Boy!!! Did Disney do a number on me

I have never considered myself to be naive or even remotely submerged in the mere fantasies of a perfect or semi-perfect existence, however I feel the need to voice my frustration with Walt Disney and the "fairy"tales they have created. Before being given this assignment I was delightfully enchanted with the way Team Disney spun such glorious tales and managed to segway into them such sweet happy endings, but now I feel cheated. These stories that I have been fawning over all my life; that I have collected on dvd, vhs, and I dare date myself by mentioning the infamous beta are all fallacies. Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and (cover the kids ears) even that damn Aeriel are all knock-offs. These characters weren't toiled over or created in the traditional think tank manor. They were boosted like some expensive car on the streets; given a new paint job; and sold to an unsuspecting public. I may need therapy to get over this one. I feel my whole childhood was a lie. I am throwing away my Bambi lunch box. I will no longer support this menace of butchering literature and selling whimsical dreams to kids to fulfill some CEO's retirement package.

They didn't but we did....

The first time I can ever remember deciding that writing was something that really interested me was after reading a short story by Stuart Dybek entitled "We Did'nt" The writing in the story was sensational. He was able to tell so much about the characters through conveying their surroundings. It was truly amazing to me. I was equally excited when I became privy to The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin. Her writing style was pure finesse and she was able to capture so much detail and incorporate symbolism, and metaphors and employed so many writing techniques all within a short span of a couple of pages and it all worked. I can only dream that my writing kinks begin to smooth out and my work becomes so definitive. Writing saved my life many times when i was younger. I kept a journal(women keep diarys) that helped me to work through some pretty gruesome stuff in my life. Writing has always allowed me to gain perspective by being able to escape my part in the drama of my life allowing me to step back and veiw it objectively. I am sure that the writer and writing that saved my life was the Waker Journal circa 85.

Fiction: There is a hint of Truth in Every Lie

Writers are limited by their own experiences. We express and convey emotions through having a genuine connection with the characters we portray in the story. There has to be some form of attachment to avoid psuedo sensationalism. The reader must feel a sense of reliability in the author in order to move the story forward with some sense of authentification. The beauty of fiction is the ability to be able to draw on not only your own life experiences, but those of others. An author may have never been in trouble with the law, however he or she may have watched an episode or two of cops, or been privy to conversations with someone immersed in the criminal element. The point is even in fiction authors need to forge a connection with the character they hope to convey to an audience. Sometimes an authors information is unreliable, therefore it is necessary to research and delve deep into the mind state of the character you hope to project. Fiction is bitter-sweet; a ying and yang of emotional distress for an author. First, the author must fully understand the character they hope to portray and then you have to figure out a way to convey that emotional connection to an audience. The magic of fiction is the removal of boundaries, yet the curse of fiction is making it believable. I hope to learn how to convey the sense of a genuine story. I hope to harness that believability in my writing.

Prompt me...I'm going in

I read some of the writing prompts and many appeared that they might actually help, however some just appear to be enforcing what I always knew. Pen to the pad-- I think that is the easiest prompt there is. Sometimes its not about mood, amount of light in the room, revision of someone else's work, or big beautiful words. It is and always will be about the writer and what inspires him or her. Writing poetry is a personal affliction, a pointy prickly thorn that pierces the skin and forces the writer to bleed their soul onto paper. Poetry is emotional and exposure. The more vulnerable you allow yourself to be, the more connected the reader will become and your poetry will have achieved its ultimate goal, which is to convey emotion to the reader. I attempted to write in the dark. I attempted to rearrange someone else's work, but nothing was more effective to me than connecting with a memory. Prompts are nice....they just should not be accepted as the cure all for writers block. I suggest a quiet room, a pencil, and a memory.....that's all.

Inadequately equipped

James Joyce, who am I to critique this author. I have been reading the dead and I will admit his style of writing is subtle and powerful. He is able to create a party without actually having to say that there is a party going on. Once again I must admit to being inadequately equipped for the job at hand. I am neither a fan or a disbeliever in the works of James Joyce. Perhaps, through the things taught to me in this class I will formulate some sort of opinion.

Lets Be Honest

I am not what you might consider to be a person who is well read, infact the bulk of my reading has been done at the breakfast table advocating for the rights of the Trix rabbit to be given an equal oppurtunity at rotting his big bunny teeth on those sugar filled balls we all know as Trix. Helen Hunt Jackson's story Ramona is sort of a reprieve from my normal reading material. The story is told in three part perspective as grandmother, daughter, and grand-daughter recall the same series of events and the reader experiences the total story from each narrators perspective. The story line is well written and the book was a very enjoyable read. The language is light and fun.

To abstract or not to abstract that is the question

During the last class while conducting the exercise on abstracts, I think I may have come face to face with myself and realized that I am a pervert. The stimulus word was control and I immediately thought of a teacher in a tight tweed skirt weilding a yard stick like a lightsaber and huffing while peeping over a low-budget pair of fogged-up perscription glasses. (really do teachers really huff anymore) The next image was even scarier as the tweed skirt morphed into leather undergarments and the yard stick transformed into a leather whip and the educational rants became"you've been a naughty boy." I know this is scary stuff, hell I was the one living this nightmare. The next image that my mind decided to conjure up was the annoying ring of an alarm clock with the numbers in a blaring red neon light flashing off and on like christmas lights with a broken bulb. The other images are too gross and I really dont want to offend anyones sensibilities. I guess the moral of the story is control comes in a lot of different forms, and it is when we connect our emotional being with our visual cortex the end result can be a little shocking. Here is my attempt at poetry. Remember I am an artist and I am sensitive about my work.

It was only a kiss, our last kiss I never even payed attention
I never looked into her face to explore her feelings
I never noticed how her green eyes shifted color in the moonlight
or how they reminded me of dew drops on summer grass when she got emotional
It never crossed my mind to move that strand of hair from her lips
or caress her soaked cheek with my sweaty palms
I didn't notice the slump in her walk or the gentle crackle in her voice
I couldn't remember apples
She always smelled like county fair candy apples
I didn't want to touch her
I watched her lips. I know she said something important
But I lost my focus Icouldn't hear her
I should have loved her
But I didn't I just didn't

Selfish or Human?

I am almost positive that there will be opposition to my position, yet I feel compelled to speak on the metamorphic change that takes place in a marriage once a wife is blessed with a bundle of joy, who she in turn exassperates all of her love upon until complete and total depletion, transforming the husband from love slave to love sick. When a child changes the dynamics of a couples relationship, is it wrong for the husband to feel jealous of the child? Is it so out of the ordinary for a man to experience nostalgia and yearn for the simplicity of husband and wife, instead of the inclusion of a being that is leeching the love that was once his? I dont think so, but perhaps like all men (according to most women) I could be wrong.