Blog Post 8: 3/12/15

This week we read two new short stories, and worked some more on creating our own.  We were given some postcards of different places and told to write about them, and then create a story from that.  I wasn't here during the day we were given the postcards, so I chose some off the internet that I liked.  The one I chose to write my story about was from Wichita, Kansas.  I'm going to talk about the short stories that we read, and one of the stories I created.  

The first short story we read was from Sassafrass, Cypress, and Indigo.  The story follows a little girl who likes to play the fiddle in her own way.  She refuses to get lessons because she likes the way it sounds when she plays random sounds in her own way.  Her mother is not fond of this and doesn't allow her to play in the house unless she has proper lessons.  This doesn't stop little Indigo and she keeps on teaching herself how she wants.  She ends up finding success in this, and plays at a local business her own tunes.  When she plays songs written by other people, she never gets the same reaction that she gets when she plays her own made up songs.  She is also African American at a very bleak time period.  She realizes through her experience with the public that it's tough to grow up when you are African American.  This makes her want to get rid of her dolls so they don't have to grow up and experience what she deals with.  The story really shows her character and what kind of person she is with very few details.  We know from how she refuses to learn the fiddle properly that she is stubborn and stuck in her ways.  We also know that she has a very strong personality, based on how she interacts with other children her age.  Her mother can see this, and I think in the story it is sort of implied that the mother is the same way.  She is harsh and set in her ways about her daughter getting the lessons she needs.  I like this aspect of the story because it feels very much like real life.  We learn and mirror our parents, so it makes sense that she would be this way.  This story really gives good character details as a whole, without actually describing.  I'm starting to get used to this when I write my own stories.  It's just so much more effective if you want a captivating story.  

The other short story we read was called Night Women.  It is about what we assume is a prostitute mother who works at night in her home while her son sleeps.  The house is described as small and damaged, and we can tell she is dependent on her work for survival.  Her son is also assumed young based on many of the details in the story.  There are a lot of sexual references, even on things that wouldn't necessarily be seen as sexual.  There are a lot of things you can tell about her character in this story.  She talks about love in a very abstract way, so I can tell that she doesn't have a traditional view on love and marriage.  Also, you can tell by the way she describes her life that she doesn't like what she has to do, but also feels kind of ok about it because she knows she is doing it for the right reasons, as in having a son.  There are lots of poetic "magical" images as well, which to me show that she is kind of in a dream state with her life.  She wishes for better and can imagine better, but it doesn't seem to ever be there unless she is with her son or telling him about life.  It's almost as if she believes what she is telling him.  I liked this story a lot, because the stark details were very beautiful.  Even if something wasn't particularly 'good', the way it was described was vivid and imaginative.  I was particularly captivated by a line on page 86 "My fingers coil themselves into visions of birds on his nose.  I want him to forget that we live in a place where nothing lasts".  To me this describes the story's meaning as a complete whole.  

I wrote a story about a girl who has a damaged mother who moved to Wichita, Kansas to get away from all of her problems, including the girl.  She is left with all the blowout that her mother left her.  Her father left long ago and she doesn't know where he is.  I haven't gotten too far on the story yet, but I want it to be her journey to her father.  I added lots of little details about the mother without saying too much.  I described her lifestyle, and how it affected the main character.  There's so much I can do with this story, so I'm hoping in our small groups I can get some more ideas.  I choose to write about hard situations because i have a lot of experience in my life dealing with hard times, so it feels good to be able to write out on paper how it feels.  It's very different on paper than in your head.  I feel like you can't really effectively write about something you haven't you yourself experienced.  You might be able to capture a little bit of certain elements, but it won't feel real.  There are certain little details that you see and feel when it is actually happening to you.  I can't wait to get through this story and try and take it somewhere.  

This week was very powerful for my writing.  I didn't get very far, but the ideas are really flowing and I can finally see how to develop a character without listing out details.  I think by the end of this class I will just be getting started as a great writer.  To me that's a very good thing.  I want to feel very improved by then.