Prospecting for gems in a prospect for my prospectus project

This particular project has been challenging in unique ways. In my own masochistic fashion, I decided to select a restaurant training manual as my non-fiction work for the proposal. I like works that I can approach, enjoy, relate to, and delve into without feeling like a victim in a dentist's office. Reading other training manuals was like pulling teeth, page by page without Novocaine. Do these people realize how violently disgusting they have made their prose? Stereo instructions poorly translated from Chinese would have been preferable to these books. In any case, the research is now behind me. ON TO THE DRAFT!

Oh wait. I finished the draft. The rough draft, even with word 2003's recalcitrant behavior, is done and posted. And there was much rejoicing, yay.

I did not enjoy writing about myself in the 3rd person, but I did enjoy the hell out of bashing those instruments of torture those other authors called training manuals. Tonight's rant is for those of us who consider ourselves writers... save your sanity. Make sure you write in a vein that you deeply enjoy. Forcing out a work on something you may like but in a style you resist is like drinking a gallon of liquid Drano; it hurts a lot and leaves you feeling hollow inside.

Indecent proposing

Our discussion last class regarding publishers and books has left me with a wide vacant chasm inside. Do we, as writers, really stare into the faces of the stone-faced gorgons of the publishing companies with any shred of hope? I have worked for years in the writing center environment and found the soul of the pen slowly draining away to its LCD arch-nemesis. Dust gathers atop old books while new ones are shelved in a digital storeroom for half the price and one-tenth the royalties.

I am a writer; I am an endangered species being hunted to extinction while no child will be left behind. NO SURVIVORS! Sometimes a light shines in the darkness, and occasionally, it is not an oncoming train. I have seen one or two writers emerge each semester. Not some aspirant e.e.cummings or Tolstoy or Cyber-Shakespeare, but some fresh new mind with a new perspective and desire to create worlds in words.

During those rare jewels in existence, I fight the overwhelming urge to weep and mourn a fate that has not transpired. The end of literate learning. Try as we might, good writers, our very existence is challenged by a world of efficiency, scientific dominion, and the bigger-better-faster-upgraded-supersmart word processing program that turns our craft into a binary sequence. Rise above and write.

A rhetorical analysis and a dash of short story

The assignments have blended together in a wash of misused time and procrastination. I have embarked on a journey of pointless wastes of time and consumption of beer to return hungover and wiser.

The rhetorical analysis was almost fun. The article I chose was annoying; the voice of the writer was angry and arrogant, and the selected questions delved deeply into his message to unveil a happy-go-lucky streak of argumentation. Huzzah.

The short story I am writing for the next assignment has proven to be quite challenging but absolutely hilarious. Flannery O'connor is some fun readin; I am enjoying emulating her style and parodying one of her great works. She'd probably laugh and chalk it up to some kid borrowing her crutches for a couple minutes. Thank you Flannery. I am glad I had this chance to slap the grandmother around; I have been waiting a few years to do it.

Once upon a time, I thought I could make a living writing fiction. The truth arrived through the end of two very inspirational people in my life. My grandmothers passed away last year around this time. They both wanted me to teach. So do I.

Rhet-OH-ric

Once upon a rhetorical situation, there was this actor who took action by claiming that some warrant needed to be qualified by data. Rhetoric. Yeah. I have read many things about rhetoric: some current, some outdated, some revamped over and over, some lingering like the smell of something in the trash can, and some things that stick with you like too many beers or fattening snacks.

“Rhetoric is the art of ruling the minds of men.” Plato.

“On the third Tuesday of every September, floodgates are opened in a tall building on the East River in New York and a Niagara of rhetoric gushes forth for three months.” Anthony Parsons.

Rhetoric has been described as persuasion, fluff, mind control, excrement, and sugarcoated lies. Truthfully, rhetoric is a tool like anything else. It is a means to reach an agreement when the facts are just not enough to show your side of things. When someone knows how to put words, thoughts, and feelings together in such a way that people are moved to believe them, to accept them, and to follow them, those people are often labeled as liars, con artists, lawyers, or the worst of all great leaders. We are inundated with rhetoric all the time with only one goal, to convince us how awesome, beautiful, sexy, smart, healthy, or safe we would be when we buy the next new special THING; do we outcry against those advertising giants who have found the way to make us into rats in a cage with a feeder bar pushing away for another pellet? If the rhetoric of Nike, Cheez-its, or Nissan is acceptable, then why do we say someone who seeks to lead us in office and try and improve our status is using “rhetoric” and is thus evil? No, that last comment is not to single out any leader but to emphasize ALL of them. We are creatures of language and passions; we should not defame those who use it to inspire those passions and move us.

Enough soapbox chatter. I’m done.

The life of a writer

Out of the many testimonials we read from the Writing Life, Muriel Sparks spoke out with the strongest words for me. I enjoyed how she said she couldn't reread her past works because they each captured who she was at the moment she wrote it, someone she is not anymore. The point of her missive was that past all the rejection slips and egregiously painful works, we are storytellers in one form or another, speaking our stories from a demesne within our beings. It is the calling of a writer.

We all fantasize about that perfect job. We all crave that one place we could go day after day and do our work feeling like a little kid about to run into a playground while still getting paid for it. The Writing Life selection for last week seemed to touch on elements of the real tooth-grinding, white knuckled work it takes to clear the cacophony of ideas from the head of a writer onto paper. We scream when a plot won't twist to the music of the dialogue; we bellow in frustration when that setting won't pan out to a beautiful view of the last funeral of a withering family line. Our eyes are on a page, a screen, or a notebook; our hearts are in the words. I didn't ask to become a writer in this life, but the stories have my mind hostage. God bless the ditch-diggers!!!

Nerd-gasms

It was late afternoon as I made my way to the third floor of the library. I sat near the center of the room at a table that was just as excited to see me as I was to be there. Searchengines and research...all old hat and tiresome. Cheryl Stiles was excited for us to be there and as she started up the title page for the citation software she briefly mentioned what it can do. At that moment, the cruel visceral wrath of fate jarred the neurons in my jaw, lips, and vocal cords to produce a series of sounds and enunciation that would echo through the rest of Cheryl's presentation:"I resist any computer aid to writing a citation because of where I work." Following that moment, Cheryl made it clear to incorporate that sentiment into her presentation with one quip after another meant to jibe at my distaste. Singled out? Not possible. I think she was standing on the grassy knoll. Her presentation was effective, entertaining, albeit painfully so, and informative. I was so pleased to discover the films on demand aspect of GALILEO. I left that room quickly, nursing the wounds of every dart thrown.

We reconvened in the bowels of the library, a dark demesne buried under tons of concrete, brick, steel, and books. The dark shadowy halls echoed the quiet, yet bemused, feel of every step. As I approached the Rare Book Room, I noted the often closed door standing gaping wide like the open arms of an old familiar friend waiting for an embrace. The dark wood-paneled walls stood in silent affirmation of the dignity and pride placed into each and every inch of the room. Miss Impey-Imes bubbled with excitement as she practically exploded into her presentation. She described each book, each piece of history, and each story locked in the walls and tomes with a zeal found in a 4-year old looking to share a new world with those around them. We began to share her awe, excitement, and delight as the rare tomes passed from hand to hand. The ancient pages showing the wear and tear of time and loving care. I held the beauty of writing in many glorious stages of our human history. Multiple Nerd-gasms.

Questions, answers, and a mental appendectomy

How shall I start thee, let me count the ways. I have spent considerable time reading, rereading, perusing, defining, elaborating, and editing the interview handed down to me by the great muse of interrogation. My friend was very helpful in her responses and quite humorous. I don't expect a Pulitzer for this interview, but I feel it will be insightful to those who seek to publish in local news.
I have spent a little time thinking about the Prose readings in contrast to some readings for other courses: Plato, Cicero, Quintilian, Ramus, and Castiglione to name a few. It is interesting to see the overlap between rhetorical tropes from various dead guys come forward in Prose's examination of style. What does this mean for my aspiring career as a teacher? I feel privileged to be able to share these elements of style and graceful methods of writing with future impressionable (warp-able) young minds. For what is composition without a sense of composing with grace? It is an empty declaration of motives without persuasion, coherence, or voice. Somehow, my readings keep bringing me back to some of the first essays I read about education and composition by Adrienne Rich, Susan Griffin, Richard Rodriguez, and Paolo Freire. Even Janet Burroway's textbook Writing Fiction found its way off my shelf and into my lap one morning after reading for my PRWR6300 course. These connections to be drawn seem to form a web that slowly complicates itself into a latticework of indecipherable complexity that, according to Derrida, could take hundreds of years to unravel.

A combination of interview questions and Prose (oh cripes another pun).

Let me begin with....wait....why should I be asking you to let me do anything, this is my blog and you must suffer through every written word like a Jehovah's witness strapped to a chair watching consecutive episodes of "Barney and Friends" for innumerable days straight. (no Jehovah's witnesses were harmed in the writing of this blog) Francine Prose has given a few gems for this blog tonight, starting with "details." Those tiny little gems that we see in the written work that spark the memory, captivate the attention, and remind us day after day that we read that work regardless of how much we want to sit in denial.
I speak of those tiny tricks authors place into their works that add a flavor to the story that Tums and Peptobismol will not remove long after digestion. There are many good examples of this idea: the "blue-within-blue eyes" of the Fremen people in Frank Herbert's Dune series, the black light-absorbing qualities of truly ordered metal in L.E.Modessit's Magic of Recluse series, and the unforgettable hairy feet of the hobbits in J.R.R.Tolkien's many fantasy tales.
The prose of Prose continues (and yes there is Ibuprofen to remove the pain of those puns) in her assessment of the two sections on Reading for Courage and Antoine Chekov. I must admit she had some interesting insights into the realms of writing with her pep talk on courage, but the Chekov section struck me as a die-hard fan screaming the name of her favorite toy from atop a skyscraper. Words are words and as easily as blacksmiths hammer out machinations of their labors, writers will produce a plethora of venues, genres, and imaginings from many worlds and genres. (and blacksmithing is NOT easy for you research impaired people)
With regards to our online posting of a history of writing, I can say that nothing strikes me more painful than being a publisher before Gutenberg graced us with his gift of mass production and mass media. The labor and intensity involved with producing a written work in the Greco-Roman periods makes me see the amount of dedication it took Plato and Cicero to record their treatises on rhetoric. All these musings aside, it is time to move on to the nitty-gritty.
Here is the official listing for my interview questions:
Interview Subject: Shannon Carey. Editor and assistant publisher of the Shopper, a local weekly newspaper for Knox County, Tennessee.
Due to scheduling issues, this interview will be conducted through email.
Interview Questions
1. How did you obtain your job with the Shopper?
2. How long have you worked for the Shopper?
3. What events in your life do you feel best prepared you for the work you do now?
4. What sorts of schoolwork or extracurricular activities that prepared you for work as an editor?
5. Do you have any sort of daily ritual that serves as a preparation to writing, or do you just sit down every day at a certain time and begin?
6. What are the most rewarding parts of your job?
7. What skills do you feel are the most critical to have for any editor?
8. What books or authors do you feel most impacted your approach to writing for the Shopper?
9. How has the change to being an assistant publisher affected your responsibilities?
10. What are some of your favorite feature articles and why?
11. What sort of material do you look for from any freelance writer?
12. Looking at the impact of Internet publication, how do you feel the online demand will affect the Shopper in the future?
13. Of the articles that you have written, what are some of your favorite and why?
14. What advice do you give to aspiring freelance writers? Editors?
15. What types of news do you feel are most relevant to your readers? Why?
16. Outside of journalism, what types of writing in other genres do you do?
17. What advice could you give others that you wish you had known before you began the work you do now?

While none of these questions are easy, simple, or trite, they do touch on elements that I wish to know as a freelance writer. I just hope my friend Shannon responds and forgives me in time.

Narrative, Dialogue, Style, and Prose (pun intended)

I sat there staring at the book on my desk. It didn't move. It didn't even flinch. It just sat there glaring back like an angry dog waiting for me to take one step closer. "Francine Prose" dominated the white section of the cover like a neon sign in the dark declaring some midnight debauchery or all-you-can-eat buffet. How do I sit here and write about something that is meant to teach me how to write without sounding like an imbecile?
I picked up Style: an Anti-textbook and began to dive through the required reading for another class. Afterwards, I found myself diving through the quicksand of Cicero, Longinus, and Quintillian for their poignant discourse on rhetorical musings and expositions (big words for dense texts). Why do I do this to myself? Oh yeah, I want to make my writing sing! I rounded out this meal of academic discovery with a slice or two out of the Norton Book of Composition Studies. The essays, the chapters of the aforementioned books, and the selections from the long dead rhetoricians all began to coalesce into a unifying stew of understanding.
Writing, rather the writing process, has taken a new light in the synaptic demesne of my dementia. Style, narrative, dialogue from the Prose selections echoed the tired dead words of those crazy Roman rhetoricians who live vicariously through their Greek predecessors' fame. The ideas behind structuring sentences, choosing words, building "refined" dialogues, and simplifying messages echoed Lanham's Anti-textbook distinctly while still paying homage to Aristotle, Plato, and even Gorgias. One who knows how to speak effectively also learns how to write effectively, according to the dead Greeks and Romans.
I find it very enjoyable when the work of several classes mesh into a coherent functional understanding. These lessons on style, grace, form, and clarity will not only influence my own writing but also how I instruct others in composition.

Careers in writing

I am a teacher. I remember reading to my younger sister when we were tucked away in a neglected corner of my grandmother's house. I remember many people who still owe their high school diplomas to the kid who sat next to them. I recall when i first stepped into a writing center at a campus far away in time and space from where I am now. Those first steps marked many decisions later, decisions that have formed the ground that my conviction as a teacher stands. My concentration is composition and rhetoric, and that voice will carry my drive into the classrooms of many aspiring young near-collegiate minds.
I have examined the careers offered for writers, authors, and editors in the field of writing and have found both the prospects of the freelance writer and the grant writer appealing. The schedules are open; the projects are not nearly as driven or forced in commitment as to deprive students of a very willing instructor. While the benefits are non-existent in the literal sense, the prospect of notoriety in even a minor sense and the added income to that of an instructor should substantiate a serviceable living. Make no mistake, my drive is to teach.
I love the written word. I am challenged by the project that plays with concepts of voice, style, organization, and the employment of good rhetoric. My freelance writing will comprise short fiction, rhetorical analysis, and selected technical works for non-profits. When my work expands a bit, I will write grant for non-profits as an extension of this desire. All these projects will in turn proved the maintained practice and discipline to accurately teach marketable skills to prospective writers.