Journal Assignment #1: Literary Narrative

So, here goes the first assignment; reflecting on things internally is something I do well, but articulating them, particularly when someone else is going to be reading (and, necessarily, judging) them, is a little more difficult for me.  I'll try to be candid, and maybe I'l improve over the course of the semester.


Prompt 1:  What is your earliest memory of writing?  Tell the story.


My earliest memory of writing is being in Kindergarten and being taught how to make letters; I very vaguely recall it, and there's nothing after that until second grade, when I had to write a story that we were going to publish into a book.  I chose my parents; I described how they met (in band in high school in Brainerd--yes, Brainerd--oh Lord, why Brainerd?), their seven years of dating, their eventual marriage and my appearance six or so years after that.  I remember the most interesting thing about it was how professional it looked to my 7-year-old eyes.  I thought that I could write books for a living, and I began to think of myself as a writer.  Since then, I've come to realize that I love the idea of caring for patients for a living, but I maintain my love of writing, and I'm looking forward to this semester.


Prompt 2: We usually divide our experiences as writers into private writing and school writing, or writing we do by choice and writing we are required to do for a grade.  Let’s focus on the school writing.  Tell the story of a teacher, a class, an essay, an exam, or other moment you consider a turning point in your understanding of yourself as a writer or your understanding or writing.


In my second year at ASU, I took a writing course in which I wrote a number of very personal essays, and I felt that I did well, but I didn't put in too much work.  I did well enough to get an A, but I had better things to think about (dancing salsa, being with my boyfriend at the time, partying a little more than I should....), and I felt the distinct loss of my genuine self from my writing.  At the end of the semester, I determined that I would only write from a perspective that was real, going forward.  And then, last year in Lifespan Development Psychology, I wrote a paper on Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders, and I found my love for the written word again. I felt validated, and I handed that paper in with a lot more pride than it probably deserved, but it felt good.  Affirming.  I got a 99 on it.


Prompt 3: Writing is part of the everyday fabric of life in the US, and this truer than ever with Internet communication.  Describe a typical day for you in which writing plays a part, and think about how this has changed in your lifetime so far.


I think the most common thing I do with the written word during a typical day is text messaging.  I text my friends, my brother, my father (who I call PB--short for Papa Bear), my girlfriend.  I think this has changed my life because I grew up in the late 1980's and 1990's when the Internet was something that was relatively new to household use, and while we were the first house on our block to get connected, if I went on a bike ride with my best friend Jenna or went to a friend's house, I had no way to tell my parents where I was outside of land line telephones, and I couldn't tell them I had done well or poorly at my after school piano lessons, or that I was going to be late coming home because someone had invited me to go somewhere.  Now that almost everyone I know is essentially a text or an email away, and I have a tiny device that does everything I need, I've forgotten phone numbers, I use Google instead of my own memory, and I write only a few small words back and forth with anyone I want to talk to.  For example, my little brother, who is going to NCC this year, texted me yesterday to ask when my classes were so we could meet up before class.  Fifteen years ago, we couldn't have done that (not to mention that we were 3 and 9 years old, but still).  My iPhone even anticipates the spelling of words, so all I have to to do is type the first few letters and hit the spacebar--the rest of the word immediately appears.  And typing this is interestingly different from that, since I haven't typed on a computer for a couple of months--all I need is on my phone, outside of class work.


Prompt 4: What is the most successful(or least successful) thing you’ve written in or out of school.  Tell the story.


I started a letter-writing novel with my friend Lysse back in high school.  I quickly learned that I'm not  naturally drawn to creative work; I felt like I needed to make random things up to keep up with her readily capable and much longer responses, weaving the story deeper and  more involved as I struggled to keep my head above water.  I eventually gave up, but then the next summer I started reading Garrison Keillor, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Robert Fulghum, and I found my voice again; ever since, I write more introspectively, about things that are true, at least to me, and I feel more genuine and more able to articulate my thoughts when I have something more than a plot to worry about.  i love the ordinary, and i find minutiae so compelling. Which might be why I enjoy underground hiphop artists like Dessa and Brother Ali so much; their lyrics are essentially the way I think--but they rhyme. Heh.