Blog #8 Dina's Journey of Thought

Wow - what a semester! When I signed up for this class, I wasn't sure how an online format would work for a class about reading. With great relief, I quickly found out that with intelligent, dedicated classmates and a list of thought-provoking novels, it probably worked better than in a classroom. Since I was forced to write my responses after reading beautifully written prose and consider my classmates' points-of-view before responding to them, I began looking at reading and writing in a very different way. Here are just a few of the things I learned.

• With A Moveable Feast, I found out that the novels I feed on are more than likely not the result of a few months of easy, fluid writing. The best books I read were probably written in fits and starts, edited multiple times, hated at times by the writer, and took dedication and commitment to complete. Writing is not for the weak-hearted, and I have to be willing to work through my self-doubt and fear and "write the best story [I] can" (183).
• A Pearl in the Storm showed me how to weave the past and present together with beautiful descriptions thrown in to light the way. Her personal story also taught me that dreams can come true if you never give up.
• The Prince of Tides inspired me to do a better job of setting, characterization, and descriptive language. I mean, come on, "lost in the coilings and overlays of a memory tight-fisted with the limitlessly prodigal images of a Carolina sea island" (110). Can you get any more evocative than that? He just inspired me to be the best writer I can possibly be. He made me want to write a different book than the one I'd been working on because, after that, I wanted to tell a more intricate story.
• I continued to think I could do more, had to do more, when I read Olive Kitteridge. Her stories were simple but still showed the complexity of the human heart. But what I really loved was the unique format. It made me think about different ways to tell a story beyond the typical novel format. What could I do that was new and interesting?
• The White Tiger made me want to create a character with more dimensions. Although I can't say I liked Balram and would want to have tea with him, I was fascinated by him. He had highly moral ideas in some respects, yet he was willing to commit murder to be free. What situation or conflict would bring out a different side to a character - a side that even the character didn't know he/she had?
• Lime Tree Can't Bear Orange once again gave me picturesque language that painted a foreign land that didn't feel foreign because Smyth took me there with Celia.
• The Elegance of the Hedgehog showed me that beautiful writing isn't enough. Tell a story. Staying inside a character's head for several chapters and discussing one topic too long is death to the reader. No matter how good a writer you are, beautiful words are only words if they don't engage the reader and make the reader care.

I haven't done much personal writing this semester or applied these lessons to my current novel for several reasons: one reason was time, but I could've made the time if I'd really wanted to. The main reason was that these books, the writing, made me want to write a novel with more depth than the one I've been working on. I'm not sure exactly the story I want to tell, but I'm getting there. Then I just have to write it.