Raymond Carver's "A Serious Talk"

I really liked how simple but powerful this story was. The words and sentences Raymond Carver used were uncomplicated and easy to comprehend, but the point of the story was more hard-hitting and complex, and I loved the way it ends (not because of what happens, just the way it's ended).  I can't say I really hated Burt by the end of the story.  I would describe it as more of a disdainful pity.  You want to hate him and you want to feel bad for him at the same time.  But because we are given so little information about him, and so much room to fill in his backstory ourselves, you can't really put him in context.  The way Raymond Carver writes not only sets the abrupt, non-descriptive tone of the story, but it also gives you insight into Burt's mind, everything seems normal on the outside, but inside something's just a little off balance.

Emulation Piece: Clementine

5

Clementine is just five years old.  She sits on the front walk, her sweaty curls plastered to her forehead.  Her tiny fists clench four flower stems, wilting in the heat of her palm.  She lays them out in front of her chanting “One for Mama one for Papa one for Evie one for me”.  She gathers the flowers again, picking each one up carefully with small certain fingers.  Her overalls are smudged with dirt and marmalade and she chirps a song that has no words.

25

When Clementine is twenty five she will follow a love overseas.  She will bring home flowers every day, weaving them into her braids and tucking them in between book pages.  Her bedside table is scattered with petals and her hands always smell of planting soil.  He will love her for these things. Them, and the way she watches stars, scribbles in the margins of her poetry books, the way she sings while she sweeps.

45

When Clementine is forty five her garden will be the talk of the street.  She will walk back and forth from the house, filling pitchers of water that spill over onto her overalls as she dodges her son's tricycle.  In the spring her tulips and daffodils peep out first, dipping over onto the sidewalk and bobbing in the breeze. She kneels and sets down the pitcher.  Her son pushes toy trucks in circles around her as she hums and turns the soil.  The sun is out today, so later they sit together and make clover chains, he tells her stories and she sings to the sounds of the birds.  When her husband comes home he finds them asleep on the porch, draped with their crowns and necklaces.

65

She is older now.  The sun is setting and the open curtains allow the glowing light to flood the kitchen.  Clementine delicately places flowers in a vase.  She picks them up carefully with trembling fingers. The walk to her bedroom is long and the evening is quiet. She takes off her slippers and turns on her lamp.  She sings a song she used to know as she slips on her nightgown.  She hums until she falls asleep.  Sometimes she forgets the tune.

Fry's Spring Cafe

Many criticize the cheap and possibly unsanitary ways of the once well renowned Fry's Spring Cafe, but they don't understand the pure nostalgia and love that it is filled with, nor have they lived practically their entire life inside it's swinging screen doors.  Fry's Spring Beach club, founded over 100 years ago used to be a private country club right by the University for the most elite of Charlottesville. It's now-vintage 50's ballroom and carpeted sunrooms with now-cobwebbed chandeliers dangling over now-dusty hardwood halls, used to be home to glamorous parties and many an elegant dance.  The massive trees and lush grass that grow around the pools still attract families, but it's lost it's splendor to most and no longer represents that well kept wealthy lifestyle. In fact, it's in deep debt and practically bankrupt. The cafe downstairs, once a restaurant, may not have a completely functioning grill, but it's smoothies of questionable origin, the buckets of nacho cheese, and melted ice cream sandwiches are part of people's childhood. From group of punkish teenagers that always take the corner booth and never wear shoes, to the group of old men that sit on the hill with their guitars on Saturday nights, this cafe means home. This review may be biased, but even if my chicken nuggets are frozen and the salt shaker has pepper in it and my smoothie isn't smooth, and even if the service is minimal and it's a negligent teenager behind the counter most of the time, it's a landmark in kid's lives. They'll make fun of it to others, laughing about how a raccoon died in the wall and how nothing ever works around there, but they'll never forget summer days when it rains and the cafe managed to crank out some watery hot chocolate and cut a muffin into twelve pieces so every soaked and freezing person could have a bite. It's the purest example of heart over health. Always appreciate its' good intentions, even if you're being sold overpriced soggy cheese fries that may give you food poisoning.

***DISCLAIMER: this review is highly exaggerated, Fry's Spring is a great community and beautiful place and I love it with all my heart.... though the raccoon thing is true but it may have been a opossum. They couldn't really tell it just smelled really bad.***

Creating Tension

I''l be honest, I've never consciously thought about tension while writing or how to even apply it to my writing.  I've always been more poetry focused, so plots and conflicts like to hang out on the backburner of my mind and I spend time writing short lines of things that don't make a lot of sense but use some figurative language and sound kinda cool. But, after reading this passage, I figured out another reason why tension isn't something that I've thought about in my stories and poems.  I hate writing dialogue.  I love reading it, some authors are amazing at writing dialogue and I really admire that, but unless I'm writing something from a memory where the dialogue was created for me, I have trouble bringing a character to life through words. I'm more comfortable with describing actions to paint their picture for the reader.  So, I think creating tension, creating those little cliffhanger moments within paragraphs, is something I should take off the backburner and think about when I'm writing. Dialogue and tension create good stories, and though I don't think they're always key elements, it's something to think about and a new style to explore, and I'm always up for that.

Reflection on "There's No Such Thing As Good Writing"

Revision is the part of the writing process I am the absolute worst at. It's not that I can't take feedback or criticism, it's just that once I've written something I read it over and over maybe change a few words but by that time I can feel it's rhythm, the way it reads. I get attached to that particular draft. When I read what Graves said about "there is only good rewriting" I immediately thought oh god no I couldn't do that. For someone who can hardly delete one word from a stanza, it just seemed way too drastic. Since then, however, I have given his ideas more thought and I think it's a concept I could really draw something from, and maybe I'll let myself edit more than spelling errors and bad rhymes.

the best gimmick: straight up fire

My science teacher, a woman me and my classmates loved for the four years she taught us, saw after the first days of class we didn't seem that engaged in or excited at the prospect of studying basic biology.  So, one day, even though it had nothing to do with the unit we had just begun, we walked in to see a table covered in some sort of liquid. Behind it stood our petite 5 foot teacher, matches in one yellow gloved hand, and lab glasses pulling her short hair behind her ears.  She then lit the table on fire, it blazed for a whole 20 seconds, and then died out.  Our eyes were wide, and ever time we blinked we could see dancing flames flashing at us. We marveled at the untouched black surface, still clutching our books to our chests. Every first week of school after that, we would come in, and we would get some sort of flammable trick to look forward to, and hey it must have worked because science was never anyone's least favorite subject.

Reflection on "Steal Like an Artist"

The concept of "stealing" from other writers and authors is something I actually think about a lot.  There's this thing a lot of teenagers do, a lot of people in general do, where they act differently towards different friends and different people. They mold to the group, for better or for worse. I'm not necessarily like that socially, but when it comes to reading and writing, it applies to me completely.

If I'm reading something and I really like the way it's written, or it's style, or even the subject of the story/poem, I'll notice that for a little while my writing style will change to fit whatever I've just read.  It's a way of just testing out that way of putting words on paper, of expressing an idea a little differently and seeing how it sounds. Recently I've been watching a lot of spoken word poetry, so most of my poems or stories are coming out in that sort of spoken word style, which has been something kind of cool to play around with and work on.  Sometimes I get something I really like, or sometimes it feels like I'm trying a little too hard to be something I'm not. Either way, I think it really relates to what Austin Kleon was talking about in his talk.  The idea of not trying to replicate people you admire, but take their basic ideas and transform them into your own.  I've only noticed that I do this recently, but I think as a writer it's important to be able to draw inspiration from other people's work and remember that you don't always have to strive to be original.