Reading Response to Amy Hempel's "In The Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried"

  I have to say that I really did enjoy this story and not because it was a sad and I do think that sad endings are some of the best stories but that the story actually made me mad. All throughout the story you have to two best friends, one who is terminally ill and the other who is coming to see her, interacting with one another. Our speaker comes and see her best friend in the hospital and they do everything wrong. Every idea you have of someone visiting a dying friend, whatever it is you thought throw it out the window. The whole story is about the speaker trying to deal with her best friend dying and all they do is talk about pointless trivia. And to be honest, after finishing it I realized that a story like this much better than one that follows to ideal route for a story like this. I realized that if I read something like that I wouldn't get the great internal struggle I do see on the page, and i wouldn't see the how great the ending was, coming full circle. Most of the time when I see someone do that I don't think it necessarily works out but in this case it does.

Reading Response to Elissa Schappell's "Endings"

  When first coming across this essay, I thought to myself, I don't have a problem with this. I'm great at writing endings. Then as I went through the essay and looked at the good and bad endings I realized that I fall more into the bad endings than the good ones. And the few good ones I do fall into I fall into what messes it up. The one that I do a lot because I always thought I was witty and smart and wanted the reader to see my message was the "Overly Symbolic Ending". I love the way she describes authors who do this, "It isn't uncommon for an author, anxious about his woefully unsatisfied ending, to attempt to seduce readers by getting them drunk on poetics, overripe similes and metaphors, and low-hanging fruit of symbolism, in hopes that some uber-image will emerge to which the reader to which the reader can attach profound meaning." Once I read that, I vocally stated in my room "Dammit!" Because it's true!
  I feel like with all these endings she gives don't necessarily matter. You can categorize and label the different goods and bads of endings but to put it bluntly, "Endings are a bitch" and they always will be. You should do what you want with your ending but the important part is that it isn't forced, it isn't bland, and it isn't just something you wrote just to have an ending.

Story 1 Revision

THE RECORD THAT DEFINED MY SUMMER

BY: AARON SCOBIE

It was dark now. The moon glowed immensely over the water of the lake. I just stared at that moon and traced its outline with my finger. I saw her in the side mirror walking up. I wanted to lock the doors and drive off but I let her in. I didn’t deserve this.

 "You know what's funny?"

"What?" she asked

"This record you gave me", I paused. "the second track is called 'The Summer's End'. It is basically what is happening right now. I just thought that was funny." I’m crying now. What are you doing Ron.

"I don't understand."

"I'm so sorry."

"Don't tell me you're sorry!”

"I just . . .."

I’m being an asshole. I never yelled at her. Do I?

"I'm sorry please don't cry anymore." I can always figure out a way to hate myself. I wish she wouldn’t cry so easily. How often did I yell at her? Did I make her cry then? Did I Even care? I’m a nice guy and I treat her right. Even this far into out relationship I just don’t want to say goodbye to these three years, but I don’t want her to cry anymore.

“I’m sorry.” I think that was the first time in a long time I meant that.

“My family is waiting on me. Can’t we talk about this later? I didn’t even want to talk about this right now. I wanted to wait.”

“Just go.”

“Call me when you get home, please?”

“Yeah.”

And she left. I sat in my car waiting for time to stop and reverse itself. My eyes started to turn red as I waiting for their cars to leave. They’re waiting on me. I put my car in reverse and start to drive. I decided to keep the radio off. I can feel my hands pulsate as lead this line of cars to the turn off.

            It was completely black all around me now. The road was thin and curvy. I tried to go pretty fast as to try and keep some distance from the other cars. The road was long and narrow road. It was a dirt road in its plainest sense. I had my windows down. I could here toad croaking so. I wonder if there is a swamp near by or if that is just the lake behind me.

Finally I got to the turn off which lead onto the highway. I’m pretty far ahead of the rest of the cars. I decide to sit there and I start to contemplate what to do. If I go right, it leads to pushing the inevitable conversation to some other time. If I go right that I’m just going to keep pushing. How I want to go right, but my hands have decided otherwise. I turn the wheel left and home home.

            I have driven this drive at least a hundred times before now: in the morning, late at night. Everything seems so unfamiliar this time. I begin to look for landmarks that told me how far or close I was to being home but no matter how hard I try to focus in on those things, I never can seem to find them. Not the giant billboard that someone spray-painted “myspace.com/fadetogrey2” or the obvious intersection in Abbeville. Everything seems so new. From where I left, the drive would normally be an hour and a half, and while I thought it was going to feel like forever it actually felt like I had just blinked

            I made it home. I got a text from Fanny saying that her mom was making her do something and that she would be able to meet up for at least another hour or so and that she was sorry. I knew she meant that but I didn’t want to believe her. My mom asked why I was home. “Ronald what’s going on?”

            “Mom I . . .me and Fanny are having some problems.”

            “Oh Ronny.”

            “It’s ok. Really” I started to cry again. I feel so worthless and pathetic.

            “Has it happened yet?” Mom asked.

            “No were going to meet in an hour.”

            “An hour! Ron it is already . . .”

            She could tell I wasn’t in the mood to fight to she stopped and hugged me.

            “I’m going to be in my room.” I walked off to my room. Home always has the stench of a mixture of cat hair, dog hair, and stale cigarettes. I sat down on my bed for a minute until I fell to the floor and grabbed a shoebox. I kept a lot of our mementos over the years. Here’s the rock from our one year anniversary where we to that quarry next to Chewelah in Auburn. Oh and here’s the tickets from our first date. I was so nervous for that. 

We went to La Parilla for dinner for our first date. It is one of the chain Mexican restaurants that looked like it was really nice from the outside but all the food was crap. I took her there anyway because that’s where she wanted to go. I think that was the only time she actually decided on a place to eat ever in our entire relationship.

I remember she had on this red dress and it was covered in little penguins. We sat and ate and talked and soon it was over. I took her to a movie after that. I couldn’t remember what it was but that’s not important. I caught myself grinning remember what happened that night at the movies. I remember I had my hand on her leg. It was funny to look back on both of us back then and how we had this weird semi-sexual moment. Having just as quickly I had moved my hand in, I moved it out. I felt like I was a freshman in high school, blushing and grinning very wildly.

After that we held hands. I had held hands with plenty of girls before and I don’t want it to seem like cliché arrogant romantic type to say that that time meant more than it did but it didn’t. I played it off to her as though it was the most sensational moment I had ever had while holding hands with a girl but I just wanted her to like me. I took her home, we made out at the front door, and said bye to each other. I got back in my car and fist pumped the air.

I set the tickets down next to the rock. There are few things in here I don’t really remember why they were so memorable. I began to dig through the box in hopes for finding something meaningful other than the obvious one year, two year, first date, first valentines day, etc. My hands are moving much quicker now and the sound of that fucking AC unit next to my window is starting to get on my last nerve. I threw the box across the room and just lay back on my bed. I rolled over and was face first in the soft, white comforter. The smells of old smoke resonated in my nose. Between this and that noisy AC unit, I want to just go home now.

            Why I was waiting for Fanny to text me, I remember a time when we were going for a drive. We did that a lot only because we didn’t like to walk around outside anymore, or at least I didn’t, and also I probably couldn’t think of anything else to do. But I remember this on drive. We were going back to her house and we were talking about something involving religion. I’ve never been the most religious type but she was and I tired to respect that. But we were talking about something and we started arguing about it. We always did this we never seemed to just discuss things; we just had to fight about them. Most of the time we would fight and she would stay quiet for a long time and I would say I’m sorry and she’d get over it. This time was different. This time I yelled at her for the first time.

            “You know I really don’t get why you get so worked up over things like this.”

            “Things like what?” I asked.

            “You know, it seems that whenever you get to try and talk about something that seems the smallest bit controversial you get up in arms and you stick to one side.”

            “I do not!”

            “Yes, you do.”

            “Like what? Give me one . . . three examples.”

            “I not doing this with you.”

            “Look the only thing I can think of where I got worked up was when we were talking about female preachers and I ended that because I knew it would lead to something stupid for us to argue about.”

            “Why does something like that have to be stupid?”

            “What female preachers? Because it isn’t a big deal.”

            “Well I think it is. I says in the bible that the role of a preach has to be filled . . . “

            “Well that was written thousands of years when women weren’t seen as people and why does it matter if they preach or not? People who bicker and argue over semantics and nit pick over every little detail in the bible are stupid and it just causes for more controversy and argument. Like”

            I waited for her to respond but she just diverted her eyes from me. I kept making quick glances at the road and at her waiting for her to say something.

“What? Don’t not look at me. Hey!”

“What!” She replied.

“Hey.” I said back much more softly. I realized I had over stepped my boundaries so I tried to pull myself out of this hole I had put myself in.

She still didn’t look at me. Her eyes had focused on the road and they weren’t moving.  I took more focus off the road and just stared at her. I watched as her face turned to a dark shade of red, which ran to her eyes. She starts to cry.

“Take me home, now . . . please.”

I opened my mouth to try and salvage the moment that had obviously crashed much earlier than where is was at but I didn’t. I kept my mouth shut for the first time in a long time. I turned the car around at the nearest median and started back. It was odd. There was an eerie calmness to the car. The radio was off and neither of us was talking.

I thought that if we had a reasonable talk that we would get back together. I kept jamming words and sentences together in my head; pitting together scenes and scenarios where I would talk myself out of losing who I thought would be the only girl I would ever love. The record she gave me earlier that day came to mind. It was full of break up songs ironically. I tried to focus on that song “The Summer’s End” and hope, no pray that that would be how this summer would end. I continue to deny the idea that I would be alone, and feeding the idea that I was this perfect guy and she needed me so much more than I needed her; I deserved her for how great and wonderful I had been to her.

I got up and went to the bathroom. While I was peeing I remember something that wasn’t in the shoebox. It sat on a table full of boxes of trinkets and jewelry stacked on top of each other in my mother’s room. I finished up and ran to her room. I heard her get up and ask me what was wrong but I didn’t answer. I moved all the boxes aside aside until I found the one my mom used to keep her special jewelry in. I opened and pulled out a ring. It was my grandmother’s wedding ring. It was small and golden. The diamond was very tiny but I thought of this ring as better than any huge rock some people would propose with. She had it for me to give to the girl I wanted to marry. I had been saving it for sometime. I grabbed it and wrapped it up in a napkin to keep from scratching it. Maybe if I told her what my plan was she would change her mind.

            I walked but out to my car. I sat waiting for the phone call of where we were supposed to meet. After about ten minutes she calls and tells me to meet her at the Taco Bell near my house. I cranked my car. I rubbed my hand against where the ring was. I felt the lump as it moved between my fingers and watched all those thoughts in my head fade away. All the scenarios and speeches I had prepared were gone. I stuck my hand into my pocket and pulled the napkin out. I slowly unfolded it, feeling the fabric slide on my hand. I pulled the ring out and held it up to the moon. I had the strange desire to want to ring to shine in the moonlight, as some weird sign that everything was going to be ok. That when I drive to meet her, we would cry and make up and be laughing with each other the next day. But no, those stories don’t happen.

            I closed my hand and held the ring. I closed my eyes and let out a few more tears. I grabbed the napkin, wiped my ears and wrapped the ring back up. I walked back inside and handed to my mother. As I left my house to go to Taco Bell I thought about the record again. And this time the first song I had tried so hard to keep out of my head started playing. I got back into my car, cranked it, and headed off. 

The sky is so black today. It is so dark. It’s much darker than the water of that murky old lake I saw earlier today. I sat in the parking lot of that Taco Bell waiting for her to arrive. She would be a minute for how far away she lived. So I rested my head against the headrest and laid my seat back and closed my eyes and I waited.

“Let’s just forget everything said and everything we did: best friends and better halves. Goodbye autumn nights . . .. I just think its best, cause you can’t miss what you forget. So lets just pretend everything and anything between you and me was never meant.”

Reading Response to Dorothy Allison's "Place"

  Going into this essay, mainly from the opening paragraph, I didn't know what I was getting into. I disagree with Allison's view on why we read but that is not important. The main thing is that I thought I had a good view on what place was and how to write it. Boy was I wrong. Allison talks about place being this other character in the story, this other manifestation that has an outreaching hand that can convince and control the reader and also the characters in the story. One example that came to light to me was Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and how the she explains the place in which the Bennet's live and how their village is this other character.
  One part I especially like well more so a line I liked was, when she was explaining how to generalize a city or a part of the country and how it can give place a very distinctive meaning. My favorite was "Central Florida is despair." I think this is great because I have plenty of friends from that area and if you ask anyone of them to describe it, they would say this. It is just an interesting thought to think about a place or place in this light. I know one too many times I have fallen under the idea the place and setting are one and the same and that a story can be told only from the perspective of a room or a simple area. My struggle is I don't describe how the place affects all my senses and this essay brought this to light to me.

Reading Response to Louise Erdrich's "Disaster Stamps of Pluto"

  I have to say I really enjoyed this short story and mainly for the fact of how they went about explaining the story. From the very beginning of the story it seems very introduction-y. And I mean that in a very good sense. It has this very fun way of introducing the town in a way that gives us an idea to who the main character is, her personality, the town itself, and the history of the town. We are also introduced, through giving the history of the town, that this town seems to make itself have the persona that it is interesting and a cause for people to stay. One of these is the mystery of the main character's family being murdered and also the banker running away with all of the towns money. I mean come on. This is a small ass town in North Dakota called Pluto with a population of God knows how many.
  I feel like Erdrich was trying to impose the outlandish event that happen in this small town to give meaning to this only doctor and our main character. Our main character is an older woman with no family and one friend and through these very intense and crazy events that happen in this town, we are given a reason to want to know this woman and continue to be interested in her. The reason being because all of these events are in some way or fashion tied to her: her family, her friend, and her newsletter.

Reading Response to Chris Offutt's "Performing Surgery Without Anesthesia"

            I have to say that I do agree with what Chris Offutt is saying in “Performing Surgery Without Anesthesia”.  In the first three to four pages of the essay he describes his own personal struggles with revising which are also similar to mine. A lot of times when I write something it isn’t for a class so I write it and then set it to the side. However if it is for a class then I have to revise and that makes me look back at the paper. To be honest I don't want to a lot of the time because like Offutt said, I try to but my heart and soul and pour all my emotions into that paper, story, etc. and if I look at it then I'll see exactly what is wrong with it and also what can be fixed. That requires me to see that what I wrote originally was not the best thing in the world and that it does need to be revised or how Offutt puts it “to see again”.

            The second half of the essay is Offutt’s input to the problem that I have and also how writers should go about looking at problem of revising. I like the idea he gives that is you have a story about a father and son from the son’s perspective and you know the story will be better if you did it from the father’s perspective do that. The main problem he what to get across with revising is that when you do revise do it big. Don't just change a little chunk here and a little chunk there. Either go all in or don't revise at all.

Response to Za'Tasja Baker's "Cinderella Pink Doll House"

  You sure know how to make some tension. While I was a bit surprised that a fire happened and that it killed Trevor's brother, I really enjoyed the argument Trevor and Hanna had between one another. Not that it was a good thing but it felt really natural and you poured so much emotion out of Trevor in that one big rant he did. It made me want to dislike Hanna even more. Also You do a good job of describing Hanna based off of her attitude about herself. There is a line on page two that made me chuckle, where she is trying to figure out what to where, it just seems so genuine.
  One thing that bugged me was that you forces these situations for Hanna to say and feel so different from Trever that it takes away what I like about her. I didn't understand why Hanna would want to break up with Trevor just based on a dinner that I have no idea what happened. You give a short description about how Trevor's parents were being good parents to her but we don't get any thought about it. I want to see that dinner and I want to see Hanna struggle emotionally at it. It would make a whole lot more sense to me if I saw why she felt so different internally Trevor to lead to her breaking up with him. Also add some little spurts of information between the fire and the funeral. Like a line or two of what Hanna is thinking as days go by.

Ekphrasic Exercise - September 15, 1857: the idea of the tree

  Upon first glance I see a tree laid upon twelve different sheets and each sheet is a different color. However when I get closer I see that these sheets actually pages from some manuscript. Whether they're from the same manuscript, I can't tell. I notice that the painting over the manuscript, the tree, Is encompassed by a blue box. It seems to be the from for the painting, the tree and the actual frame is meant for the manuscripts. The artist likes to make things in layers.
  I notice that the artist made this in twelve steps. He didn't glue the pages together first and then paint, but rather he did each page individually. And for each page, he drew in a different design and made sure to keep the color corresponding to that page. The more bold or noticeable pages are the two in the middle and the second one from the left on the bottom row. They stick out mainly due to the fact that this is the focal point of the piece and also that the lines drawn for the tree are thicker and with heavier strokes. There is even some smudging. I think this is this way because the viewer sees the middle first. If they take the time to look around the middle then they will notice the smaller lines, the more focused and detailed lines.
  When we read a story we don't look at the small details around the main idea, or picture in this case, sometimes. Sure this was a very nice tree and I like that he used manuscripts and his backdrop but if I hadn't taken the time to look past that "main focus" I never would have noticed the beautifully detailed lines around it. It's like teachers always told you in grade school, "read between the lines."

Response to Timothy Collier's "Wounded"

  First off I really enjoyed this story. You give a great deal of descriptive use in both the environment around you and your  main character. One of the lines I loved was when you were describing the cut on the first page, "... and below the gleaming, pink tissue, hundreds of yellow-white beads stirred, reflecting at intervals the warm streetlights." Another big thing I liked was the jumping back and forth between narratives. For the most part those are done very well. A little of halfway through I noticed that it really started to complement Jason's character in a way that told me much more about him than, I feel, just a straight narrative of only one of the story would have told. My favorite was when Jason was confronted with Nick. I feel like that told a lot about his character in a more subtle way if that makes sense.

  One thing to like at when revising is how you transition into these narratives. Some of them were a little hard to follow, possibly because they started on a different page, and I got a little lost at times. The main one being at the beginning of page seven. On page six you have this interest narrative of Jason as a small child with his grandfather. If you ended that one not as abrupt when going back into the Nick narrative, it would feel a little smoother. Another thing is I want more of a development between Jason and Mickey. I feel as though you only used that narrative a a grounding for your story but I feel like it could have just as much development out of Jason as the narrative with Nick. 

  All in all you have a great story here and I think the three narrative does work but you do have some kinks to work out. 

Response to Seth Sillmon's "A Little Less than Nothing"

  I have to say that the beginning to this story feel like something that would come out of a much longer full length novel. You take us into the life of this early post-grad girl named Tyra and explain who she is by what she thinks of her friends, her father, and her situation in the school. You also do a great job of characterizing her friends as well, but at the same time it is through her lens so who knows what these people are actually like.
  She seems very uppity about herself and it makes me want to hate her more, even still after finding out her Mom died in a car accident. I feel as though you set up this main character to hated by the readers but also able to keep us interested. You have a lot of great descriptive elements going on and that great. I honestly want to keep reading about what is going to happen to Tyra.
  One critique I have to give is that the story doesn't really end. You have this rising action leading us to what I had hoped to be a very interesting, hoping cringe-worthy, moment of tension but once you get to it, it just happens. It went very forced and dry and after that nothing happens.
  I would say to make that seen better, I have two options: the first being I want be to taken into the class more. Show that she has this interest in literature but the class is ruined by Mr. Leone's constantly calling her out and awkward attention. So then when the tension does come she has more of a resentment to Mr. Leone other the he's old and creepy. Also with that conversation, draw it out more. Make an argument happen or some conflict to make Mr. Leone seem more than some lonely middle-aged guy going through a midlife crisis. Make him worse than Tyra. Right now you have a terrible main character in the sense of her personality and we have no resolution to the problem: her finding that she doesn't need to act the way she does and that she doesn't need all this attention.

Response to Ariel Cartwright's "Three Things Cannot Long Be Hidden"

  I have to say that I honestly was surprised by the ending. You did a good job of trailing me along, leaving little hints of what was happening and then bam. Also you do a good job of creating these believable characters who are caught up in this mess of who slept with who and look she pregnant. And aside from the missing words in a few of the sentences it was fairly good pacing.
  One thing I will say is that I did get lost a few times on who was talking and where the story was. The first was in the very beginning. I do like the anger we get from the main character because it sets up the kind of person she is but I am left questioning why we are given the details about the Captain. "His pointer and thumb massage the bridge of his nose. Eyes shut, furrowed, he does this whenever he gets a migraine." This is almost a cliche and it is unneeded because we don't see him anymore.
  Another thing that I feel would add to the story is if you gave more attention to detail whenever you change scenes. Whenever Lanie is in the bar with her sister have her look around and notice things. The test in the trash can is a little too subtle but if you added in things that she notices in her surroundings that make her remember this moment with Philip then I feel it would lead the reader to a more concise realization of what has happened and will have them question what will happen.

Creative Writing Event 1

Early on in the semester there was a picnic hosted by the English department to help promote the Creative Writing branch of the English department. It was fun. When I got there I ran into some classmates of mine and also the event had just gotten started. A lady whose name I cannot remember opened the event by explaining where we were, what the event was to entail and the raffle. The raffle was you had to write a poem or line or something of the sort using only 6 lines and put it in the hat. Later on they would choose a few of them and those chosen would get to pick from the few books: novels or poetry etc. I had trouble thinking of something so I scribbled something down and I saw someone just write the names of color in correlation to the markers he chose. Sadly mine didn't get called but it was fun none the less. I met some new people and saw some old people.

Response to Emma Hyche's "Under the Sun"

  I have to say I really enjoyed this story. To give it some praise, you do a great job of explaining to us, the reader, what this place is, this "artificial pool" and you do a very good job of putting us at that landscape. Also your descriptive use of everything that is going on is also great. One of my favorite lines is "A syrupy pink puddle spread over the tile by her feet." Another thing is how you describe the workers. You give them blank faces with blank eyes, as to having been trapped in this 'perfect' world has made them dull and lose what self they do have.
  I like the idea of having mention what is going on outside this perfect environment and that fact that our main character is aware of that. I feel like one of the main points to this story is that to Kate there is no realness to what is happening on this vacation, or school funded trip, whatever it may be. And when your tension seen happens, it felt as sudden to me as it did to Kate. For some reason or another I didn't see that coming.
  One thing that bothered me was I got a lot of information about Lily, and not enough about Kate. You really describe Lily's character almost in her entirety: her personality, her home life, and her school life. And I feel like that was necessary to the fact that we are meant to greatly dislike her. BUt I am left wanting more from Kate. All I know is that she is very smart, has a scholarship, and is somewhere in the middle class range. If we had more knowledge about Kate's background I feel as though it would make her character really come out and draw the reader in to appreciate her even more.