Assignments from 9-8-2005

Journal 14: Remember a moment when you first felt exposed or humiliated. Describe it in great detail.

Journal 15: Find a room in your childhood that you remember in great detail, then recall a conversation in that room that was emotionally charged. Reinhabit the room and see what single detail comes out.

Journal 16: Find the place where you discovered the form and structure of language. What fed your sense of form and what questions did language provide you with?

Journal 17: Describe what your reading experience was like as a child. When you read what was beyond your comprehension, what did you come up with? How did your childhood reading shape your future reading.

Journal 18: Reclaim the place you lived in growing up. Make it a central factor in your writing in order to be yourself. Do what you must to recover it. For instance, if you are from Ohio, don't write about Ohio as a topic. Instead, write a memoir in Ohio. Describe what it's like to be a writer, writing in Ohio.

Journal 19: Take a situation that's supposed to be serious and turn it into something comic without being cute.

Finish Angela's Ashes