This assignment was to create a counterfactual memoir to the one that I wrote last week in blog 5. A counterfactual shows how things could have turned out differently if something in the story was changed. This post is a hybrid of scene and reflection on an alternate experience.
For this assignment I read these articles: Rewinding & Rewriting: The Alternate Universes in Our Heads (NPR Hidden Brain Episode) Two Views of the River (Mark Twain) and watched these movie clips: Kramer vs. Kramer: Action Scene (Shows/Deepens the Conflict) Kramer vs. Kramer: End-Resolution Scene The seat beneath me was shaking uncontrollably. I woke up from my semi-sleep and looked over to my left. My pop-pop was clenching his jaw and gasping for air, still with his hands on the wheel. The car had begun to slow down. Cars were flying by us on the right. “Steer,” he said with the little voice he could exert. He had warned me that this day would come before. I didn’t like long car rides with my pop-pop because he wouldn't let anyone sleep in his car. “If I have a heart attack again, I don’t want you going with me.” was always his explanation but I never believed that it would happen again. He had a heart attack ten years earlier from a combination of smoking and being overweight. Not only that, but he was also diagnosed with cancer a few months earlier, so there was definitely a possibility of something going wrong. I leaned over the center console of the car and grabbed the wheel with both hands. He pointed his finger to the side of the road and shook his hand with a finger pointed. I pulled the wheel towards myself and the car jolted towards the shoulder of the road. My side lifted up in the air off of the two wheels and fell back down after a period of time that seemed like forever. The car then hit a very small hill of grass that contained big trees on the peak. The car went up in flames. I couldn’t see 6 inches in front of my fave because of the smoke and airbags that went off. “Unlock the door!” I yelled. No response. “Open the door!” Still no response. I put my fist to my chin, and threw the hardest elbow that I could to break the passenger side window. There was no way I was going to drag Pop-Pop out the window with me. He was more than double my weight. I dove head first out the window with my arms over my face to protect against broken glass. I landed in a pile of small jagged glass pieces. The next thing I remember was waking up in an uncomfortable bed surrounded by my family, hooked up to four different machines to keep me stable. I looked around and didn’t see Pop-Pop. I looked to my dad, “Where is Pop-Pop?” “In a better place now.”
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In this post, I started crafting my narrative memoir. This is just the beginning of the memoir which will be completed as a full story for a later assignment. For this assignment I read the following texts:
To You, I Belong (Becky Thompson) What is Creative Nonfiction? (Lee Gutkind) What is Memoir? The Fundamental Differences between Memoir and Autobiography Making Scenes in Memoir (Lee Martin) My Name is Margaret (Maya Angelou) Hills Like White Elephants (Ernest Hemingway) The Summer of 2018. Last day of my family vacation, all I wanted to do was go home and sleep. I’m not a big fan of family vacation. It was fun when we were younger but going to the shore just gets old after 16 years straight. I feel like an adult, where family vacation isn’t really a vacation, it’s more of a chore that I am dragged on for a week and forced to spend time with my family (who I am similar to in almost no way). I couldn’t wait to go home and just go back to everyday summer life. That day I got a text, “Yo Shawn, you want to go fishing tomorrow?” It was my grandfather who I refer to as pop-pop. He was my best friend in the world. We shared a love for sports and he was at every one of my games growing up no matter what sport I was playing. My first time fishing on a boat was with him. Since then, I always had fun going fishing with him. He was back in our hometown. I was exhausted from vacation and just wanted to go home and sleep all night and day. I thought to myself, I had to drive two hours home just to sleep overnight, then wake up at 6AM and take another two hour car ride to go fishing, then two hours home on the same day. Why would anyone want to do that? I enjoyed fishing, but not that much. But I thought that it might be the last time we are able to go fishing together. My Pop-Pop was diagnosed with throat cancer a month before and started chemotherapy next week. He had a heart problem too which had to be dealt with which is why it took so long for him to start his treatment. How could I possibly say no? It’s not that I wanted to say no, it’s just that my body was so physically drained and I was so exhausted mentally, that I did not have the energy to do anything let alone go sit out in the sun all day. But I agreed because I wanted to spend as much time with him as I could before he started his cancer treatment. It was an absolutely draining trip. I tried to act as normal as possible but life was completely sucked out of me. The worst part was that he would not let anyone sleep in the car with him. He was a former smoker and had a history of heart attacks. “If I have a heart attack behind the wheel, I don’t want you going with me.” He would say. “Okay, I hear you.” Honestly I don’t think there would be much that I would have been able to do if that did happen and I was alert and on adderall, so good thing we never got to that scenario. For this blog I read these three texts:
Teach Writing as a Process Not a Product (Don Murray) Against Vanity: In Praise of Revision (Mary Karr) Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life | pp. 28 -34 | Short Assignments & Shitty First Drafts (Anne Lamott) The post is about me meeting some authors I learned about in English Composition I class who give me advice on my english assignment and writing as a process. I woke up. 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday after my post-class nap and started to get ready to go to work. I put on my uniform and headed to my overnight mall security job. I didn’t really do much since my shift started at 8:30 and the mall closed at 9. I only had to do real work for a solid 30 minutes then I got to sit and watch security cameras until the shift was over at 2:30 A.M. I had a few hours so I decided I was going to go sit down at the coffee shop and get some work done. I walked in and saw some people that I recognized. They didn’t know me but I recognized them from my English professor’s lecture from earlier in the day. It was Don Murray, Mary Karr and Anne Lamott. I went over and introduced myself and asked them for some advice since I had been stressing out about my narrative paper that I had to complete. They told me to sit down and they would be happy to help. “I have a narrative paper due in two days and I want to get it done overnight so I don’t have to worry about it anymore. Can you help me with where to get started?” Don replied to me, “Not overnight, for writing is a demanding, intellectual process; but sooner than you think, for the process can be put to work to produce a product which may be worth your reading.” “Okay, but I really want to get this assignment done. I want to have the best paper written as soon as possible.” I said to him. “When we teach composition, we are not teaching a product, we are teaching a process” “Instead of teaching finished writing, we should teach unfinished writing, and glory in its unfinishedness.” Anne added, “This is not a bad line to have taped to the wall of your office.” “I think I understand.” I responded. “I usually spend hours writing my papers and always end up with mediocre work, and my friends tell me that they are having the same trouble.” “Good work only comes through revision” Mary said. “Revision is the secret to their troubles—and yours” That was something I had never thought about. I would always write my papers and then just turn them in without even reading over them to make sure they made sense. “Why would I want to write in the first place if all I’m going to do is go back and change it later? I feel like I would just be losing time.” “Every writer I know who’s worth a damn spends way more time ‘losing’ than ‘winning’” “And when I write I can never see the big picture. I think that’s why I put off writing for so long. I know where to start, I just don’t know where to go with it.” “Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” said Anne. “Thank you guys for all your advice.” I told them. “I really have to get to work” They wished me good luck on writing my paper. As I was leaving Anne said one thing that stuck with me. “Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird” |
Shawn AtkinsI use this blog to complete my assignments for my English Composition I class. ArchivesCategories |