Blog #5: I don't know if this is what was meant by the prompt.

In Alice Walker’s “Becoming What We’re Called”, Walker examines the harm that can come from labeling. Walker specifically speaks out against the use of the term “you guys” to describe women. To her, calling women “guys” is an act of erasure. To Walker, using “you guys to describe women does not recognize their uniqueness as women. Walker compares the use of the term “you guys” to the act of female genital mutilation, saying that it is the verbal equivalent of that horrible act. She makes this comparison explicitly in words, but when she compares the use of “you guys” with the prevalence of the word “nigger” in rap music, she does it more by proximity, by placing a scene in the botanical garden, where she and her friend encounter the young man singing along with his walkman. By placing that scene after the first scene, where she first talks about the incident where her friend includes her in a group by calling them “you guys”. Other things that she does in the essay to get this idea across is by defining the word “guy” and returning to the first scene at the end of the essay to use the things discussed in the rest of the essay to shed new light on the incident.

Blog #4: The Fool, the Magician, The World, and Temperance

I don’t know what kind of essay I do using segments, but I could try to figure it out while I write this. I’m a little unsure about the kind of segments I would want, lists or broken up scenes, or really anything, and I don’t know what would tie them all together. Maybe using the rooms of a house to talk about memories in those rooms, but that would require talking about some place I don’t particularly feel like talking about, but since this isn’t about something that I would actually write, then I think that’s one way I could do segments. Objects are big too, I have a superstitious connection to certain objects, so following one of these objects and the way it connects to someone/something might be a good one for me to do.

One idea that I had was to use quotes from my mother at different times to separate into different scenes involving my mother. That would be interesting. Or tarot cards. I assign most of my good friends and family members specific major arcana signifiers that I think work with their personality the best, so it would be interesting to use the tarot as a way to describe them. I think I might actually write the tarot card one, I always did want to do that, since I already associate them with specific cards anyway. I think perhaps the tarot card idea might work really well in my case, whereas the rooms in a house or other objects just might be a little too close for me to write objectively and boil the things down to a theme.

Blog #3: Forget What You Think You Know

I think that Tracy Kidder had a valid point when she said that there has to be accuracy in Creative Nonfiction, however, I think that the very nature of memory can make the task of accuracy nearly impossible. As we learned in the first week of class, memory can be tricky. It comes in bits and pieces and may not always be accurate. I think that perhaps the fact that she is a journalist informed her concentration on accuracy. While Creative Nonfiction needs to be accurate in that every event should have really happened, and every reaction should be genuine, I do not believe that the writer of a creative nonfiction piece has no room for inventiveness. Within the constraints of truth, there can always be flair. Another thing that struck me was the idea of point of view in a Creative Nonfiction piece. I, in my naiveté, thought that a creative nonfiction piece must be in the first person, as everything is essentially about the writer. Kidder’s statement about picking a point of view that fits the situation was something I had never even considered before. This broadens my definition of creative nonfiction vastly to include those other points of view. That also means that my assumption that creative nonfiction is almost always an exploration of the self, as per my last blog, must not be right as well. At this point, I thought I had the answer to that question, but it’s obvious that I don’t.

The Lott essay also had a lot in it to think about, Dr. Chandler’s dislike of him notwithstanding. I knew that creative nonfiction employed the use of the tools of craft that are used by fiction writers, but that does not mean that I realized that I must make myself into a character. Also, being asked to inventory oneself in the way that we did during Monday’s class in an attempt to turn ourselves into characters was a very interesting exercise in ego checking, which is something Lott says is necessary in the process of turning oneself into a character. I had not given much thought into having to give my readers more information about myself than was absolutely necessary to convey the idea that my piece is trying to put forth, but according to lot, that kind of biographical information is vital to the livelihood of the piece.

I honestly don’t know what to say about the other essay, so I’m just going to end it with this: I no longer know what my definition of creative nonfiction is, so I will have to rework my ideas and see if I can get through on instinct until then. I have a lot more reading and learning to do to integrate these ideas into my definition.

Blog #2: With Blackbirds Following Me

This blog feels like a rehash of last week’s, but I’ll endeavor to write about my changed perspective in light of our class discussion and the “eye” and craft essays we’ve read since then. I still think that creative nonfiction is about humanity for the most part, but sometimes it’s about connections. The “I” essays seem a lot more self-contained to me, a lot less about connections as they are about the self. In the “eye” essays, I see a lot more connections. Those connections can be between the author and a lot of things, but the essays are still about the author, even if they take a broader scope. Through the author’s connections to and descriptions of things outside him/herself, the reader learns more about the author.

“I” essays seem a lot more contemplative, and other people besides the author may only factor in briefly, like the cruel children or the men in “Mirrorings.” These people are not fleshed out fully, because that’s not important to the examination of self and personal growth that the author wants to put forth. “I” essays are blatantly about the author.

In the “eye” essays, however, we learn about the author through their connections, as I said before. In “Secret Ceremonies of Love and Death,” we learn a great deal about the author through her connection with and description of Karla Faye. We also learn more about her contemplations on death than we do about Karla’s or Dana’s perspectives. That’s because even though Lowry is talking about Karla, she’s still herself and just because of that, the essay is far more revealing of herself than anything else. In “eye” essays, the essays are ostensibly about someone or something else, but almost always ends up being more revealing of the author than who or what the author is talking about.

In my opinion, that’s the difference between the “I” and “eye” essays, the “I” essays are blatantly about the self, with all the mess and well, I’m sure someone else used a better word for this, emo-ness that can come along with that kind of inward perspective. The “eye” essays can still examine the self through the vehicle of connection. By doing that, the authors of these essays can avoid the fine lines between emotionality and whining that seems to be a slippery slope in the “I” works.

Also, no, the blog title seems to have nothing to do with the content of this blog, but if you take a look at what most people think about the band those lyrics come from (Linkin Park), you will see that they started out with inward focused lyrics, and now have a good mixture of outward observation and inward looking. They are both "I" and "eye" so HA! I can use the lyrics from my favorite band.

Blog #1: Hiding in the Shadows to Discover the Elusive Definition of CNF

Note: I had a difficult time defining CNF, so I just wrote about other classifications to get started, They are saved here for posterity mostly because I thought it was funny how I had to do that.

“Artists tell lies to tell the truth,” is a line from V for Vendetta that always rung particularly true for me. Creative nonfiction, however, cannot be considered a lie. The things that creative nonfiction writers write is essentially true, but they use the same kinds of techniques as fiction writers to create interesting, engaging stories out of real events. There are some things that make creative nonfiction different from regular nonfiction and fiction itself.

Nonfiction

Nonfiction is true, but boring. Nonfiction is straight facts and while the facts themselves can be engaging and interesting, the work itself is focused on the facts and not on making those facts interesting to the reader. How many people read textbooks for fun? Well, besides me that is. Nonfiction is not something that people write to be enjoyed, or to be read and looked at for style. There is little room in nonfiction for cleverness, or for things like dialogue and plot.

Fiction

These are the lies. Fiction is not a true story, and the characters, plots and in some cases the world of the stories are inventions of the author’s mind. Fiction writers have freedom. If they want to write about vampires, they can because they don’t need to adhere to the rules of the real world. There are rules to fiction, but basically those rules are about making a false reality or situation real to the reader. These rules are things like having believable dialogue and consistent, complex characters. Style is important in fiction, how you write effects how people will digest the story itself. Fiction tends to be, in my opinion, more vibrant and engaging than nonfiction because of this attention to language and careful plotting.

Creative Nonfiction

Creative Nonfiction is essentially true, but the techniques of style and plot that are seen in fiction are used to create vibrant stories out of real-life experiences. The other thing that separates creative nonfiction from regular nonfiction is that creative nonfiction focuses on ideas rather than giving out facts. To write creative nonfiction, the writer must first take the experience they are using and dig through it to find what, exactly that experience says about the world and (usually) the human condition. Creative nonfiction is not just about a good story, as much of what is available in the world of fiction is, but about what is behind that good story. I could tell a million great true stories about my family, myself, my friends, but unless I have an idea that pulls it out into a broader spectrum, they are not creative nonfiction, but something else entirely. I don’t know what I would call that, but it wouldn’t be creative nonfiction. I also think that Eric was right in his blog, when he said that creative nonfiction is people-oriented, because the stuff I have read that can be classified as creative nonfiction are things like memoir. Creative nonfiction is about experience, relationships, the self, others, and many other things that would make a psych major extremely happy.