This is week two of the writing blog. This week we read and annotated Teach Writing as a Process Not a Product (Don Murray, Against Vanity: In Praise of Revision (Mary Karr) , Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (Anne Lamott) In this process I will create a scene and have a writer's round table discussion. I will do this by creating a dialog and taking three quotes from each writers and three quotes from myself. This will total into twelve quotes to create a round table discussion.
It’s Thursday morning and my relief is late as usual. My relief today is a rookie and she seems to be lost and overwhelm while we exchange equipment and weapons. I know the feeling of anxiety because you never know what to expect in prison. To lighten her mood her mood I told her a joke and said, “Relax you’re not going to get stabbed,” and smiled. Her face dropped, I think I made her feel worse. I walked out of the prison and got in to my car. I reminded myself that civilians don’t have the same dark humor as veterans. Now I know, I’m just trying to justify what I just said to her, but now i just feel bad for her. I drove to Dunkin Donuts and as I got out of the car I noticed that there was a long line today, however, I was stuck in line with a few famous writers: Mary Karr, Don Murray, and Anne Lamott. I then bumped shoulders with Mary Karr and smiled to open up the group. “How are you today officer?” Mary smiled back. I then began to tell the group that I’m on my way to my English class and just like that we began to talk about writing process. Here is what we talked about. “I’m not really good at writing but someday I do aspire to become a blogger for just for fun. I really want to talk about Men’s health and fitness. So what do you think is the secret to success in writing? Any advice, ma’am?” I said with a smile. Like a canned material Mary opens up as says, “ Revision is the secret to their troubles and your.” That wasn’t what I was expecting a famous writer to say. So I leaned back to as she continued. “Every writer I know who is worth a damn spends way more time losing than winning,” Mary said with one eyebrow raised with a smirk on her face. Don Murray then raised a his pointer finger as if he wanted to stop her and said, “Be patient, listen quietly, the writing will come. The voice of writing will tell you what to do.” Mary looks at Don and then back to me and says. “Writing is painful-it’s fun only for novices, the very young, and hacks. Mary seems to want share the hard knocks of writing but Don spoke softly as if he wanted to teach me more about myself. “The writer, as he writes, is making ethical decisions. He doesn’t test his words by a rule book, but by life.” Don continued with his zen like voice. Intrigued staring at Don with my mouth open and being lost in the moment. Anne Lamott then jumps in the conversation and says, “ E.L. Doctorow once said that, ‘writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.’ You don’t have to see where you’re going, you don’t have to see your destination or everything.” She also looked and stared at Mary and said to the group, “Sometimes it actually gives them hope, and hope, as Charteron said, is the power of being cheerful in circumstances that we know to be desperate.” “So you what you and Don is saying is that writing will be a mountainous journey?” I added, while scratching my head. Anne nodded and said, “Writing can be a pretty desperate endeavor, because it is about some of our deepest needs: our need to be visible, to be heard, our need to make sense of our lives, to wake up and grow and belong.” These writer seem to be very passionate about their writing and see writing from a very enlightening point of view. Right before they all left. Don Murray ended the conversation and said, “ At the age 77, I realized that I am a storyteller who must tell the stories life has given me. The genre must come from the story to be told not from the literary ambition of the writer.” When I returned to my car, I wanted to turn around say, wave goodbye, and thank you to the writers, however, they disappeared. I sat in silence for a moment just to let it all resonate through me like my coffee. What a very enlightening day.
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Ray CabanceI'm a student at Delaware County Community College and I major in Criminal Justice. Currently working for the State of Pennsylvania Department of Corrections. Archives
December 2018
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