought. When I write, even in my diary, I don’t use imagery and I never thought about generalizations. I just write what I’m feeling. I do my best to get my thoughts or the story down on paper before I forget. Perhaps I’ve been conditioned to write like this because of academics. Most academic papers are straight- forward without bees and butterflies flying in between paragraphs and words. So I know before I even write my first assignment that I’m going to have to work on this. But personally, I don’t really care too much for extremely descriptive text. I’m just like “can you get to the point here!” I want to find out what happens to the character so often times I skip over the long descriptions of scenery. However, I do believe that instead of using fruit it is obviously better to say deep red heart-shaped apple. All in moderation, I guess.
I really liked Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self by Alice Walker. As I was reading, I didn’t know who the author was. I was surprised by how much I liked the essay (I even sent it to my mom and sister) so I went back and what do you know, it’s by Alice Walker. I, of course, went and did some research to find that she did have a “lazy” eye that I never noticed from looking at her pictures. She is beautiful. The essay was sad but turned out to be so beautiful. It is truly a gift or perhaps an ability to evoke such feeling from writing. As the text was explaining, with writing it is more difficult to evoke emotions/senses compared to film (visual), music (sound), etc. You must vividly tell the story using diction, imagery, figurative language, to make the reader feel like they are there. I felt like I was looking into Walker’s life which evoked emotions of sadness and later joy. In my future writings, I would want to emulate her technique in my own persona.
Abby, I think you're right on when you say that creative writing is challenging. It is, it really is -- especially to do it well. But you know what? The fact that you write in a journal often is great -- if anything, it's practice. And writing in a journal isn't necessarily creative writing. Sometimes we can take the same ideas and move them into creative writing, but it does take work. We'll talk more about that! good post.
ReplyDeleteAbby, my favorite piece from this week's readings was Alice Walker's essay. Walker did an incredible job in weaving in the right level of detail without being overly sentimental. Like you, I was moved by her writing. It was so sweet, sincere, and vulnerable that I felt my soul expand while I was reading it. I know that sounds corny, but I really felt that I had grown from reading Walker's words. I have a young daughter and I understood completely when Walker wrote about how children are cruel about physical things, and was bracing myself for the innocent cruelty of her daughter's words. So, when her daughter asked her why she had the world in her eye, I felt such intense tenderness at the innocent question that it permanently marked me. I feel that I am a different person after having read her essay, a better person. Alice Walker's writing is truly the lighthouse that Lamott alluded to in Bird by Bird.
ReplyDelete