Sarah   Wagner

1. Is my Prologue too vague?

Today in class I dicussed my twitterive project with two other classmates. I answered the basic questions Who, What, When, Where and Why that every writer uses to direct their own writing. I guess I have a lot of ideas rummaging through my head because I found it so difficult to explain what I am doing. Have you ever had such a good idea in your head and you just can't explain it to someone else? That is exactly how I feel....

1. Who - Main character is a girl. Her boyfriend just so happens to be thrown into her journal entries.

2. What connection/disconnection do you /characters feel about the place? 
    A track meet is a place where I personally am not comfortable in but find myself enjoying the atmosphere due to my boyfriends experiences. 

The girl in the Twitterive's connection is powerful because she is the "long jumper". This is her "home". 

This upcoming post is a fun activity we are doing in class based on a "boxing" match. Each member has a role whether you are the fighter, a referee, gossip columnist or just an obnoxious fan. My role is the gossip columnist who talks about rumors that are circulating about the Champ and The Contender.

This Thursday, February 17, 2011, the first mixed gender fight will throw down at 12:15 in the Education Hall. The Champion, Dee Light with a record of 57 total matches, 49 wins and 31 knock outs will be taking on and the Contender, Phil Stonethroat who holds no record at all for a professional boxer. Rumor has it that Stonethroat and onlookers are not worried because he states that "he is a man and there is no way he can lose to a girl". I wonder what the feminist party is ready to say about that one. It is going to be one hard fight ladies and gentlemen. 

As all of you may know, Nina Stonethroat, the Contender Phil Stonethroat's wife, will be singing the National Anthem this Thursday. But this ladies and gentlemen you  may not know, leaked online is Mrs. Stonethroat's journal entry stating 

"I’ve never sang before--well, except for that time in high school when they booed me off the stage--but that won’t happen this time. I made sure of that. Let’s just say that the promoter and I have an understanding...
And let’s just say I never pegged him for a man to be into S&M! Delightful!"

Is she having an affair with the promoter right before her husband's big match!!! When asked to confirm the rumors, Phil Stonethroat tweeted yesterday...

 PhilColeNJ philip cole @Xosarahlynn man i know that woman aint trippin like dat. cuz I pay da billz. Feel me?

He maybe in denial but we will see how this news effects his performance in tomorrow's match. 

Being married to Dee Light must be hard for wife Lola Light these days. Constant working out and muscle building for Dee is taking up too much time. Rumors of abuse are sparked when Lola didn't show up to Dee's last match but instead found walking out of the house in an arm sling. Two weeks ago Lola was spotted with a black eye no makeup artist can cover up. What is really  going on in the Light's home? Will Dee even make it to "This Time Its for Realisies" fight or will she be fighting for her life in court?

I find interesting how the power of writing can impact every individual in different ways. Through reading Anzaldua's pieces and creating our own Micro Fiction and Haiku based on inspiration from her stories not one person in our class had the same "idea" or even quote. Every individual can develop a different emotion through one piece.

As I was creating my Micro Fiction I felt an emotional feeling through the quote I chose,"..blood rushes to my face/ twelve years I'd sat on the memory/ the anger scorching me/ my throat so tight I can/barely get the words out." As I was writing I had a lot of ideas of how to shape my story. It wasn’t until the end that I noticed a sense of flashback taking place. It wasn’t intentional but I thought it really made the story interesting. As I was developing my ended I looked at my word count and realized I was around 300 words.  I then proceeded to read through each paragraph and decide what I could take out. I knew I wanted my second paragraph to be the most powerful so I didn’t touch too many sentences there but instead I chopped the ending to make it more blunt.

The most challenging genre was creating a found poem using my tweets. Even though it was fun I found it difficult to create a flow within my poem using such different tweets that do not even work together. The fun part of the Found poem was creating an appearance to my words. The usage or color, font size, and the use of upper and lower case letters would really created a unique twist to my poem.

I have created a Haiku from my previous Micro fiction below and I have created a Found Poem using 10 of my Tweets which will be posted at the bottom of this post.

Rain pouring against the window. 
Grabbed my arms and held my hands,
he told me to relax.

-----------------------------------------------------


Cant f O c U s.
The bitter coldness goes right through me,
I find myself forgetting... 
...things I once knew.
W o r s t feeling EVER.

T    
          e          
       a  
             r   
                  s,
background noise, music...
Frank Sinatra,
 reminds me of you.
Hopefully next Monday will be better.
Start of something new.

Tweets Used:
Pop Pop ... I miss you
Loving the Frank Sinatra Music in barnes and noble .. reminds me of my family
cant focus in my room this semester ... i cant figure out why
the bitter coldness goes right through me
waking up five minutes before your alarm goes off is the worst feeling ever
gather up your tears and put em in your pocket and save em for a time your really gonna need em
i find myself forgetting things i once knew
today is going to be that start of something new
hopefully next monday will be better
background noise of my dad vacuuming down stairs

For this week's post we were asked to create two Micro-fictions of our own using inspiration from Gloria Anzaldua's Borderland's /La Frontera or How to Tame a Wild Tongue as well as a tweet from our Twitter accounts. 

The first Micro-fiction was inspired from Borderland's/La Frontera. The lined I used was "blood rushes to my face/ twelve years I'd sat on the memory/ the anger scorching me/ my throat so tight I can/barely get the words out."


She sits in the waiting room watching re-runs of Oprah, rain pouring against the window pane experiencing deja vu from last Thursday. “Maybe I will be able to tell him today” she thought to herself. “I actually completed all of the exercises this week.”

I let myself relive that day. I walked from my front stoop down the winding unpaved road to the stop sign where the bus should have picked me up that day. It was hot that September except for that day. The morning’s unsuspected frost chilled my body. I looked at my new Fossil watch, an early birthday present from dad because he was in Florida for business again, 7:15 AM. I was always early, the bus never came till 7:45 AM but mom never knew because she was at work by 7:00 AM.

I went so early because he was there. He came every morning to talk to me. He was my dad’s friend from middle school. He drove up in his red sports car and told me to get in because it was so cold out. I did. He started driving. I began to panic. He told me to relax. 

“We are just going to a secret hide-out in the woods. Your dad and I built it when we were younger”.  I went for the door. He grabbed my arms and held my hands down, I couldn’t move. 

“Robyn Waters,” she said standing at the door holding the manila folder filled of documentation. “The doctor will see you now.” 



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The tweet I received my inspiration for my second Micro-fiction is "Making sure I invest in a shovel today."

With a turn of the key the freezing engine begins to roar and starts the early day commute. The radio blares Taylor Swift from the ride before. She turns on the radio, “Back up on the Ben Franklin Bridge. Tonight another snow storm making its way from the south. Accumulations about four to six inches.” 

“Really?” she thought. “I have no time to get a shovel between all of my classes today.” Her Mini-Cooper didn’t completely warm up when she put the car in reverse and rushed to class. Her dad would be disappointed, he always said to let her car warm for ten minutes before she leaves. 

Eight hours later, a planner filled with readings and blog homework she makes a pit stop at K-mart to buy a shovel. The aisles were filled with everything from pillows to snow brushes for the windshield. She walked to the service desk. “Excuse me do you have any snow shovels.” He looked at her like she had five heads. “We sold out two weeks ago.” 

In a rush to get to dance practice on time she went to Big Lots. With no time to waste she asks the service desk the same question. “I am sorry sweetie we sold out yesterday, a man from the church bought thirty but there’s one child’s shovel left in the corner.” She grabbed the plastic shovel and went to the register. “Your total is $4.99.” 

This week we were asked to read two excerpts, one from Billy the Kid by Michael Ondaatje and Micro fiction by Jerome Stern. Both pieces made me really think and sometimes even re-read sections to try and grasp the meaning.

I would like to start off by saying that Billy the Kid was extremely confusing, which Professor Mangini said would happen. If it wasn't for his underlining and comments on the sides I would not have noticed the sense of color being used throughout this entire piece. Since we are still working with the sense of place I have been trying to keep a close eye for it with-in this piece. This section of the story opens up with a poem which I am assuming represents the Chisum's house. It describes how everyone at one time or another came to this house for a meal or comfort. As I began to read I found out that the narrator (who might be Billy the Kid) was burned and nursed to health by Mrs. Sallie Chisum. Towards the end of this section it talks about animals. "Still every animal that came within a certain radius of that house was given a welcome, the tame, the half-born, the wild, the wounded" (35). This means that Sallie is a natural healer and loves to help others or maybe she is bored because she is forced to shut out the outside world by John and it is her only way to feel powerful? Well as you can see with my response I am still jumbled and not sure what to make of it.

On to Micro fiction......

Micro fiction consisted of four short stories that were fun and interesting. Throughout all four I noticed everyone had their own "problem". I know every story should always have a problem and a solution of some sort but these stories seemed so real because they were written with detail and description of a certain point in time. "Wrong Channel" was a humorous story dealing with a lady trying to get her green card but her interpreter is not giving the right information. "Mockingbird" is about a a couple who recently started dating, is having a conversation based on real life experiences. The girl finds out the man she is head over heels for may not actually be who she thought he was. "Lands End" is about a girl who seems to be injured on a beach and seems lost and confused. It leaves you wondering what is going to happen to her. "Waiting" is about a girl who lives this repetitive life of substitute teaching hoping for a real job and making her father happy. Everyone with-in these four stories had a problem to overcome but as a reader we were not given the solution.