[stylist] Assignment for tonight- my contribution

Sun Sep 26 17:19:15 UTC 2010

Hey listers,

I hope that several of you can make the meeting this evening.  If you
haven’t written anything, don’t worry.  We will be discussing style
and voice in general.  Of course, this can apply to fiction as well,
so don't worry if you aren't a nonfiction writer.

Since our president contributed, I decided I would add a few examples
from my own writing.  I am pasting below a few examples of beginnings
that I have already written.  Two are finished projects, while the one
on Internet dating is a work in progress.  The first starts in a scene
with another person, the second starts  with a dream that leads to the
scene, and the third starts with a scene with just me.

Until this evening,

Priscilla

** Beginning of book-length memoir about losing my sight during the
birth of my son and the complex relationship with my mother

     I stare through the passenger's window, watching winter fade on
the horizon.  The rich, black soil sticking out from beneath the
melting snow appears as blotches of ink on blankets of white.
Occasionally a big white house, a big red barn, and a grove of
evergreens break the monotony.  But am I really seeing these things?
Or are they just images stored in memory?  I've been travelling this
road every two weeks for the past several months, so it's hard to
tell.  Mile after mile, the scenery looks the same.
     "So do you really plan to bring this baby home with you in a
couple of months?" my mother asks, interrupting the long, peaceful
silence.
     I don’t know how to respond.  The swelling in my stomach is like
a protruding pimple ready to pop, a blemish that cannot be hidden.
While my mother and I are very aware of the situation, we have never
talked about what will happen when the baby comes.  Does she really
think I will consider adoption now that I'm seven and a half months
along?  "Um, what did you think I was going to do?"
     My mother's expression is noncommittal, her eyes still glued to
the road, her silvery-gray hair framing her long, narrow face.  "How
do you think you're going to take care of a baby?  You don't even have
a job," she unnecessarily reminds me.
     I feel a sharp kick and press down on my stomach.  "I can start
looking for another job as soon as...uh...in a few months,” I stumble
over my words, not wanting to use the word baby.
     Turning her head, my mother looks at me with her cool, hazel
eyes, the thick bifocals magnifying her pupils, two dark tunnels
pulling me in.  "And if you can't find a job?"
     "I will!  Now just drop it," I say, turning back to the window,
to the landscape of snow, ice, and cold.

** Beginning of a personal essay on my second kidney transplant

     My mother and I stand by her dining room window, looking out at
the fish pond in her yard.  I notice a few small goldfish floating on
top, and I know the filter isn’t working.   All the fish will be dead
soon.  I open a box of chocolates.  Each of the paper wrappers holds a
small brass bell.  The bells are ringing, and I check to see if my
hands are steady.  They are.  I look at my mother.  She looks at the
bells.  She knows danger is coming.  When the thunder and lightening
start, the rain hits hard against the side of the house.  The
celery-colored curtains whip wildly as the wind pushes through the
open windows.  My mother tries to close them, but they won’t move.  I
look outside and see hundreds of children running through the yard,
crying and screaming in fear.  The bells ring louder and louder…
     I wake up to the ringing, but I can’t move.  I am paralyzed with
fear.  Finally I roll over, pick up the receiver, and listen to the
hotel’s automated voice.  “It’s 7:30 AM, June 11, 2001, and 65 degrees
in downtown Rochester, Minnesota.”
Quickly pulling up the starched sheet and heavy spread, I hang up the
phone and fumble for the remote control on the night stand.  I turn on
the television and flip through the channels until I hear a news
reporter.
     “…let out a couple of deep breaths, then a fluttery breath.  The
color seemed to drain from his face as the second drug was
administered…lips turned white.  When the final drug was administered
at 7:13 AM, McVeigh was still.  His eyes rolled back up into his head.
 At 7:14, it was over.”
     Shivering, I turn off the television.  I can’t listen, not today.
 The day one man is being executed, I am having my second kidney
transplant.  While no one has been injecting lethal doses of  sodium
thiopental, pancuronium bromide, or potassium chloride, the drugs used
in executions,  with the failing kidney, my body has been producing
its own lethal toxins.  Without the transplant, I will be facing my
own execution in a matter of time.

** Beginning of a book-length memoir on Internet dating as a person
with multiple disabilities (The preface set up the situation a bit)

    So tonight, as Becky, Seth, and Chase, my three college-aged
housemates/renters, prepare to go out to the bars for the evening,
trying to find love, which seems to be what we all are looking for, I
lie on my queen-sized, pillow-top bed, a bed that I bought when I
moved back into my house ten months ago after leaving my husband,
packing all of my possessions, and having my son Jonathan drive the
U-Haul trailer more than nine hundred miles from Alexandria, Virginia,
to Iowa City, Iowa.  As I flip through the channels on the television,
I pet Isabella, my five-pound Maltipoo puppy, occasionally hearing her
growl slightly, more than likely dreaming about the two yellow labs
that passed by the house with their owner a few days before.
     Let’s see.  I can watch TV Land with another episode of Andy
Griffith or CNN with more media coverage of the upcoming 2008
Obama/McCain presidential election.  I can watch MSNBC News and hear
clips of Saturday Night Live over and over, Tina Faye impersonating
Sarah Palin, when she realized that she couldn’t phone a friend or ask
the audience about democracy abroad, saying, “Well, in that case, I’m
just gonna have to get back to ya’,” re-emphasizing the ridiculousness
of McCain’s choice for a running mate.  I can watch HLN and hear Nancy
Grace say, for the hundredth time, “Bomb shell tonight,”" referring to
new evidence to prove that Casie Anthony killed her two-year-old
daughter, Caylee.  I can watch QVC and order more things that I don’t
need, like the interactive animated baby gorilla that sits on my night
stand, or I can watch the Animal Channel and learn about the habits of
pack wolves living in the wild.  What a choice.  Finally, I settle on
Andy Griffith, one I have seen at least a hundred times, the one where
Barney dresses as a woman and tries to take on some bookies himself.
    As I listen to the show, I space off, thinking of my housemates
going to the bars, socializing with other people, flirting with
members of the opposite sex, and of my local friends, all having fun
with their spouses and significant others.  Intesar and Michael would
be watching episodes of Friends, since I loaned them all ten seasons,
and, like me, Intesar has become an addict.  Darrel and Eric would be
down at The Studio, drinking and “shaking some ass,” as Darrel would
say.  Dan and Roxanne would be awake, doing different things in
separate rooms, she watching television or searching for the best
cruise deals to Alaska and he playing interactive games on the
computer.  I can’t call any of them at midnight and say, “Hey, I’m
bored.  Do you want to go to IHOP for breakfast?”  Then I remember a
conversation with my friend Rachel from California, the only person I
keep in touch with from my high school.  She told me to try Internet
dating as a way to meet people, as I told her I was becoming bored
since moving back to Iowa.  Finally, I take my laptop from the night
stand and set it on my lap, and all of a sudden I am filling out the
forms on Match.com, something I swore I would never do.  Like my
housemates, I am going to find love, or at least a companion who can
fill a void in my life.

On 9/26/10, Robert Leslie Newman <newmanrl at cox.net> wrote:
> Here is what the assignment was to be: If you have a few lines or
> paragraphs, you can send them to the rest of the group before the meeting on
> Sunday night, as well as read to the others.  We will then discuss the
> importance of style and voice in the memoir, as well as the importance of
> finding a theme to hold the book or essay together.
>
>
>
> --My paragraph follows:
>
>
>
> "I use to believe I was a very lucky guy. Now I am not so sure. Though there
> are many who would not agree that my blinding at age fifteen was at all
> lucky, I feel that it was a good happening. And now that I have had a health
> related life threatening experience, I find that I question my luck. And so
> as I think and feel through my thoughts and write them down, I believe I
> need to examine --- what is luck; what is life and death; who am I; who do I
> want to be?"
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Robert Leslie Newman
>
> President- NFB Writers' Division
>
> Division Website
>
> http://www.nfb-writers-division.org
>
> Personal Website-
>
> http://www.thoughtprovoker.info
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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