Journal Report#7

A day late.  I'm a day late getting this blog posted and my mind is thinking of all the different excuses I can make as to why.  I forgot, my computer was taking a nap and I couldn't wake him up, my brother broke his leg playing basketball and I spent the night with him at the hospital, or I totally thought yesterday was Monday.  To tell you the truth, excuses are excuses regardless, and I should have had this up yesterday.  But since I did not, instead, all of you get to see it today.

Reading:

I will begin with some of the stuff I learned from the book on writing I am reading.  I read an article about the different types of things agent's and publishers are looking for in YA fiction right now and one of the things that stuck out too me most is that he story needs to have both an external action plot curve as well as an internal emotional plot curve, and they should both reach their climax at about the same time.  Agents are looking for strong voice and honest characters inside of a plot driven story.  The article also talked about different trends and if you should write according to the trends at the time, and most of the responses talked about reading a lot, but writing the best book you can.  If you try to force a story because it is what is popular at the moment than you will not enjoy the writing process.

I also read an interview with M.T. Anderson about experimental fiction.  Something he said I really liked was that a teacher's job is to help his/her creative writing students to find what is unique about their own style of writing so that they don't just pump out something formulaic and overdone.  I liked that.

I read The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, and I really like it.  Charlie's voice was powerful, and even though he didn't always make good choices, I was rooting for him throughout the entire novel.  A great novel for someone who is willing to read something that deals with a lot of heavy topics and isn't easily offended or put off by inappropriate behavior of the characters.  I wouldn't recommend it too must teens I know though.

I started reading How to Save a Life by Sara Zarr.  I am really liking it so far.  I love the whole two main character thing she is working with.  It's  a lot of fun.

Writing:

I really liked are discussion in class yesterday, and it motivated me to try something new with my next creative writing project.  I am going to plan a bunch of different scenes and write them instead of trying write from start to finish straight through.  We will see how that works.  Here is the first one.

I push the peddle down and try not to think about what just happened.  Everyone’s had a bad breakup.  Everyone breaks someone heart at some point in their life.  Everyone has to experience being ugly.  But not me.  I cannot.

The windows are down as I drive down I-80 and breath in the fresh mountain air.  Nobody’s out this late.  Large orange traffic cones line the road.  A few lights, speckled across the bench of the mountains,  indicate that some people are still awake.  Do they know what happened?  Can they?  I hope not.  As of right now, only God knows, God and Michelle.  

The silence becomes too much, and I turn on the radio.  I try singing, more like yelling, to get my mind off of the whole situation.  I scream and drive fast.  

When the yelling doesn’t work, I pull off the road to compose myself before finishing  the rest of the drive.  I take the next exit and follow the signs leading to a nearby pond.  The sky is clear and the moon full.  Normally, a person would love a night like this.  Bright evening sky, without the distractions of city lights and strangers.  A poet’s hay day or something like that, but all I can do is stare at my reflection in the pond.  The transformation is something I still don’t understand.  How come I don’t feel the zits appearing on my face, or the hair falling of my scalp. 

 Already, I’m struggling to recognize myself.  I’m ugly.  And ugly people don’t belong in my home.  I can already see my father struggling not to yell when I get home.  He won’t  He will say all the right things.

“I love you Victor no matter what you’ve done.”  

“We can fix this.”

“It is only temporary.”

He won’t straight out ask me what happened because good people don’t do that.  Instead he will tailor the conversation to dance around the subject until eventually the guilt of everything becomes unbearable, and I break and tell him everything.  At least, in my mind, that is what is going to happen, but I’m not going to let it.   

I begin thinking about earlier.  The night started off perfectly.  Michelle and I went to the dance like most of our school. Clean music and clean dancing.  Couples smiling at each other, whispering into each others ears.  Everyone beautiful.  Ugly people aren’t allowed at dances because ugly is bad.  Ugly is dirty.  Throwing a rock at the stranger reflected back at me in the pond.  I turn and get back into the car.

My Crazy Life:

Not much has happened.  We made a yummy apple pie on Sunday.  Watched some college football.  Continue to vegetate on the sofa watching TV quite often.  All that fun stuff.  Peace out!