In this blog post telling Myself a Different Story: A Memoir Counterfactual it focuses on the “what ifs’ in my memoir so what I’ve could’ve done to prevent or change what happened. I will use my imagination and possibility to make a new story based off something I could’ve done.
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While reading My Name is Margaret (Maya Angelou) and Hills Like White Elephants (Ernest Hemingway) when Margret breaks her dish showing that she dose not care anymore and shes gives up it relates to my narrative scene on how at one point i gave up.
February 6th, 2019 a normal Wednesday is what I thought when I woke up. I got up for work at 6 am then got dressed and went to work. All day long it was raining so I was inside working in the dust and dirt. All I could think about was going home and taking a long hot shower. The hours went by quick because I stayed busy always doing something. I drove home and took that shower I was daydreaming about. When I got out of the shower, I had a text on Instagram from my friend asking if I was busy today. I replied and said, “No why wassup?” She then answered and said, “you should come hangout with me”. I told her” I’ll get dressed now and come when im ready”. She said, “Ok don’t be lying” and sent me her address. I knew where she lived, and I knew this wasn’t her street, so I asked, “where are u at?” She told me she was at her aunt’s house down the street, so I just said okay. I got dressed and put my new sweat suit on I just got with some new air forces 1s. I always had to look nice even for myself. I called a uber there because I didn’t want to drive because my license was suspended. When I was two minutes away, I told her I was there and for her to come out. She didn’t answer by the time I got there so I called her, and she didn’t answer. This was right in the projects, so I knew it was dangerous to just stand around. I walked down the end of the street and waited another five minutes then she called. She told me walk down the alley way to meet her on the street, but I just told her walk up it and meet me. I seen her and started walking towards her when I got close, she just turned around and kept walking and didn’t say anything. This made me say “what you not going to say nothing to me?” She said she was beefing with a lot of people then said, “do you have a gun?” I said “No why would you say that” Before she could say anything, I heard footsteps behind me, so I turned around and seen four people with masks and guns. One of them approached me and before they could say anything I said “You’re not getting shit” because I knew they where trying to rob me. They instantly started to lift up their guns and when I see them doing that, I knew I had to run. I ran only three or four steps before I felt the first shot all I could do is stumble to get up then I felt the second one which made me fall and slide into the street they kept shooting till there wasn’t anymore bullets. I didn’t know I was shot because I didn’t feel it then I spit and seen blood on the ground. I saw blood flowing from behind me and knew I was shot in my back the blood reminded me of how much time I had to live. I started to feel it right after that and told the girl to” call the ambulance”. She said, “I can’t my phone doesn’t work.” I turned over with all my strength and pulled my phone out and dialed 911. I told them I was shot but they couldn’t understand me because I was shot in my lung and my voice was very low. They understood me on third time saying it and said they where on there way. I was laying bleeding out and coughing up blood in so much pain I wanted to die. I closed my eyes because my body was telling me to die and I let it overcome me. I died in the ambulance and came back to life two times fighting to get my life back. Throughout eight hours of surgery I lost twice the amount of blood the body can hold, I lost my left kidney, about 80% of my left lung, some of my pancreas, some of my liver, a piece of my spine and a lot of my intestines. I woke up paralyzed on the surgery table with my eyes taped shut. I could feel them digging inside of my body and the pain was unbelievable. I kept thinking I was dead, but the pain made me knew I was alive, and it kept me awake. I felt them cleaning my body off and heard them talk about transferring me to the ICU. They picked me up and I felt all warm and felt relief it had to be medicine they gave me, but I fell asleep. I woke up to my mom and dad IN front of me and I looked at them and they came over and held my hand and asked me “do you know what happened” I tried to shake my head yea but I had so man tubes in me I couldn’t move. They knew that I knew, and I closed my eyes and went back to sleep. I can’t believe I survived. Welcome back! For this week's post, I had to read and annotate three articles discussing the writing process. I had to create a scene where I discuss writing with writers Don Murray, Anne Lamott, and Mary Karr, using three quotes from each of their articles. I made up this story through what I’ve read about the writers and what I would think the conversation would be like. The three links below are to the writings I read to make this story.
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 | pp. 28 -34 | Short Assignments & Shitty First Drafts (Anne Lamott) It was a nice summer day in the middle of July when I was with my friends Don, Anne and Mary. We were discussing about our plans for the day, so we just decided to go to the ice cream shop and hangout. We discussed about expressing feelings and emotions through writing a lot. Don always said, “once you can look at your composition program with the realization you are teaching a process, you may be able to design a curriculum which works.” This made me think about how writing effects other people other than yourself. I told him “writing does teach a process but also a story from many different views”. He then told me “the writing process itself can be divided into three stages: prewriting, writing, and rewriting. Prewriting is everything that takes place before the first draft. Prewriting may include research and daydreaming, note-making and outlining, title-writing and lead-writing. Writing is the act of producing a first draft.” Anne then stepped in to say “you need to start somewhere. Start by getting something--anything-down on paper. A friend of mine says that the first draft is the down draft--you just get it down. The second draft is the up draft--you fix it up. And the third draft is the dental draft, where you check every tooth, to see if it’s loose or cramped or decayed.” Anne and Don opened my eyes about the writing process by breaking it down into a three-step process. I told them both “writing takes a lot of mental concertation and thinking deep inside your creativity.” Mary stated you should “let your mind roam down some alleys that may lead to dead ends--that’s the nature of the process.” I agreed with her because that is a big step in creating a good writing. Anne than responded by saying, “the only way I can get anything written is to write really, really shitty first drafts.” Don told her, “what works one time may not another. All writing is experimental.” Then he said, “when you complete a draft you know how much, and how little, you know.” This sparked a thought in my head and made me realize “writing is really just a way of teaching yourself the process to make your mind stronger in writing and the more and more you do it becomes easier.” I told my friends that writing is hard for me because I never have an idea of what im writing about or how to start. Anne told me,” very few writers really know what they are doing until they’ve done it.” Mary then said “Even the smallest towns have coffee shop bulletin boards or community centers with a writer’s workshop now. Even the less good groups can help you by speaking for your potential reader - they’re way better than the echo chamber of your own head.” That conversation inspired me to be a better writer and trust the writing process. Everything they told me effected my mentality about writing and changed my perceptive about writing. For this post I read the the short story the Fable for the living it relates to my letter because the reading talks about writing to the dead or something dead and my writer mentality is dead which im writing to. So this is relatable by bringing the writer in me back to life in a way.
Dear Julian, I am sorry for not giving you an opportunity to prove yourself to the world and hiding you. I know you have the potential to be the best writer you could ever be but somehow there’s always a way to distract you from focusing. If you hold a magnifying glass over a pile of dry leaves on the hottest day of the year with the sun shining overhead, nothing will happen.... as long as you keep moving the magnifying class still and focus the rays of the sun on just one leaf, the whole pile of leaves will erupt into flames. This metaphor tells me to focus on my Authors self and expand my knowledge about writing and expressing it then it will grow. I want to start making time for you to build the relationship we should have in order to be successful in life and this will help me and you. You are the most creative person I know but never got to express what creativity you hold. Starting now im going to give you more time to focus and give your all-in writing. We will make a three-step plan to become better. The first step will be letting all ideas come to the table to give yourself an outlook of all options. The second step will be choosing the best of them ideas and why they are the best. And the third step will be making sure you can back up your idea in anyway and be comfortable with expressing the idea. This three-step plan will make writing easier to focus on one idea so your no scattered minded. Remember that it's okay to feel like you aren't doing as well as you are supposed to and make that push you harder to do better. Your weakness should motivate you to become better and not go down but go up and when you feel yourself going down remember to focus. It’s going to be hard and stressful, but I feel like when you overcome the obstacle of focusing you can become a better writer. Writing is a great opportunity to express emotions within your mind and change your mind about things. I feel like this is a good start to creating the mindset to go into writing projects and have an idea on how to finish them with the best of my ability. I will continue to work on myself on and Julian to create the best writer I can be. By the end of this semester I know I will become a better writer and I won’t stop till I am. Sincerely, Anthony For this post, I read the following writings...
__1.__What is your idea of perfect happiness?- My idea of perfect happiness is a stress free life where you can do whatever you desire.
__2.__What is your greatest fear? Drowning to death. __3.__What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? Motivation. __4.__What is the trait you most deplore in others? Selfless. __5.__Which living person do you most admire? My mom. __6.__What is your greatest extravagance? Food and clothes. __7.__What is your current state of mind? Stay focused on what’s important. __8.__What do you consider the most overrated virtue? Flawless. __9.__On what occasion do you lie? To protect one’s feelings. __10.__What do you most dislike about your appearance? My height. __11.__Which living person do you most despise? Donald trump. __12.__What is the quality you most like in a man? No comment. __13.__What is the quality you most like in a woman? Honesty. __14.__Which words or phrases do you most overuse? No. __15.__What or who is the greatest love of your life? Money. __16.__When and where were you happiest? When I was a child. __17.__Which talent would you most like to have? Photographic memory. __18.__If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? My job. __19.__What do you consider your greatest achievement? Buying my favorite car. __20.__If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be? A shark. __21.__Where would you most like to live? Hawaii. __22.__What is your most treasured possession? My car. __23.__What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? Killing yourself. __24.__What is your favorite occupation? Nursing. __25.__What is your most marked characteristic? Honesty. __26.__What do you most value in your friends? Don’t have any. __27.__Who are your favorite writers? I don’t have any. __28.__Who is your hero of fiction? Spiderman. __29.__Which historical figure do you most identify with? I don’t have one. __30.__Who are your heroes in real life? My surgeon Dr.Jeng. __31.__What are your favorite names? London and Julian. __32.__What is it that you most dislike? Fake love. __33.__What is your greatest regret? Wasting time. __34.__How would you like to die? In my sleep. |
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