Pleas buy a lit mag when they come out. You owe me that.

Two months. Two months of reading crappy sophomore "voice practices" and "This I believe" essays,   short stories about cutting which have absolutely no punctuation, broken hearted love poetry,  fanfiction about video games, and dozens of "The Road" found poems ( at least 10. Probably more. I know you all submitted them.). This is what Ive read in my creative writing class while we put together the lit mag(School literary magazine that Mullins gave extra credit for submitting to). Needless to say, it was hard to get through sometimes- though better than last year when we received only mushy love poems. Bad mushy love poems. A majority of  pieces submitted were said bad mushy love poems.  Being in AP English made me feel like a horrible writer. Going through that in creative writing made me feel better. Now that we're almost past the poetry unit though,  I again a feel like a bad writer. It was a harsh reminder that "Oh yeah, poetry DOES have purpose..or talent behind it sometimes."
 My overall point is, I really hope people actually buy the new copy of the lit mag (assuming we get it out this year). We need the funds and I don't want to feel like these few months have been for nothing.  There are some really good pieces in litmag- we had a picky class this year and it's the thinnest issue ever- and some..not as good ones, so buy one and either enjoy the writing or feel better about your own writing!

Please.

I love slam poetry

I sincerely LOVE slam poetry and it saddens me that we didn't get a lesson on it in class. I had a class on it in creative writing and just fell in love. It makes it easier to connect and relate when you hear how it is said aloud, and the way people read it purposefully improves or changes the poem, and I find that fascinating. I love how it sounds like rapping, but isn't. I love how it is writing, but also more. I love how it can be a story or a feeling or sound awkward or sound different, and it's all still good, and all still engaging. It plays with not just what words mean but also how words sound. It's using the English language to it's fullest, in a way that I simply can't master.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6wJl37N9C0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tVVuvA_esM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znIXyFh6dsI

Literary Cures

http://bookriot.com/2013/03/19/literary-cures-for-whatever-ails-you/

    Reading to cure my emotional problems isn't a new idea for me, though I do it differently than how the above article suggest. Becky Pole suggests ready books opposite of what you're feeling in order to make you feel better, or learn to deal with your problems. It makes sense, it' simply not how I operate. When I read, I don't pick a genre based on my mood- though perhaps a reading level based on my current attention span.  When I read, I do it to escape. If I'm sad, I'm just as likely to read a sad book as I am a happy book- if not more likely, seeing as I have actually letting myself be sad and need to get it out of my system. Its  cathartic to read a sad book when you're sad, you see how  much worse off other people could have it, can still escape from my our own sadness, and just let the tears (if you're a crier) out. If I'm happy, I don't want to be brought down with a sad book. So no opposites there either. Plus, learning to deal with your problems through characters seems like a bad idea. No one writes about perfect, happy lived people. They're boring. Most characters  well developed ones or interesting ones worth reading about anyway- are messed up in some way, aren't normal. Normal isn't interesting, normal isn't written about! So you probably shouldn't take advice on life from a bunch of fictional "interesting" people.Even if the advice is "don't do what I did", you don't know how non-fictional people are going to react in parallels to the fictional ones. In regards to the self help books the article described....yeah...it takes a certain mentality to get through and connect to a self help book. I always just imagine overly chipper old guys bouncing and yelling at me when I see self-help books, so I just can't get through them. The audio books it prescribed for going to bed though, I can relate to. The most dull and silky voiced people record audio books and it puts me to sleep every time I hear one in my grandmother's car. I might invest in those to try to get back on a  normal sleep cycle sometime soon.

We're starting... poetry?

     Beloved is finally gone and done- or off hiding in the woods with the Sasquatch waiting for a chance to return, we can't be sure. Maybe Serge could tell us- and next class we are going to start the poetry unit. The...poetry...unit. In part I'm greatly looking forward to this, but for the same reason I'm also dreading it: I don't get poetry. I know I personally dislike most rhyming ones and like ones with lots of imagery, but when it comes to interpreting most poetry, I usually get stuck at "Uh, that sounds...pretty.". I've always thought of poetry as very symbolic or emotional, meaning the most to the author. It's easier to write it than to read it.   Even for the poems I understand the meaning of, I can't place meaning in line breaks or punctuation. I can't separate ideas well either. Ideas in stories have more pages more time for em to sort them out, poetry is so short that it takes me hours longer to piece it together. It could be that I over think it, or psych myself out (Oh  geez it's poetry its going to be ten times deeper than my brain is capable of diving and have weird images and ideas I'll never understand. Better to give up now and save myself the trouble),  or maybe it's just old-English poetry I can't understand, or maybe I really am this inept (thank you 3 years of creative writing classes. At least I can talk pretty to myself sometimes, since I can't talk well to others).
     I googled "most famous poems" out of curiosity, and received a bunch of rhyming poems, most of which I have read before in school. I expect the ones we receive in class will be of higher literary quality (not that rhymes CAN'T be good quality...it's just....I hate them unless it's to music of sorts or written intentionally childish...). I hope in class we break poems down into pieces together before they're simply assigned as homework and quizzed about the next day and are taught how to analyze how purposeful or meaningful line breaks and punctuation are, as well as just overall taught how to understand poetry.



...All I ever do on my blog is complain about how I either don't like or don't get something.  I really need to reevaluate my life.

Anyone up for a rhyme?

http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/top_poems.html

Makeup blog: Reflecting on the past

     My way of dealing with bad memories is somewhat similar to Paul D-and even Sethe- in Beloved. I lock them away, try my very best to pretend they don't effect me. Much like Paul D found though, it's hard to keep them at bay. The more you try to ignore it, the more the smallest things will remind you of said events. I'll be in the middle of class and something someone says reminds me of a time I had a fight with my parents or made of fool of myself while presenting something (this happened quite often actually).  I physically convulse, looking much like a squirrel with turrets  leading people to ask me if something is wrong or if something scared me. With the intensity of my flinching, you'd sooner expected me to have PTSD from war than a simple embarrassing memory. The feeling of boiling magma in my stomach does little to aid my recovery time from the flinching also. I don't handle...emotion well. From nauseating guilt to flinching embarrassment to fall-on-the-floor-while-singing happiness, I just feel intensely. I have no real coping method  to share. My pattern is: try to ignore it, attempt to write a somewhat cathartic poem or story about it, ignore it some more. It's still under revision. The writing thing does helps sometimes however. I wrote a "poem"in creative writing class whilst having a minor panic attach over graduation and growing up, and I feel a lot better about it now (so much better in fact that I cannot wait for school to END).

In attempt to make this post seem more legitiment, I'll post the aforementioned poem on here.
(If you judge me I might very well cry. Do you want me to look upon this blog as a flinch-worthy memory? I'm bearing my soul here people, and Lord knows poetry is not my forte. If I have a forte.)

How do I grow?

Do I grow up?

Up, like a tree

with rings of wisdom

stretching outwards from inside of me?

(But so easily burned?)

Do I grow out?

Out, with echoes of

do this pay that go here move there what.are.you.doing.

Hammering me, like it did others before me

and will others after?

Perhaps I’ll just grow old.

As old as I am competent,

As old as I am independent,

As old as I never wish to be.

Maybe I’ll plant a garden and grow little seeds of lead,

And deal one sided pencils

to the world outside these halls of underaged cinder block,

Where there are no erasers.

(Better for you than me)

No, certainly I shall not grow at all.

I’ll stay ungrown,

Undeveloped

Unknown

until my affair with death becomes so scandalous

that Hell is in awe and children become stunted

and the world’s finger begins to rot as it points towards me and demands

that somehow, I must grow.

Soon I'll hear green paper shackles

singing a lullaby

as they grow like ivy around my wrists,

Coaxing us into their cardboard walls

of cardboard ideas

at the top of the beanstalk.

What if I can't climb,

won't climb?

It's easier to watch the fables grow.

Up the fables and up the stalks

will march blue capped porcelain dolls

stretching like jack-in-the-boxes as they

grow and shrink

grow and shrink

with faces of shattered mirrors

that reflect one hundred images of me.

I'll turn away,

and leave the toys to march

onward.

I will laugh at them,

I will envy them,

And they will grow.

Up and out and old.

I shall never

Decay

Or break

Or mature.

How do I grow?

Perhaps, I will grow under.

I can be the roots,

Never hoping

to see the sun

never dreaming

of anything but going deeper and deeper

into my safe dirt prison.

Makeup blog 2/14:The Guilt Trip

     Guilt is an emotion I don't feel often, but when I do, I not only take a trip but an entirely temporarily upheaval of my life to settle in Guilt Land. I feel like flamingo dancers are performing in my stomach, trying to spin fast enough to rise like a helicopter up my throat and vultures cruise through my system as their wings brush against my veins and the circle my heart looking for dead flesh. I try not do or say to things I know are wrong or mean or I would have to lie about, simply because I feel guilt so intensely that I get physically sick. Eighteen or not, lying to my Mother still sends me running to the bathroom and prevents me from sleeping for days on end. I can't do it.   Well intending or not, telling details of a friend's life to another fills my mouth with moths. Yet, I still do these things- though not often. It doesn't help when that on parent wants you to feel guiltier than you already do. It's the whole "oh sure you can go to your friend's. They're obviously more important to you." or "Oh, you'll have to ask someone for a ride. This wouldn't be a problem if you were driving," . Pointed, but true comments. Lucky for them, I already feel bad about those situations, their comments only giving my internal vultures offspring. In the end, I probably need to learn to deal with guilt more effectively than just feeling ill until it passes, or just quit doing anything Id feel remotely guilty for. 

makeup blog: open letter

Dear Backpack,
    Could you please stop killing my poor spine? I spend five days a week with you, trudging around with you on my back to show off to the world that yes, I have school books and yes, I have a picture of an owl. I rely on you greatly, and even take a bit of pride in you- when you don't smell like cheese crackers at least-  but it's becoming increasingly hard to appreciate  your usefulness when I end up with the seven dwarfs  hacking away at my shoulder blades and spine as they sing "hi ho! Hi ho!" every other day. Is there really nothing you can do about that? Shift a little weigh perhaps? "Accidentally" get sick and puke all my books up in the toilet and flush them away? I'm not asking for much, just a little relief. If you could oblige, I'd been infinitely grateful.
                                                                                                  Yours truly,
                                                                                                   Lauren.

Can't wait to get on The Road again...not.

     I have finished reading it, turned in my MWDS(finally), and --shocker-- finished my essay(On time?!What is this madness?! ...don't expect exceptional quality.), so I feel I can safely say that I'm officially and permanently done with The Road. Praise the holy Lord almighty, I'm done with this book. Reading it, I felt as if I should have enjoyed the intricate imagery, I should have enjoyed the unique writing style and how the lack of grammar emphasized the loss of humanity and civilization, and I should have enjoyed the twisted, emotional story of the father and son (it's kind of....my thing?), yet...nope. Nada. No enjoyment. I appreciate and perhaps even admire McCarthy's writing, but I in no way enjoy it. It felt so... repetitive and drab. I would read a passage and not be certain if I had read it already. I would read about the people dying and being eaten and...not care.  When did I become such a  harsh critic? I haven't read a book that I enjoyed in... months, at least. Am I simply not the book lover I was back in middle school? Have I just grown cynical due to the over-all "over-it" feeling I have about school now-a-days? Am I simply too unsympathetic to like characters, and their stories by default? I used to love anything different, twisted and emotional, or simply...beautifully written. For some reason or another, my tastes have changed.  Did anyone encounter similar thoughts when reading this book?

If anyone reads this, would you please recommend me a book? Something either funny or gut-wrenching, and absolutely no cheesy romance ( I swear if I see one more book with a love triangle with mythical creatures...I just might cry. Or hit my head on a wall).

Also, Mr. Mullins, would you please put in my late/makeup blogs I did last week? My grade could really use it...

My experience in Pre-writing

     The moment I hear a teacher say "pre-writing", I feel a black knot begin to form in my stomach. It's sticky tentacles reach up and threaten for gag me from within, oozing it's slimy hatred out my mouth.  Pre-writing. I hate it. The idea of it is good, planning out you ideas before you write them SHOULD make them easier to write about and organize. Should. The problem for me however, is that I don't even know what I'm writing or where I'm going until about halfway through a paper. I don't even usually write my thesis at first if I can avoid it(aka we don't have to turn them in early-say- on turnitin.com making me very miserable and at a loss for words as I struggle to condense my entire unwritten paper into one line).  I just let words come and hope they make sense. My words tend to say what they want regardless of what I intend anyway.  Pre-writing for me is just a hassle, it takes up precious time for times writing and often isn't follow when I write the actual paper so it is indeed pointless.
        The contradicting thing however, is that in creative writing I am a  meticulous pre-writer. In a short or long fiction story, I must write down  every event that will occur in order, interesting lines I plan on using, and physically plan out every character(though that's mostly because I am terrible at characters....). My pre-writing is not to help me organize though, more so to help me remember all my ideas until I  have the attention span to actually write them- which, sadly, isn't often. The only time it is ever used for organization or planning purposes is for novel length ideas, not one of which I've ever bothered to go back and write, be it because I lack the focus, or the motivation once I see how the whole story is going to go(its simply not exciting any more....).
     In the end, prewriting doesn't help me much. I might draft a thesis or topic sentences a few times as I come to them, but more so to get wording rather than ideas right. I do not enjoy having to plan what Im going to do. It feels...restraining.  I need the freedom to write what comes to me, as it comes to me. I can't force my ideas to cleanly plan themselves out before I have a chance to fully understand what my ideas even are.

So Long and Good Night

      What must it be like, to live in a constant hell? Awake or asleep, you never escape the pure misery and purposelessness chasing you. The man said it was good to have bad dreams given their situation, for it meant they haven't given up, aren't simply longing for a release.  I suppose I can understand that statement to some degree, but I don't agree. When we have reoccurring bad dreams, it usually means something is wrong (which it obviously is with the characters given their situation),  and is more of an indicator of depression and suicidal tendencies than good dreams are... Does the man not realize that? To never have good dreams means that you have nothing left that can make you happy, nothing left to look forward to, enjoy or hope for. If they never have good dreams, do they really have nothing to live for? Why do they go on? Have they truly so deeply accepted that they'll never experience happiness again that not even their subconscious can imagine it?

The Road:I DON'T Believe You.

       The Road is by no means a poorly written or uninteresting novel, yet I couldn't quite find it engaging.  I simply can not accept the Man's character. Perhaps it's because  I'm not a parent, or because I've never been starving and running for my life after experiencing the apocalypse, but I cannot understand the Man's mindset.
        "We carry the fire,"
       Are these just words to him? It appears so to me. For someone who lives solely to protect his son and keep "good" alive in the world, I can't see him as... righteous. He lacks conviction too much for me to understand why he keeps living, why he keeps his son living.  His "We carry the fire" speech is his only excuse to keep living, but just because you don't eat people, doesn't mean you're a good person or carrying the fire. If he was truly a kindhearted person, why is only the son the one always pressuring him to help people? He may be the lesser of two evils, but he is by no means a good guy. If it were up to him, he'd leave every starving man or animal they pass. I don't blame him for that though, it's every man for himself if you want to survive in his world. There is no fire left for him to carry.
      So that disregards his reason for living of "carrying the fire"...he certainly isn't doing it. But if he lives solely for his son, how come he couldn't muster up enough courage to overcome his sorrow and shoot his son when he died? A small act of compassion to save his son from dealing with the cannibal ridden, lonely and broken world he tried to hard to protect him from wasn't able to break through upon his death. (it was pure luck and by no knowledge of the father that the veteran was able to take in his son after his death). I can't believe his character because I don't understand why he was even there.