Favorites
Posted by: Alexandra McKnight
Margrette–My Life in the Words I Remember and the Ones I Don’t
The thing is, I wanted to taste those sweet, cold plums. I wanted to receive that note and smile ruefully, missing my plums, but loving the note-writer enough to just go out and buy more plums for crying out loud and put them back in the icebox for tomorrow.
I have had the pleasure of reading Margrette’s work all semester. What I love about her writing is what she always gives the reader—a piece of herself. Her writing is can be filled with truth, understanding, hurt, and confusion but she always balances it out with dignity. It appears that she has taken her life lessons in strides and the reader feels at ease revisiting these moments with her. In the lines above, there are no exclamation points or m-dashes. There is nothing outside of the proper use of commas, quotation marks, and periods. In my opinion, Margrette doesn’t need the added emphasis because her feelings come across very clearly and they are easy for the reader to identify with. In another paragraph she simple writes, “Forgive me.” I remember reading that line and thinking Okay I forgive you. No questions asked. No clarification needed. I guess this is one of my favorite pieces because I simply understand what she feels.
Grace Kohut- Roots and Wings
And in that same way, our relationship isn’t something to be “gotten,” or “understood” either, it just is. My father is my best friend and it has been like this since before I could walk and has remained the same for 20 years. To this day. This minute—as I bend down to pluck another dandelion from its stem.
I remember the first time I read this piece I had a tender moment (in other words I cried…shhh). I’ve enjoyed watching this piece develop not only because Grace has done such an excellent job writing it but also because I know it means a lot to her. The care and time she has devoted to the piece to convey the proper message is so apparent to me. I love the lines above for three reasons. First, the piece overall is very loving and sentimental but in this moment the feeling is different. Here she is defending her relationship with her father against those that judge them and I admire that. Secondly, I really like how she makes the moment in present time. What I mean to say is, every time I read this piece and get to “This minute” I know that at the very minute I’m reading this paper Grace loves her father. For some reason that’s just powerful to me. Finally, I think it is a beautiful segue into what her piece is about.
Unzipped
Posted by: Alexandra McKnight
I plan to submit my second project to Unzipped, the Duke Journal of Gender and Sexuality. Attempting not to quote exactly from the email/handout I received, Unzipped is an interdisciplinary publication that highlights essays and studies on the topics of gender and sexuality. The pieces may be between 1,000 to 5,000 words. Since the publication accepts work across disciplines the pieces may be original work, such as what we do in this class, or critical analysis of other published work.
In order to submit to Unzipped, you must include an abstract of no more than 200 words, you must submit the paper via Microsoft attachment, and submissions must include the author’s name (on all pages of the work), email, year and university, as well as the title, word count, and “discipline” of the submission. All the general technical stuff applies (as in you can’t submit work that has already been published, you can’t submit work that you’re trying to get published elsewhere, and you need a works cited page).
I’m going to send my Project 2 because it’s about both gender and sexuality (bada-bing, bada-boom). So that’s pretty simple. Unzipped is also a brand new Duke publication so it would pretty exciting to be accepted in their first edition.
R9: Not for You
Posted by: Alexandra McKnight
Let’s start with the facts: You don’t care about the fact. You don’t care about what I do for fun or how my friends would describe me. How do I organize my time and assignments, you ask. Really? I know, we know, you know that you don’t care. So why don’t we stop pretending.
You’re eyes are going to scan these words looking for something, some kind of insight into who I am, what I’m all about, what my deepest fears are, how I overcome obstacles, whether I cry at night when I’m alone, if I pick my nose when no one is looking, what I like to eat on Saturday nights but here’s the thing: You don’t care about any of that and you won’t find it here. I refuse to write for you amusement. I despise your smartass prompt that has the nerve to ask me for personal information. Woman/man/to whom it may concern, who are YOU? Why don’t we start there and see where it leads us. Maybe then I can let you in on me. (Sn: No matter what that probably won’t happen)
Fact: You think you’re entitled to know about me. Well, my good sense and a little birdie told me that you actually are not privy to my life secrets. If you want to know about someone’s life, read a memoir. Fact: a memoir is an autobiography or a written account of one’s memory of certain events or people. This is not a memoir. I will never write a memoir, at least not for the likes of you to read…whoever you are. This isn’t intended to be mean or snobbish but words are important, private. My words about my life belong to me and when I choose to share them I would like to know upon whose ears they are falling on. Who is gaining my personal, intimate memories? Who might dismiss my words?
Speaking of words, I am currently at 328. I must continue to blab on for another 70 or so words. This is for class. I must continue for 50 or so words because the required range is 400-500. This writing is not for you woman/man/to whom it may concern. It is for my R9 assignment, which counts towards my grade. So please, make no mistake because this here 400 word post about my feelings towards you is not for you.
Tags for a Moment
Posted by: Alexandra McKnight
Process Note
This piece began with our X1 writing about an object. The dog tags were the central focus of the paper. I received some good feedback on that original paper but no one thought it was capable of being expanded upon.
Then I combined my X1 with my X2, which was about an event. I attempted to find a transition that was logical and that also effectively shifted the attention away from the dog tags. I failed with the smooth transition. At this point I sought outside counsel on how to improve my transition because I was not fond of the ideas being suggested.
In my second revision of the piece I did some major rearranging of the latter half of the piece (where the confusion/abrupt transition was) and I added a new section. It had been suggested that my previous ending could be considered a new climax. I worked with this thought and consequently developed a new section.
R5: Making it Personal
Posted by: Alexandra McKnight
“About ninety minutes into the roughly ten-mile drive from the restaurant to the Dr. Samuel A. Mudd House, I become convinced of Mudd’s guilt. Klam and I, armed with one road atlas, two historical maps of John Wilkes Booth’s route, an old article from the Washington Post travel section, directions from various locals gassing up their cars, and six printouts from MapQuest.com, are lost for two hours. Mudd’s house in rural Maryland is so hard to find, even in the daylight, even with a lap of full maps, that I don’t see how Booth and Herold, who were horseback riding under the influence of they whiskey they had acquired at the Surratt Tavern, could have found Mudd’s house in the middle of the night if they didn’t know exactly where they were going, and whom they could trust” (59).
What I found interesting about Vowell’s incorporation of research is how she managed to include her own opinion/interpretation of everything. In my opinion the research she presents in the book remains readable, though I’m not sure how enjoyable it is, because she attempts to always make a connection between her text/person-based research to her own experiences/thoughts.
This passage is followed, for instance, by Vowell summarizing a book by Edward Steer, which also points to Mudd’s guilt. She doesn’t simply rely on Steer’s swaying conclusions or general opinions. Her investigation, both text and person-based, always includes her perspective which keeps it interesting. In the passage above Vowell presents her background research (that Booth and Herold made their way to Mudd’s house late during the evening after having gotten liquored up at Surratt Tavern) in between her description of her own journey to Mudd’s establishment. Based on her own experiences, she concludes that she further believes that Mudd played a role in Lincoln’s assassination. She could have easily left this part out and presented her reader with Steer’s persuasive remarks. However in choosing not to, by choosing to tell her reader that she had six different MapQuest maps, she keeps the reader engaged.
R3: Changed.
Posted by Alexandra McKnight
I really liked the structure of The Greatest Nature Essay Ever. Doyle follows his own advice in his essay. I like this format because he is effectively illustrating to the reader the exact process he is discussing in the essay. I feel that this approach really hooks the reader when he realizes what the author is doing, which for me was in the third paragraph. In doing so the author connects with the reader and the piece comes alive, for lack of a better description. The author ends by stating that the reader is changed. I would think this is because of the style in which the essay is written. It is different and unusual yet great. It creates a new perspective.
I might use this format for a story in which I want to reader to feel as though he is living out the plot, that he is the main character. The challenge would be having to describe what I want the reader to feel in a way that ensures he feels it. The course of my story, the depth of the plot, the characterization must forge a bond with the reader so that he is changed by the end of it…even if only for a moment.
R1: Polaroid
Posted by Alexandra McKnight
“You couldn’t have had any way of knowing what this piece of work would look like when you first started. You just knew that there was something about these people that compelled you, and you stayed with that something long enough for it to show you what it was about” (40).
I thought the analogy between writing and watching a Polaroid develop was very insightful. I have often stopped writing due to fear that I would not be able to plan the whole thing out or that the ending would not develop the way I had planned in my head. I “suffer” from racing thoughts of inspiration or strings of simple ideas compounded together yet I will sit down to write and feel empty. It feels like my pen has run out of ink and that my thoughts have finally come to a never-ending red light.
This need for order is very similar to the way I live my life. I must have a plan or schedule. I make a schedule based on hourly slots, designating what will come first, second, third, etc. If I cannot plan it, it will not get done. If I cannot see how it will turn out, with assurance, then I will not begin the task.
However, writing should not and cannot follow this process. A professor once told me that it is okay to be lost sometimes. It’s in being lost that we ultimately discover our souls. I know that this resistance to let my work just “develop” and for it to show me what it is about is a weakness of mine as a writer. This analogy has helped me to look at the uncertainty as a positive, or at the very least as a natural process. I can start with a vision but leave room to acknowledge that there are other elements that may, and most likely will, develop and change my original idea. I will leave room to acknowledge that this too is okay, even great.