Wayson Choy Visits EWC4U in rm. 104

I've been very lucky learn from the notes of professional writers that have reviewed and revised my pieces and given advice that can only be gained from experience. Our most recent visitor was Wayson Choy. I've read The Jade Peony twice for school now, and he's visited once for both times but this time it was much more intimate as there were only three students.
Wayson teaches his own course on writing. I believe the best teachers for writing have written stories themselves and he brought along and did a shortened workshop activity that he uses in his class. The subject of the workshop is narrative voice and what drives it and the story forward. This is also what we've studied in class and voice is important to the short stories we are writing as an assignment. We examined a handful of articles from the New Yorker magazine and focused on the narrative voice and how it enchants a reader; making the reader want to continue and that the best writers can do that within the first couple of sentences (for 5$ a word, I’m sure they make them all count). When it was our turn to do the writing, I learned that I had no trouble creating a voice but ran into trouble with getting to the point of the story. We wrote as ourselves then as characters which we mimicked and got from characters in our lives. It is important to have narrative drive, which is the plot and plot is driven by characters and atmosphere. Having this experience with an accomplished writer who is often credited as being lyrical in his diction, gives us knowledge on what needs to be done in a piece; what needs to be detailed and how it's done.

Catherine Gildiner Visits EWC4U in rm. 104

It was great having Catherine Gildiner visit our writer’s class. It's such a good experience to discuss writing with an author using her book as the topic. The class read her memoir which I very much enjoyed because her narrative was enchanting and I could relate to her childhood stories having been through the frustrations of adolescence myself.
Meeting the author of a novel gives you the chance to get further explanation of moments you couldn't understand or characters you found particularly interesting. Everyone had their own personal inquiries but once they were answered, we got an idea of what writing is to her and she gave personal advice to me that explained good ways to get over my own obstacles in writing. I felt very lucky because she shared the same troubles as I do; not writing objectively and writing in things that are not apart of the story. Not writing to the arc. She said that it's good to think along the lines of making background sentences, but find a 'kernel' and write to that, and leave out everything that didn't happen.
I brought my mom along, and she was extatic to meet the author of Seduction and have her copy signed to show off to the rest of her book club.

TOO CLOSE TO THE FALLS (FATHER RODWICK) by Catherine Gildiner

I remember when I first went out for dinner and dancing with a priest. We got drunk and philosophized the Catholic faith, how to get out of being a sinner, and before I realized it, had discussion about under aged sacrilegious activities that could be frowned upon by "Mary Magdalene before she asked for Christ's forgiveness."
This section of Catherine Gildiner's memoir is the last in the book; she's 14 and in catholic school with her best friend Miranda and they get their kicks out of being rebellious. Cathy has no trouble sticking it to the man. Unless, the man is a man like The Rod. This piece is another look through a youth's eyes, with an author's words. This story details another humorous part of growing up; the discovery of sex. Cathy isn't completely unfamiliar, but the thought of sexuality doesn't run through her mind as oft as her friend who unloads the revelation upon Cathy. "He wants to do it"
"What?"
"What Lady Chatterley did, nitwit."
Again, the troubles with being “uninformed” about certain things are comical for the reader because he can empathize. Cathy was the only girl in the class who didn't know what was going on; the priest was boinking the 14 year old catholic school girl.

In this piece, Catherine's diction perfectly resembles that of a schoolgirl and it isn't hard for the reader to believe that this girl is the same little girl we've been reading about. "I covered your ass, you stupid jerk, handing me that book. Christ, now our mothers are being called."
Her thoughts as well, are believable. "I was suddenly appalled that I hadn't shaved my legs."

A PERFECT DAY FOR BANANAFISH by J.D. Salinger

Well you can't argue that it was a perfect day for bananafish, whatever they are. This short story is worth reading because of how realistic the tone and dialogue is. When I read this, my mind was portraying screenplay to that of an early sitcom. The description of characters and their actions is very precise, but still leaves room to the imagination where it should, i.e. the specifics of their physical attributes.

The opening scene is beautiful. We are given all the information we'd need to understand the story and then some, but only through the conversation between a girl and a woman she calls "mother." The author doesn't change her title from "a girl" when narrating her even though we know for certain that she is Mrs. Muriel Glass who has only recently married Seymour Glass, a character who still isn't trusted by Mom and Dad. We feel this tension as a normal part of marriage, a comical device in any story, because of the way Muriel defends her love, by blowing off mom. I loved the conversation they had, it hasn't been sized down, because it's a real mother concerned about everything in her daughter's life. "The girl increased the angle between the receiver and her ear," it's a small gesture, but it happened.

The tone is more conversational than most because most of the story is in the conversations.
I think that the twist ending is constructed in the best way it could possibly be in literature. Right at the last sentence. James Gagne was a woman all along.

ON WRITING (On Writing) by Stephen King

Finally, a book that can actually teach you how to write. If you can follow the guidelines and teachings of Mr. King, not only will you write, but you'll have just as cunning a dialect as the rest of the big shots. There are many great minimalist and simplistic lessons that, in my case especially, keep a writer from becoming "enchanted with his powers of description." and show that what a writer is "not being paid to do is be self-indulgent."

In the part of On Writing that is on writing, King has discussed (through 'telepathy') three elements of fiction (narrative, description and dialogue) that are the focus in the Writer's Craft course I'm taking while we are studying fiction. I'm 500% sure that the author knows exactly what he is talking about.

I most appreciated look at description. In his telepathic lecture, we are taught a great lesson in simplicity, more so; not over detailing. The magic of storytelling is when the reader’s imagination fills in the blanks i.e. how bloody the axe murderers' face is, how short the ravishing red head's skirt is, or how long the eerie long hallway is. If we were giving exact detailing of these kinds of points, the imagining is gone and boredom can arise.

JADE PEONY (chptr 9) by Wayson Choy

This passage excerpted from the novel was originally a short story that Choy wrote in a writing course. How the novel The Jade Peony came from the colour pink written on a sheet of paper, is as mystical as the story itself.

The novel should be appreciated for the wonderful work Wayson put into making the story seem so real that you can almost touch it. Feeling like you're in the room with all of the Chan family comes from the authentic use of direct speech, sensory detail, and conflict.

Dialogue reveals the true nature of each of the characters, that is; their beliefs, fears, desires, and the person they really are. For example, the superstition of Poh-Poh is conveyed many times; "these are special pieces, because they come from a sacred place," "my spirit will hear its sounds and see its light and I will return to you." Also, the white cat with "pink eyes like sacred fire" shows her belief in the afterlife as well. Her spirituality is contrasted, the children are unsure of who they are- confused identity, which is revealed in their dialogue.

Dialogue is also an effective tool to create tension and drama, because different beliefs will often clash. "Our whole household held its breath, she had promised us a sign of her leaving." the drama here is; what is the sign going to be? Is there going to be a sign? There is also a beautiful drama in Poh-Poh's privacy, the jade peony which was a gift from a lover who she lost, she keeps until her death. And there is a good sense of tension created mid-chapter where the whole family is sitting in the parlor in "troubled air."

The best example of description is on pg. 168-169 "my eyes darted in panic...in the center of this semi translucent carving, no more than inch wide, was a pool of pink light, its veins swirling out into the petals of the flower." I feel these two paragraphs are beautifully written and an excellent of why Choy's writing is described as lyrical.

THE SANTALAND DIARIES by David Sedaris

What a wonderful look into how much of a shit-show meeting Santa is. Now, I'm not putting down one of the most magical moments of childhood, neither is Sedaris I could imagine, but the reality he illustrates in this piece is too funny, and a parent who has ever had to deal with these escapades would find this sidesplitting. Let a thirty-three year old elf tell you just how different SantaLand is when you're not apart of the audience, the brainwashed dorks who drag their children down to Macy's not knowing the meaning of freewill.

The most enjoyable part of the story was hearing what the people had to say. The level of reality in the words they said made them "real people and not just characters." (To quote On Writing by Stephen King) The speech of these people is a good look at how characters are well constructed; what they say is funny because you can imagine what being in their situation would be like, and it's easy to get where they're coming from. Sedaris' main character is the most relatable to anyone. He also creates magnificent representations of 'characters' that we see in real life; like the ditzy valley girl who ends every sentence with a question, or the tired manager who has been in whatever job it is long enough to not feel the need to be polite about what she has to say. "I have scraped enough blood out from the crotches of elf knickers to last me the rest of my life. And don't tell me, 'I don't wear underpants, I'm a dancer.' You're not a dancer..."

THE HANGED MAN by Ian Rankin

"The killer wandered through the fairground."
What a great opening sentence; it transmits a good idea of the setting and subject of this short story. I enjoy Rankin's writing because all I read from this piece is so natural and often I can find the flow of a piece to be choppy and unrelated, this aspect of his diction gives me good ideas and lessons that I should apply to my writing. Also, there are a few slang words from English or Scottish dialect that doesn't hurt to learn; "punter." The title is appropriate and insightful; the hanged man is a tarot card that is referred to in the story, and it is a metaphor for what the protagonist discovers in the end. The tone is wonderful, again to refer to the opening; I see a dark fairground and the mood is solemn and quiet, the man who we follow is named Mort, this is a clever name for this character because it is resembling to the French verb "mort" which means to die, unfortunately I think I saw this same 'trick' used in Adam Sandler's Click. There are more puns in the piece that relate to death; "There was a stiff breeze," this gives the same characteristics of a corpse
Mort is an assassin, but he prefers the term killer simply because he wants to keep it simple and that is exactly what he is, a killer. Once he finds his target, the dialogue they have is so believable, each of the characters emotions can be depicted with just reading their speech; they calm acceptance of the Gypsy and the frantic confusion of Mort. There is spectacular twisting at the end, which I can imagine takes a skilled writer to set up, especially in a short story.

TOO CLOSE TO THE FALLS (COLD) by Catherine Gildiner

Little Cathy is doing her job. She has no time to be distracted by the modern day sex icon that is Marilyn Monroe. Gildiner, again, does a great job on writing through the memory of her childhood. This writing, gives the reader a similar point of view, to that of Roy's; we learn to grow a soft spot for naivety. It is cute to watch (read) Catherine react to Marilyn; she never understood the concept of a celebrity, which explains her puzzlement as to why everyone wants to see her so bad, what the deal with her mood was, or why she was in front of a grown man and a little girl in her underwear. Perhaps it was jealousy, maybe Cathy wanted to be famous. This part of the memoir pays homage to the late movie star in that it shows still as a normal person who wants Juicy Fruit and a Photoplay, not brainwashed by her own narcissism like most stars.

ON WRITING (WHAT WRITING IS) by Stephen King

Telepathy? Of course! Why didn't I think of that? The further I read into this memoir, the larger my love for the style, and respect for the author, grows. This passage by Stephen King is the neatest piece of literature I've ever read, and I am not just throwing that term around to come up with words. If I wanted to do that, I would just write the way I normally do, dance furiously around the subject. It's those kinds of 'moments' in writing, the little anecdotes that are the most interesting. I like how King writes that way in his book. He establishes an awesome relationship with the reader that breaks down the 'third wall' with a force. I think his goal in this section was to talk about writing in a new way, it has never been explained in such a trippy manner. I fully understood the concept of writing being telepathy; ideas and images are transmitted from the mind of the author into the reader's, and over any time span as well! This is such a neat thing to write about. Also, there are important lessons learned from this reading that will give confidence and motivation to writers who just need "to kick ass;" description of an object is not writing down the exact physical measurements or a popularity contest but a meeting of the minds.

TOO CLOSE TO THE FALLS (MARIE SWEENEY) by Catherine Gildiner

These memoirs of Catherine's are wonderful. I thourouglhy enjoy her clear and clever diction adds to the magnificent stories from her childhood that she craftily conveys as she saw it when she was a young girl. She perfectly gets the invisibility of being a child in her words, the confusing ignorance that comes with being inexperienced at life reminds us all of what it was like to be five or ten years old- how all the things that perplexed us; why we weren't allowed to say certain words and all the words we didn't know, and getting first hand impressions of emotions- the human condition- and only truly understanding it years after.

The tone is naturally light hearted because she is a little girl, and people are typically nice to little girls. Why not? Sometimes, when Cathy would be in a situation not appropriate for someone her age, to me it would read like the stories of Scout Finch in Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird. You still know that it is a grown woman, obviously sophistocated, who is writing (she doesn't make spelling and grammatical errors on purpose to make it really from a five year old).
The passage about Marie Sweeney falls into this well. Cathy does not know what the old woman meant when she said that she "fixed girls who were in trouble," and she admired her rebeliousness and vocabulary which she mimics (as children do) out of admiration and hopes of being more adult, but she does not now how outrageously inappropriate she is.

GHOST RIDER by Neil Peart

I like Neil Peart because of how he sounds. A nice guy, the death of his wife and daughter were so close together, and heartbreaking enough on their own, and he was torn but wasn't going to sit around (quit Rush) and let it eat away at him and drive him mad. No, like a rockstar he would go on a motorcycle journey of self-discovery. He still did quit Rush, but only temporarily. Ghost Rider is a memoir of the two years he lived after his loss, he went on a search for his future and dealt with the memories and heartbreak of his past. He climbed onto his BMW R1100GS motorcycle and set off down the road. What could he looking for: meaning? peace? or to look for a reason to live?

He is a world famous musician, I already liked him before I even knew he wrote a book. I was won over by the fifteen minute drum solos and the thirty five piece drumkits which was

THE ACCIDENT by Douglas Bell

I can picture this memoir originally being Douglas' extravagant bar story to tell to a crowd in need of a good one; this epic tale is a suitor because the diction isn't overly sophisticated so you could understand it as soon as your heard it, where as in literature can be like "a box of chocolate" most of the time which makes repeated reference to a dictionary inevitable.
This was entertaining, it is certainly less artsy than a memoir styled like There is a Season with less complex literary terms, but in any case that is just dependant on the author's writing style.
I noticed that in the all the speaking in this memoir displays a classic psychological process of dealing with such an occurrence; prologued with the "hop-waddle-walk" (fear; he does what he can to save him from the horrifying monster that is the truck) next, he admits to himself "I'm in trouble... This is what it would be like if I were mashed by the big freezer in out basement." (Acceptance) and oddly at the end anger "Fucking bastard, if I ever get my hands on that cocksucker..."
I believe that Bell achieved his goal in this piece that is; describing how a totally routine morning can have something catastrophic follow it. How normal the day was going. I liked the opening foreshadow he uses right off the bat to say that he was going to end up in a hospital. "Breakfast...Later when I threw it up in the emergency room..." this is the second sentence, and the last we hear of any sort of medical emergency or danger until the latter sections of the piece.

THERE IS A SEASON by Patrick Lane

I learned a lot of new words after reading this piece. To read this memoir you need the fluent vocabulary of gardener and a mountain man to appreciate his detailing of his respect for the land he lives on.
I feel he was modest, he wasn't writing down impressive words in order to stump a teenaged reader who is trying to analyze it, but instead a colourful array of colourful nouns that give the wildlife depth when he spoke of it. Although he might actually be in love with nature, the tone of his storytelling was a lot more conversational meaning he did not over detail. The things he described were important to the topic; when telling the reader about the setting, Lane used simile, metaphor and personification in his diction: "Grasses...lay like fallen hair upon the earth, and their new green spears caught the wind with frail hands." When he does get into detail it is appropriate because these are the fine points that he was noticing as it was happening, he talks about a cougar that was recently shot out of a tree in front of him. "I remember touching the rough blond hair of a dead cat's nape, the curve of its long yellow incisors, and the dead ball of its eye as it stared sightless through me to the fading sun." Here we see how stunned he really is by witnessing death for the first time.
I enjoy the way he remembers the places in a physical way, like those memories of those places are like remembering who he is. "My bones remember the water and the stones," "...the stones remain like ghosts in my hands...” I having gone camping since I was nine years old, gone on canoe two week long canoe trips through Algonquin Park and Dumoine, and a veteran cottager so I can relate to Patrick's love for the outdoors.

UNDER THE INFLUENCE by Scott Russell Sanders

I like this memoir because it the subject is dark but the content isn't too graphically horrifying making the piece an appropriately sentimental look into the complex emotions of somebody who's loved one has an addiction. Referred to as a disease now, alcoholism affects "In the United States alone... some ten or fifteen million people," and each case is unique. Young Scott's father is the drinker, and when he describes how he sees his father with this problem as "a starving dog gobbling food," it's clear to see that it is painful for him. He details his feelings as he tosses and turns at night "hating him, loving him, fearing, knowing I have failed him." These are the thoughts that children have, they can't understand how their parent could be so weak, so helpless - in this, the child is obligated to feel responsible and comes up with reasons to feel guilty, which Sanders does. He artfully illustrates his father in a way that reads well chosen words and a tone that sets the view point from his ten year old self. The typical scene of his father after a night of heavy drinking is told with verbs that tells the story of young children in the room with a dragon who "bursts, grunts, growls, clashes, prowls, thumps, rummages, slams, and mutters. The only dialogue in this piece is short and seemingly pointless, Scott again has walked in on his father taking a swig of whatever his beverage was, he wasn't disallowed to drink in his own house, let alone by his own son. The moment is ill at ease and leaves the two scrounging to make awkward conversation.

ASS BURGER by Augusten Burroughs

First of all, I will take the opportunity to use these words in a grade twelve writing assignment; ass burger.

I enjoyed Ass Burger, because of the underlying moral and theme that is clear throughout the piece. Ass Burger gave off warmth of sincerity as it was about brothers being supportive, and the unspoken love that exists from childhood. I could imagine that Burroughs almost definitely wrote Ass Burger with an unconcealable grin on his face when he brings up the quirky and fun memories of his older brother. Despite how he felt about John calling him ‘retarded’ or slow when he was younger, and even though then he did not know of Aspergers Syndrome, his respect for John is admirable. Not to say that it would be difficult to tolerate him, but the fact that they are brothers comes first, he describes the punishment for anyone who "is mean to my big lumbering brother with his unusual, one-in-a-trillion brain," a fierce loyalty has risen from him.
I love the character of John; obviously this is thanks to Augusten's craft. This diction is similar to that of Stephen King’s memoir, that being; casual and conversational. The dialogue in Ass Burger is wonderful; it is honest straight and at times, down right hilarious. The tone of this piece is appropriate; it is as if you are reminiscing good times with your brother. I do have a brother (and I’m still not sure that he’s ‘all there’) so I can certainly relate to the two, especially when they are young, that was Eric and I.

ON WRITING by Stephen King

I've read up to about a little less than a third of On Writing, I feel as if Stevie and I would have no trouble carrying on a conversation, because he's written a memoir that creates the same repore with the reader that would be present if he was sitting across the room sharing his stories.
Stephen is not out to impress with big words. One of the sections in this part of the book King tells us how a mentor John Gould tought him to write in simple, succint sentences; 'take out all the things that are not in the story.' (pg 47) His straight forward diction makes him come across as an honest everyday man. This is also a key element in the tone of his writing which is casual and sincere. I like the little thoughts he usually has to end a section, "Just an idea," "Man oh man," he's just rapping with me. We've all had our embarassing, painful, and frightening moments, especially in childhood. King depicts the trauma of being unheard when your little, and he paints each picture by describing the memory of each sense, olefactory, audio , visual ect. I can relate, it reminds me of all my finest moments of adolescence, and the responsibility learned as a young adult where he has a rough work schedule while using that money to pay for his passion.
I enjoy the informality of this peice, of this style of writing because it allows a repore to grow with the author and reader as there is no upper or lower class, no division between the King and his people, so to speak. It is more so of a friend in a more laid back manner giving you an honest idea of why and how he writes the way he does, and in fiction there is no gage on how down to earth this person really is.