I haven't decided how I want to treat this blog. It feels awkward to write about day to day, when I am so used to a pen and journal. Eh...
Yesterday, Daddy and I talked about writing and the importance of being honest when it comes to personal essays or memoirs. It is not so much the honesty of the details, as it is the honesty in your reflections. I am in a creative non-fiction class right now, and it is probably the best thing that has ever happened to my writing. I am trying to get over my tendency to wrap things up in a bow, and to stop writing with an ending in mind. It has been fun to just word-vomit onto a page and sort it out later. It is especially easy when it comes from your own life.
This is just a short excerpt from an essay I turned in a few weeks ago. It is for you, Daddy. I am so glad that you found something that you enjoy doing, I really do enjoy reading your entries. And, I hope that you really do write like you plan to--I can't wait to read all of your stories.
"We lived at 3426 Maitland, in a two-story gray brick, at the very center of a line of identical homes. On those warm summer nights when the cicadas would sing above the heat, my daddy would throw “star parties” for the neighborhood. There were tangled strands of Christmas lights and blankets and lawn chairs and Daddy would set up his telescope on the slant of our front driveway. We would wait anxiously as he scanned the sky for celestial importance, the lens of his glasses softly tapping against the eyepiece. The adults would sit in lawn chairs sipping cold 7-Up and talking about the street lamp across the street that blocked out half the sky. Standing on tiptoe, the children of Maitland witnessed the universe magnified and million and one times through that glass lens. We saw Jupiter’s spots swirling like a tiny hurricane, and Saturn’s rings shine bright like glowing hula-hoops wrapped round and round the small orb. But, my favorite view was the stars; clusters of starshine in clouds that lit up like huge swarms of fireflies in the warm summer evening, twinkling and flying in some harmonious pattern."
I can send you more if you want. The essay is a lot of stories growing up that connect with stars in some way.
2 comments:
That is so cool! Please keep writing.
Cooooool! I love reading your stuff. One time Vic and I kept yammering on while you squirts ran in circles. Suddenly it was real quite. All y'all were face down in the grass, arms and legs askew...sleep walking like Egyptians. What a hoot. I like the picture. You always knew where the camera was...even in mid-manicure. Ha ha.
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