Short short stories

For someone who is considering being a writer, I am incredibly bad at writing stories, short or otherwise. I love reading stories and novels; losing myself in the plot, details, and identifying with a character or two. Writing them, however, is a completely different story (pun intended).

I live my life as a sort of slave to my emotions. I do everything based on how it feels, or the vibes I get from things. I feel everything so deeply, which can be a gift as well as a burden. I write poetry very well because it is meant to evoke emotions and empathy. I like writing about a specific moment or detail. Stories are hard to write because they focus more on a central plot and characters.

I loved reading the short story about the gay couple who we assumed both had AIDS. While it was kind of sad because the story talked about how he did not want to survive his partner, I enjoyed the symbolism and the narration of the story. It was about one moment and the thought process that can go into that one moment. They were arguing about who was going to die first, and the narrator was explaining his thinking on why he wanted to die first.

His partner's family would come to visit his flat after the funeral, and he talked about how they disapproved of their son's lifestyle. Why would they even attend the funeral if they disapproved and clearly hated their son so much? And why would they come to visit their son's partner if they had such contempt for him?

I felt the narrator talking about setting the parrot free was very symbolic. The parrot would be free of it's cage, just like when the partner died he would finally be free of the disapproval of others.

On Goldberg

The section that caught my eye was the chapter titled "Baking a Cake", mostly because I love cake and I was pretty hungry when I was in class. I related to the chapter a lot because when I write, I start out with one or two thoughts or ideas. From there I let the words flow and fall from my mind and in the end, the writing turns into something completely different than what I started with.

For example, the other night I started writing something, thinking it was going to be about love. It started out being about someone, but about half way through it changed into more of an explanation of myself. I had not planned it that way, but that's what came out of my head. I don't always love everything I write in the beginning, but as I read it over again and make changes, I grow to love it.

I loved the part when she talked about the cake/ writing being the hippie child that the parents won't accept. Your writings are like your children; some of them are great, some of them are okay, and some of them turn out kind of bad. However, you have to love and accept each one, no matter how they turn out.

On Tocqueville

I have recently discovered that poetry is my favorite form of writing. Not to say that I don't enjoy reading novels, but I love the way that poetry flows. Last Christmas, my dad got me a book of poems. I can't remember the name of the author off the top of my head, but I love most of the poems in the book. Tocqueville has become a book of poetry that I am proud to have on my bookshelf.

At first, flipping through the pages, I didn't think I would enjoy this book very much. The power point-style poems were confusing and strange to me. However, upon actually reading the book, I found that I thoroughly enjoyed the actual poems. My favorite to read as well as imitate was Ecclesiastes. I interpreted it as a kind of therapist's guide to helping patients. In fact, I even sent my therapist the name of the poem so she could look it up. Maybe it was just the ending part: "The rule is everyone is a gypsy now. Everyone is searching for their tribe." That kind of reminded me of my therapist because she's a hippie and that sounds like something she would say.

I loved imitating Ecclesiastes. I took a poem that was up for interpretation and made it blatantly obvious that it was about an eating disorder. I have struggled with anorexia for about a year now. She whispers nasty things about my body in a raspy voice that I find it hard to ignore and fight at times. As soon as I read this poem when searching for one to imitate, I knew exactly what I could do with it. I let her tell me everything she wants from me and put it into Mattawa's format. She's still there, but she's quieter now.