Hello and welcome back! In this blog assignment for my English Composition class, I was asked to read and annotate texts from Don Murray, Marry Karr and Anne Lamott. I have to set my own scene for a writers’ roundtable discussion about the writing process and provided tree quotes from each reading creating, which will be a total of nine quotes. Creating this story was a kind of fun for me and hope reading it will as fun as it was for me. Here are the links for tree texts.
It was my third semester at Delaware County Community College and during that semester I had to take English composition I class. One day during the class time we were talking about the writing process when my teacher got the good idea to invite tree famous writers for us so we could discuss about writing with them and have some idea about how to develop our writing skills. Those three famous writers were Don Murray, Mary Karr and Anne Lamott. We met a Tuesday afternoon in the cafeteria of the college and everyone was exited to talk with them. It was my turn to talk with Anne Lamott, so I went to her table and introduced myself and the first thing I started telling her was how bad I was in writhing. I even didn’t finish my sentence when she stopped me and looked me deep in eye. “Almost all good writhing begins with terrible first efforts”, “Very few writers really know what they are doing until they’ve done it”, she said. To be honest, those two sentences made me comfortable and confident a little bit, but the first question that came in my mind after was: was Anne Lamott a terrible writer at the beginning? However, I was too shy to ask her that question. We kept taking about writing and at a point, I told her that I’m lazy and easily get discouraged when it comes to writing. After I finished explaining her that, she told a sentence that comes in mind every time when I have a writing assignment. ”We are just going to take this bird by bird. But we are going to finish this one short assignment”. Then comes the time to meet and talk with Mary Karr, and we spent all our meeting time talking about revisions and inspiration. The first question that came in my mind when we met was “what can I do to avoid stress while beginning to write and how many time should I write the same text to get it perfect?”. Mary Karr just replies by “thinking, they’ve raised their taste beyond their skill levels. So when they stare down at their pages, they can no longer superimpose what’s in their heads onto the work” and “revision is the secret to their troubles and yours. That, and a sense of quality that exceeds what you can do that gives you something to strive for. Actually, every writer needs two selves, the generative self and the editor self”. She explained me the context of negative and editor self for a while and then asked me if I had another question for her. Then came my last question, how can I start to write if I have no inspiration? That’s when Mary Karr told me the last sentence that concluded our conversation. “In the beginning, when there are zero pages, you have to cheer yourself into cranking stuff out, even if it later lands on the cutting room floor”. That sentence concluded our conversation, but also my fear of beginning writing. “Writing is the act of producing a first draft. It is the fastest part of the process, and the most frightening, for it is a commitment”, Don Murry said at the beginning of our conversation. “Instead of teaching finished writing, we should teach unfinished writing, and glory in its unfinishedness” And “The writing process itself can be divided into three stages: prewriting, writing, and rewriting”. Here are the tree main points I discussed with Don Murry during that afternoon meeting at school. My conversation with Don Murry was short, but very interesting and what he told still help me with my writing. “Writing is a process that involves at least four distinct steps”, “a writing process describes the series of physical and mental actions that people take in the course of producing any kind of text” and “creating a successful paper is a different process for everyone” were the only tree things I knew about the writing process before I met Don Murry, Mary Karr and Anne Lamott. Meeting those tree famous writers was very interesting and instructive, I learned a lot about writing and how to increase my writing skills.
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Dear Abdoul,
If writing can be a kind of way for living people to communicate with the dead, I think it can also be a way for someone to communicate with a part of himself. Today I’m writing you this letter not because you died. Just because I haven’t use the part of me you are since a long time. Writing is a way for some people to think about life, their experiences and communicate, but for others, it’s a way to free their mind. I think writing is important, but I don’t know how much it’s important for you because you are a part of me that I’ve been neglecting for a long time. I don’t really like writing, but I know you do and I can’t even imagine how hard it could be to live in someone who don’t like your passion and never let you express it. I’ve been thinking about you these last days and the first thing that comes in my mind when I think about you is that I have to apologize. Now I’m figuring out the importance of writing and I hope that with this letter you can accept my apologies and let us be a team. I don’t know if you still love writing or if you gave up on it because I was not letting you write. I also don’t know how you will react about this letter, but I really hope we can get back to work together. Now I think that writing can be a way to communicate, express yourself, your feelings and get people attention, and I want you to joy me so we can experiment that. As I told you, I don’t really like writing, but I like testing new things and now writing is mystery that I want to unlock. I just want to sit down sometimes, think and write to see how it feels to liberate your emotions through writing. We used to writing together a long time ago, I hope you remember that time because that’s exactly how I want us to be one more time. I want to feel, let you feel and express who we really are through our writhing. I want us to think and keep thinking together so we can write and free ourselves. I want us to do new adventures so we can have inspiration and keep writing. I know that it’s not easy to just come back like that after all these years, but I’m sure you can do it and I feel like we’re going to do great jobs together again. This letter is coming to an end Abdoul, I hope you will accept my apologies and reveal yourself one more time. Thanks, sincerely, Abdoulaye NG Diouf. Welcome to my first blog for my English Composition class. My assignment is answering the thirty-five questions from the writer Marcel Proust, who was a French writer born in 1871 and dead in 1922. Marcel Proust was a great writer and winner of many literary prizes and his questionnaire is very interesting. Answering these questions was fun, but also important because it kept me thinking about myself and kind of man I truly am and I hope you will have fun reading my answer. The Proust Questionnaire 1.__What is your idea of perfect happiness? My idea of happiness is just love, love and being loved. Sometimes people figure out that they were happy once the happiness is gone because it’s more simple than they think. For me, just coming home after a hard and tiring day, take a shower and relax with the person you love while watching a good movie is a perfect happiness. 2.__What is your greatest fear? My greatest fear is dying without achieving my goals or becoming blind. I’ve being working really hard in my life to achieve my goals and I don’t want to die before I achieve them. Becoming blind is also my greatest fear. 3.__What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? I don’t make connexion with people. I’m always alone, but to be honest it’s something I really like. Just sit down alone thinking about life and having fun in my head. __4.__What is the trait you most deplore in others? Their stupidity. Let say our stupidity because I’m not an exception. Sometimes I just tell myself that Humans are the worse Creature of God (if he is the one who created us). Most of us are selfish, we are killing each other and all the other creatures, destroying ourselves and everything around us. 5.__Which living person do you most admire? My dad, a very courageous man who would do anything to take care of his family. 6.__What is your greatest extravagance? Last month I spent like $500 in a PS4 and video games to figure out that I don’t like it at all. __8.__What do you consider the most overrated virtue? I really have no idea. 9.__On what occasion do you lie? I lie when I know that the truth will hurt someone else feelings. 10.__What do you most dislike about your appearance? My stomach. People don’t notice it, but now I got a big stomach because of American food. 11.__Which living person do you most despise? No one. 12.__What is the quality you most like in a man? Being responsible. As a man you should know that you got or will got responsibilities, so you have to be responsible or learn how to be. 13.__What is the quality you most like in a woman? When she is courageous, mature and knows what she wants. 14.__Which words or phrases do you most overuse? "shit" and "like" I use these two words a lot. 15.__What or who is the greatest love of your life? Saoudatou. That girl was the reincarnation of kindness. She always supported and pushed me to do my best. Things were really simple with her and everything was going well until her parents decided for her the man she was going to marry. 16.__When and where were you happiest? I think that was 4 years ago when I was with her and I hope my next relationship will be as perfect and stable as it was with her. 17.__Which talent would you most like to have? I would love to play an instrument or being a good dancer or singer. 18.__If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? I wouldn’t change anything. I think I’m good as I am. 19.__What do you consider your greatest achievement? I can’t really think of one, I’ve achieve a lot of thing these few years, but that’s just a beginning. 20.__If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be? I would want to come back as an animal especially a wolf. Wolfs are my favorite animals. 21.__Where would you most like to live? In a countryside, with a beautiful wife and two kids. 22.__What is your most treasured possession? I don’t have any. 23.__What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? I have no idea. 24.__What is your favorite occupation? I love watching movies or just sit down and think. 25.__What is your most marked characteristic? I don’t really know. 26.__What do you most value in your friends? I don’t really know, but loyalty is very important to me. 27.__Who are your favorite writers? I don’t have any. 28.__Who is your hero of fiction? Michael Scofield from Prison Break. 29.__Which historical figure do you most identify with? I can’t really think of anyone I relate to. 30.__Who are your heroes in real life? Denis Mukwege. Every single person in this world must know who is this big guy and what he is doing. 31.__What are your favorite names? Monique, Poupete and Fatim. 32.__What is it that you most dislike? Being around people who think they are better than others or who are arrogant. 33.__What is your greatest regret? I don’t have any. I think before I make a decision or start something, but if it goes wrong or end bad, it is what it is. 34.__How would you like to die? I would prefer to die in my sleep. 35.__What is your motto? Succeed in life or succeed in life. Insert text |
AbdoulHi, welcome to my blog. My name is Abdoulaye Ngor Diouf and my goal here is to improve my writing skills and have a better connection with my other self. I hope you will enjoy reading my work. thanks ArchivesCategories |