For our fourth assignment, we had to read three stories and take three quotes from each author. Then we had to create our own story including the three quotes from each author as we are having a conversation with them in person.
Don looks at me and asks me “Do I have a difficult time in just writing in general?” as he pulls out several of my old writings from High School and blog posts that I have recently written. I responded “Yes” explaining to them I was never a good writer and that possibly I never will be but that I have tired but writing it’s for me . Then Don say to me “First by shutting up. When you are talking he isn’t writing. And you don't learn a process by talking about it, but by doing it.” The Mary says to me “Writing is painful --- It’s ‘fun’ only for novices, the very young, and hacks.” Then Anne looks at me and tells “E.L.Doctrow once said that ‘Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your highlights, but you can make the whole trip that destination or everything you will pass along the way.’ You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you. This is right up there with the best advice about writing, or, life, I have ever heard. I look at her and say “Wow I have never thought of it that way.” Don then tells me he has 10 implications but he likes this one for me because I may also relate to it “Implication No. 10 The students are individuals who must explore the writing process in their own way, some fast, some slow, whatever it takes for them, within the limits of the course deadlines, to find the own way to their own truth.” Then Mary says “If you are stuck let your mind roam down some alleys that may land in dead ends --- that’s the nature of the process.” Then Anne comes in and tells us a story about her brother stressing about a paper that was due the next day as he was on the verge of tears. Then she says “ I tell this story again because it usually makes a dent in the tremendous sense of being overwhelmed that my students experience. I tell her “I’m always stressed out when I’m writing something or if I have to present or even speak in a classroom.” Don then includes saying “What you do require id a teacher who will respect and respond to his students, not for what they have done, but for what they may do; not for what they have produced, but for what they may produce, if they are given an opportunity to see writing as a process, not a product.” I say “Yeah you are right I have a professor this semester that is giving us that opportunity in his class” and as I said that Don smiled. Mary then says “None of us can ever know the value of our lives or how our separate and silent scribbling may add to the amenity of the world, if only by how radically it changes is, one and by one.” Then Anne says “A writer friend of mine suggests opening the jar and shooting them all in the head. But I think he’s a little angry, and I’m sure nothing like this would ever occur to you. I look at all of them and smile as I shake all their hands say “thank you for all the wonderful advice I really do appreciate it."
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Samuel AscencioI will use this blog to explore the messy processes of writing and to make meaning. ArchivesCategories |