The Bloggers With The Most To Say
anyone want to help me with my homework?
ha. i doubt many people are going to click on a discussion with a title like that!
here's the deal. i'm taking a graduate nonfiction writing class this semester. its my first class since i graduated a few years ago, so needless to say, i'm a bit rusty!!
i have a paper due on tuesday. average about 20 pages.
i have to write about myself!!!!
if you asked anyone i know, they'd say "whats the problem- you've got a thousand stories"
which is true, but i've got the most severe case of writers block ever. i think i'm just too scared to get started!!!
here is my quesiton: if you had to write 20 nonfiction pages as a 20something. what would you write about? college? debt? growing up? etc.
originally, i was going to write about growing up with a parent who was an alcoholic and the lessons i learned from her drinking and sobriety. but i cant seem to find a focus. i just keep writing stories that don't fit together.
so give me ideas. i know y'all don't know me personally, but make something up. answer me this: what would you write about for your own 20 pages, or what would you write for my 20pages!!
here's the deal. i'm taking a graduate nonfiction writing class this semester. its my first class since i graduated a few years ago, so needless to say, i'm a bit rusty!!
i have a paper due on tuesday. average about 20 pages.
i have to write about myself!!!!
if you asked anyone i know, they'd say "whats the problem- you've got a thousand stories"
which is true, but i've got the most severe case of writers block ever. i think i'm just too scared to get started!!!
here is my quesiton: if you had to write 20 nonfiction pages as a 20something. what would you write about? college? debt? growing up? etc.
originally, i was going to write about growing up with a parent who was an alcoholic and the lessons i learned from her drinking and sobriety. but i cant seem to find a focus. i just keep writing stories that don't fit together.
so give me ideas. i know y'all don't know me personally, but make something up. answer me this: what would you write about for your own 20 pages, or what would you write for my 20pages!!
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by little erin on -
it is tough to write personal stories, because...well, you know the story so well but you don't really know how to tell it. and plus you as a narrator has to keep a pretty even emotional tone throughout the piece. you know? i can come across as the angery daughter, or the all-forgiving daughter, but if i do that, then the readers can get an opinion for themself. plus, its so easy to manipulate the truth when you're writing nonfiction. that i do not want to do. ugh!
good luck with your papers and reading!
-
Permalink Reply by Oats on -
Identify key moments in your life that you can elaborate on - when you first realized your mother was an alcoholic and anything before that; from the time you first knew and your initial reaction; how you dealt with this part of your life; how did your reactions to her change as you got older?
You do have to project the way you reacted and felt at the time, because as a memoir, that's the main idea; however you want to avoid putting your current judgement looking back on it as you write, which is the hard part.
Aside from the above breakdown, think of specific incidents that were funny, scary, sad, etc. that may seem mundane and unimportant to you - but as I read in one of the forums, You as the writer are a Bad predictor of what the Reader wants to Read. The readers often like this anecdotal entries that tie the full story together.
The first thing that comes to mind in memoirs that were somewhat entertaining is "Running With Scissors".... though I think he projected his current feelings too much, especially toward the end - the style throughout was a cohesive flow of anecdote tied to his age and events that changed his life regarding his mother's mental illness...
-
Permalink Reply by Mrs. B on -
You seem to have a good idea of what to write about, just not how to put it together. What I do in cases like that is just sit down and start writing my thoughts. Don't worry about beginning, end, focus, theme. Just write. Then as you get your ideas down, you can see what you've got and what main ideas or feelings seem to permeate and use those to focus and revise your writing.
I know that works for me. Hope it helps you.
-
Permalink Reply by Tim on -
Creative nonfiction is hard. From my little experience writing it (on a much shorter scale), there has to be a blending of specificity and reflection. These lead to insights that help show the reader what your world/life is like under the circumstances. The best creative nonfiction has sentences that seem so surprising. They are assertions that seem to make sense only within the context of the piece.
I wrote a piece about going to the emergency room in Kumasi, Ghana. It was a very small finger injury, and I wanted to make sure that it wasn't broken. I felt like anything I was writing was extremely cliche (white, midwestern boy in Africa; he sees the world!!!!). That writing went through the most revising I had ever done. Many scenes were cut. The mood changed. I'm not even sure that I'm done with it.
I think the thing is to just run with things and write. You may discover new things.
Now I'm just rambling. For what it's worth, I think there are quite a few of us who have struggled with creative nonfiction, which is ironic since we're all bloggers (though we blog about different things for different reasons). So you're not a lone.
Best of luck to you!
-
Permalink Reply by Erini CS on -
Eek.
As someone who's applying to MFA writing programs right now -- my application's getting mailed out on Friday... that topic scares me! I'll be focusing in nonfiction too... so.. eek!
... I'm having a hard time writing 400 words about why the university should accept me into their program!
Best of luck with all of it!
-
Permalink Reply by Kendall on -
I could write about living with my parents while being raised by two lesbians, and the tug-of-war inside me that resulted from that, I could talk about what Iessons I've learned while teaching this group of first graders. Trying to get some kind of hold on my religious beliefs.
As for your own 20 pages, I can't really make a call on what you should write as I don't know your story. But growing up seems like it would have the most potential to make the page requirement.
Good luck Ma'am.
-
Permalink Reply by Leanne Behrns on -
My idea: write out the stories that don't fit together necessarily, and find a common thread. Work them together. It doesn't have to be just one story, but a cumulative paper on what makes you, who you are.
- ‹ Previous
- 1
- 2
- Next ›
© 2012 Created by Lisa.
