Thursday, October 30, 2008

Literary Excellence!

I've written about her before and I'll do it again! J.K. Rowling! She has a knack for writing and did an amazing job with the Harry Potter series. Melanie also wrote on this great author. Rowling went from a woman who had nothing to a woman who owns a huge mansion in England and is a millionare.

When she wrote Harry Potter, she had no idea how big it was going to be; that the young wizard would create a wizarding empire. As new books came out, the plot thickened, there were more secrets to discover, and we watched the characters we know and love grow and develop. She turned her life around with one series. The series itself held the number one spot on the New York Times Best-Seller list and was turned into movies. She achieved over night fame. As the journey grew, so did her writing. She is truly a great example of literary excellence!

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Fiction: What's so great about it?

The great thing about writing fictional stories is the fact that a writer can stretch their imagination. Being able to write about whatever you want and write what may or may not be able to happen is fun and can take readers into the unexpected. When J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter, she probably had no idea what she was getting herself into, but she took her imagination farther than no other and wrote a series that will always be remembered. If I could learn to write half as well as her or any of the members of our class I would consider myself lucky.

The great thing about fiction, as Professor Quinlin said in her blog, is conflict. Being able to create a problem and take it anyway you want is pretty tricky. A problem can't be created a resolved in the matter of a page. It has to be presented and then the intensity of that problem has to grow, weaving it in and out of the characters lives. Sometimes its easier to do it when you're writing non-fiction pieces. Yes, you are writing about yourself or things that are real so its easier to understand. Writing about something that may not exist or ever happen is hard. Paying attention to detail in fiction writing is also very big. Description of the characters and the development of those characters are also very crucial.

Fiction was always kind of hard for me. Once I came up with an idea and got it flowing, it was okay. It was always just coming up with that initial thought for a story that kept me from success. Everyone in our class has extreme talent in that area. Some of the stories we work shopped last week were phenomenal. I doubt I would have ever come up with ideas like that. Every writer probably thinks that their own writing isn't as good as others. For me, its my fiction writing. It makes me feel uneasy. I'm sure I'll grow as a writer. My fiction writing will definitely flourish has an educator. I'll have to contsantly be coming up with fresh new ideas for my students and that will help my writing and them at the same time!

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

The World of Poetry Prompts

I think poetry prompts are rather helpful. Thinking of an idea is always hard for me, so if the idea is given to me, things are so much easier! A lot of of the prompts on the Big Window page have to do with writing a poem based on what you see in a picture. Thats a great way to write poetry I think. You're taking what you see and bringing it to a whole other level by going beyond the picture into an unknown world. Here are a few of the prompts that I find to be quite great from Big Window:

http://theothermother.typepad.com/bigwindow/2008/10/open-34.html
Writing a poem about what you're doing can take you in so many directions. It can be very descriptive as well and it will never be boring. Even if what you're doing is just sitting on the couch, a good writer will find a way of making it captivating.

http://theothermother.typepad.com/bigwindow/2008/05/open-36.html
This prompt is awesome because you have to picture what could be behind in a door of many colors and different prints of cloth. The writer has to tell what is beyond the door and the journey that they'll go on. I did something like this is Intro to Creative Writing. We were supposed to have our class in the Science building but the door to our room was locked and needed a code to be unlocked. Professor Liu asked us to write a prose piece about what could be behind the door. The things that came out of that prompt were crazy!!

http://theothermother.typepad.com/bigwindow/2007/06/furniture_poems.html
Writing about a piece of furniture can seem kind of boring to some people, but bringing that piece of furniture to life is what makes writing exciting. Putting that piece of furniture into a different setting or personifying it can make that boring piece of furniture interesting and beyond what we know as furniture.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Something Interesting I Found About James Joyce!

Now I know there are people that aren't huge fans of James Joyce. I've only read a few things of his, so I don't have a full opinion. What I have read, I really do enjoy. My first major exposure to him was in my American Literature class sophomore year of college, and now again in this course. When I was doing some research on him, I came across an interesting website. There are days during the year on which we celebrate certain things that important. In the literary world there's two weeks dedicated to James Joyce!

James Joyce actually has a summer school over in Europe. It seems to be very popular from what I read. They refer to it at "one of the foremost gatherings in the Joycean calendar". Now I think thats funny because we don't see that in a normal calendar. If I wanted to know anything about Joyce, I guess I'd have to check his calendar :-)

His summer school is opening during the first couple weeks of July. Scholars and lovers of Joyce come from all around the world just to be there during those two weeks in Dublin. They pretty much talk about and analyse his works. I'm sure they've done it many times before, but people that are huge fans of his can obviously do it over and over again. There's events every night during those two weeks, so students can get the full advantage of being in Dublin.

I'm going to leave the website on here, so if anyone is interested and loves James Joyce they can check it out. Maybe even apply if they want!

http://joycesummerschool.ie/