Jacob’s Escalator

My favorite writing exercise so far, IV deals with dialogue, its use to show rather than tell, and how it can tell the story all on its own. The first section is just an analysis of part of our reading assignment and I thusly removed it (because it’s out of context and therefore confusing). However, the second part remains here, which is probably one of the most amusing things I’ve ever written. It is a short-short story (or, in my case, a piece of a short story) that takes place in a single conversation. We were told exactly how to write it out - first character says something, describe an action by the second character, then a response, first character says six or less words, etc. Quite an amusing challenge, and I think the resulting story is no less interesting.

Remember Nadia and Christian? Read More »

Sorry it’s taken me so long. We’re up to Exercise IV, I just haven’t posted this one yet.

Anyway, here it is… the theme was character. Parts I and II consisted of making a character, first by a short paragraph and answering several questions from a list, then by actually describing them in a scene that portrayed their job.

Part III… was writing a kiss scene in three different viewpoints - first person, third person omniscient (with everyone’s mind open to the reader) and third person objective (as an observer). Read More »

Long awaited (I think), at least the Image Poem arrives.

The assignment was to create a poem composed of images. Lots of images. They are supposed to communicate an emotion and a theme. I’m kind of worried about mine because when it was submitted for peer review, the desired emotion wasn’t really identified. I only made a couple of edits to it, but I hope that they clarified the emotion more.

Regardless: I hope you enjoy. I’m interested in hearing your thoughts.

Okay. Exercise two.

Part one: Join a scene and an emotion in a paragraph or poem, using images to describe it in great detail. The scenes and emotions you can pick are listed. I picked high noon on the river, and… sinister. I’m not sure if I did well, the teacher wasn’t sure if I had picked dangerous or sinister. >__>

Part two: write a bad poem. Like, bad poetry, the worst that you can imagine. Then explain what’s so terrible about it.

Part three: Take a paragraph that was given to us, and space it out to turn it into a poem. In a poem, timing is everything, so the spaces were important. Then write a paragraph explaining your reasoning on the spaces. Then at the end of that paragraph, define the difference between prose and poetry.

I got 100% on this assignment~. Read More »

I have a lot of trouble spelling “exercise” sometimes…

Anyway, this quarter I’m taking Creative Writing I. Which I love. Oh how I love it. It’s a purely online class, which is good, because I can work on it wherever I wish and that’s always nice for an author. Today’s assignment was to first crank out ten “concrete, significant details” about your location - that is, details that can help you imagine the object being described very clearly, by appealing to your senses. You were also to include two metaphors and two similes, and label them. The second part was to write a poem. About food. It’s supposed to be in a certain format, and very short, so it wasn’t too difficult, and it was quite fun.

Below, I allow you to gaze upon my raw and unedited work. These are ALL the details and poems I came up with, from which I picked my favorites. Just thought you might like to see something of this sort. Read More »

To say “algebraic expression” is vague; it can be something simple like 4x-1 or it can be a long and complex mutli-degree, rational or radical function, perhaps even an implicit equation with more than two variables. No matter what, however, algebra is constant. The procedures are always the same, no matter how complex the equation. With the mathematician’s expertise, the complexity of solvable equations increases; it’s merely a matter of confidence and familiarity with the concepts and procedures at hand. The most skilled of mathematicians can build and solve equations with several dozen variables and even hundreds of terms, given the value of a few variables. Such an equation rarely has much of a bearing in reality, but nevertheless, the skill is certainly there and it takes a lot of practice to get there.

Programming is interestingly similar; the novice programmer can write a few lines, which produce a minor effect. Sometimes they can even write one effect that depends upon user input (a variable). Given time, the novice could write their own version of the classic calculator on all computers. As a programmer gets better, he can write larger and more complex programs, ones that deal with more variable on a grander scale. The best programmers can write a program that depends on many, many variables to produce a specific result.

Is it interesting to compare these various fields to each other? Further, if they are so similar, is it surprising that I find them all so amusing? So interesting?

I think I am interested in these three “different” things because I see them as very similar. They are all mathematical in nature. Yes, I am comparing writing to math. Fiction writing, at least, is very similar to an algebra worksheet, and because of that, I enjoy it, just like I enjoy long, complex algebra problems that are simple but require a lot of work. Read More »