ENG 321 1/25
Suggestions for Marsalis steps 2 & 3:
The writing journal: Everyday, write in a journal five things. (1) write what you're going to work on that morning, afternoon, very late evening: a scene, characterization, the backstory, writing out plot lines, the beginning, the crisis moment. (2) write how long you plan to work on this. (This way you create a mini-contract with yourself to keep your butt in the seat for a certain amount of time.) (3) when you're done, write about how you did? Did you pull it off? Are you actually pleased with something? Did you veer off track and work on something else--some other aspect of the story? (This is fine, as long as you're engaged with the story, you can't go wrong.) (4) What do you plan to work on tomorrow? (5) When do you plan to work on this?
Write 12 hours a week. That's, on average, two hours a day, six days a week. How will this affect your writing? It will affect your writing in unimaginable ways, because you will never not be carrying your story and story ideas and "make-believe" self around with you. You'll be writing at the grocery store. You'll be writing when you're in arguments. You'll be writing when you're asleep.
Talk about Exercise #1 (swap)
Talk about Use of Force (swap)
Assignment for 2/1
Read: Carver’s “Cathedral” (YGRT)
Write: Reading Response for "Cathedral"
A) What’s your initial reaction to the story? What are your impressions?
B) Burroway, on 37-39 talks about how part of a story's momentum involves an alternation between connection and disconnection. What are the moments (small and large) of connection and disconnection in "Cathedral." (Make some kind of list with your own brilliant commentary, asides, ruminations.) What do the most important of these moments have to do with what the story is really about?
C) How does this story influence your thinking about your own writing?
Write: Exercise #2 (A Buffet: pick one)
(1) Most people spend a good portion of time "on the job." Even away from work, you spend time with co-workers, complain about your boss, try to get somebody to cover for you, agree to cover for somebody so that they'll owe you a favor later. You date people you wouldn't otherwise date, are friends with people outside your "milieu" (a difficult word for an American to pronounce seriously). You see people from work "around." You get the idea.
Assign your main character a job (any job): waiter, lifeguard, mail carrier (think of all the people a mail carrier runs into everyday), barrista, prep cook, ambulance chaser lawyer, zoo keeper. Have at it. The job should in some way be central to the story. Include the rich details of setting and language and jargon that are particular to the job. Do some research. Crack a book. Google. Interview a friend. Find a conflict your character has with work--a person at work, a situation at work, a dilemma of some kind, and see where it takes you.
(2) Make a characterization list for each of your story's principal characters: write out everything you can think of about a character in your story: pets, pet peeves, how fast or slow they talk, what they like for lunch (green or red or both). Write out their history (family history, work history, dating history, skiing trip history, friendship history.) What are their regrets? What are their vices? What are they constantly telling themselves but never listening to ("I should probably quit coffee so I don't feel so toxic every afternoon and hate people so much.") What do they want? What are their strong yearnings? What do they not like to think about? Why are they spending so much time with x, when x doesn't enrich their life at all?
(3) Write a scene for your story in which someone is shouting and someone laughs inappropriately. (It could be the same person. It could be someone else.)
(4) Go back through your draft and make it come alive with lush, sensual details. Make the setting come alive. Make it rich with description and figurative language. Clothe your characters. Let the reader see them. See their gestures (pick their nose, take off their shoes and socks and rub their toes for ten minutes, peel off the breathe-right strip on their nose that their wife makes them wear to keep them from snoring.) This is one of my favorite exercises because my early drafts work a bit like "modern" plays--with no stage props at all, just people talking.
Good luck, work hard, have fun. Bring two copies, one for me, one to give to someone else in class. (This may be two or three pages long. It may be a draft. It's up to you.)