Foreshadowing
1 Jul
It’s a late night at the Lobster House. I just ate dinner at 9:30 p.m.! It was a nice salad with leftover beans and tuna. No picture, I was too hungry and dove right in. Tonight, I met with my professor about my independent study. I haven’t talked about this much, but here goes: I am doing two independent studies this summer. One is on bookmaking and the other is focused on writing. I am working on short, experimental pieces that will tie into a larger body of work. I used to call that body of work a novel, then it was a novella and now it is a long short story. I worked on that extensively last summer. To give a brief description, it’s about three children growing up on a Pennsylvania farm. It’s told from a childlike perspective but with the knowledge of an older narrator looking back.
Tonight I learned a few things:
- I have a habit of making easy mistakes, as in – renaming my characters from piece to piece (can we say scattered?)
- My usage of foreshadowing is getting better. Basically, my professor likes that my writing tell a bit about the future – but don’t give away the entire story. As in, my character S falls in a story, and I wrote that it was the last time he fell. Does that mean he died or he’s paralyzed? My professor likes not knowing completely.
- He focused a lot on one line in a particular piece that I didn’t realize was good. He really seemed to like it: They fought about money and wallpaper.
In closing, my project is going well. It’s going to be insane trying to incorporate these pieces into my larger work to make it flow properly, but it’s on the right track. I would share more, but I like to keep my writing life more private, as I’ve sent some of these pieces out for publication. I’m never quite sure about literary journal publishing and blogging. Many journals will not accept previously published work, and I’m not sure if having it on a blog makes it so. Either way, it’s the somewhat secret part of my Lobster Life.
I have been feeling the need to share more of myself on this blog, and this was one example. Creative writing is a big part of my life. I just felt like sharing more about it tonight.
What would your great American novel be about?
In other news, I’m so excited! My proudest moment is featured on Ashley’s blog here. I have been a huge fan of the proudest moments I’ve read on her blog. They are all unique and inspiring for different reasons. Great idea, Ashley!
If you haven’t participated, you should write down your proudest moment and send it her way!
You’re writing a story? too cool! I love your proudest moment, that’s really awesome.
I’d love to get into writing more. I haven’t done it much in years but used to enjoy it. Do you have any suggestions to improve creative writing skills? Reading is obviously the best way. Blogging has also forced me to write more. But I consider my daily blog much more casual than I would do if writing an actual story.
If you write any book, I will pre-order it ASAP!
Hey Rose! YES, the granola is super crunchy! It doesn’t seem like it will be when it comes out of the oven, but you must let it completely cool and then put it in a storage container and you will get an awesome crunch! I really liked putting in a variety of nuts and sesame seeds too!
Oooh! I didn’t know that about you! I love foreshadowing, I get all worked up when authors start hinting at things
I had a lot of journalism professors who’d written books and sort of gave me the book-writing bug. The book I want to write would be depressing though. I want to do a non-fiction tale about a distant cousin of mine who was killed because of his sexuality in the 1970s in a small town up north. It’s a really twisted story, I think a lot of people would be both intrigued and shocked by it.
I did read your “proudest moment” post, and I can definitely relate! That’s how I signed up for my half marathon. I had to set a fitness goal at work, so I just started saying that I would be doing a half-marathon. It wasn’t completely out of the blue- I had entertained the thought for about a week, but I made the actual decision fairly suddenly. Then I went home and signed up before I could stop myself.