Literary Journalism...so far. Blog 17.

“Blame it on my wild heart.” So Stevie says, and so I agree. After all, we are both wild hearted witchy women who will never stay static for long, women who reinvent ourselves often but essentially always stay the same. My writing is as elusive and free as my philosophies; otherwise it wouldn’t be truthful to me. The way I write is equally as unconventional; words flow straight from my heart into my head and eventually find themselves scribbled into notebooks and journals. Sometimes I write without thinking, typing away at a blank page which becomes increasingly more filled with my words. This is ultimately how I start out any assignment, any paper I have to turn in. In true gypsy nature I don’t start at the beginning and I don’t start at the end, instead opting to write whatever I’m feeling at the moment about my particular topic and eventually piecing the parts together to create the end result.
Perhaps the most uneasy part of the writing process for me is finding a topic. I tend to be highly indecisive and constantly fickle, so just when I think I’ve found a topic which will hold my interest enough to write about, something else comes to inspire me and my entire topic has changed. Sometimes it’s a simple change, like going from writing about rain to writing about monsoons, or going from writing about my grandmother to writing about specifically her house. Other times it’s a much more intensified change, one that requires me to rewrite my entire essay instead of just reworking certain pieces and elements of one I’ve already composed. This was the case of my Literary Journalism essay. We were asked to research a topic which we would write about and incorporate ourselves and our own views into, and I became instantly excited at this prospect. This was the kind of writing that interested me, a huge fan of research writing. However I was instantly perplexed and uneasy when I realized my range of topic choices, and I knew I’d have to decide on one soon.
I left class that afternoon and began composing a mental list of possible topics. I started by thinking of things that intrigued and interested me, but was also easy enough for me to be able to interview others about them. At first I considered writing a paper on graffiti art. I didn’t know much about the topic but was eager to learn, and I’ve got several acquaintances that have a passion for graffiti. However I soon realized they were unreliable sources who I rarely ever saw and abandoned that idea. It was back to the drawing board again. One night in work I began brainstorming topic ideas with my coworkers. We all shared ideas and themes that we felt passionate about, but nothing really resonated with me. At least I was talking out my ideas though, as this is a process that helps me realize what I’m really focusing on and interested in. When I drove home that night I turned on the radio to Q 104.3 and felt better, knowing I would think of a topic eventually. Then it finally dawned on me: nostalgia as a form of comfort would be a perfect topic!
I arrived home and right away began my essay. It started off rough, trying to find an introduction is always the trickiest part for me, but I finished it in a matter of a few hours. I edited it that night even, cutting out pieces that seemed to not belong, and adding things in that I felt I needed. When I submitted my essay I was content with it and felt it was one of the strongest I had done for the class. My strongest section was when I discussed the perfect timing of a VH1 series called “I love the…” in our current nostalgic-obsessed culture:


there's more but i havent finished yet.

Blog 18: Where I see myself as a writer in the future...

1. I write for myself mainly. I have a few journals, mostly consisting of quotes and lyrics from songs, but there are sporadic pieces of writing I’ve done. I don’t date things, or put things in order, but I often look back into my journals for a source of inspiration for other works of nonfiction and fiction. I tend to write best when I’m sitting in front of a computer with a blank word document staring back at me. However intimidating it is at first, I usually find myself inspired by something, whether it’s the music I’m playing or something going on in my life. Eventually my hands begin typing away and a stream of consciousness type of freewriting occurs.

2. This course helped me realize that I have a lot of things to work on with my writing style. I’m disorganized when I write, often starting at the ending and working backwards, even sometimes just writing pieces of my essay and then fitting it all together. Sometimes none of the segments I write even make it into my final essay; however they always get me to realize my main focus and are always helpful. I also realized that as a writer my main focus is always my subject. I tend to get lost in details about my topic, such as descriptions, memories, feelings, etc. I get so obsessed and worked up over my subject that at times I forget about the rhetoric’s I should be using in my writing.

3. I don’t think at this point I’m ready to do any kind of professional writing. I’m still young and have about three more years of undergraduate school left, and I’m only 19. Although I think the real reason I believe that I’m not ready is because I’m very self conscious about my work.

4. The profession I hope to aquire in the future would be something to do with journalism or research. I guess my dream job would be something like being a writer for something like Rolling Stone or Entertainment Weekly magazines. I'm something of a pop culture aficionado, someone who always wins during those "name that tune" and "trivial pursuit" games. I think that incorporating my love of the media with my love of writing would cause me to want to write for a media-savvy magazine.

5. I would love to write about music, pop culture, and the media. Writing about these things comes easy to me. However, I would also love to write more personal essays, something like a memoir. This type of writing is probably the most dear to my heart, as it's the genre of books that take up most of my personal library. I've even talked to my best friend, whose life has been a constant form of chaos unknown for her young 30 years of age, about working with her on writing a memoir of her life. Also, screenplay writing or screenwriting in general has always seemed intreaguing to me. I like the idea of writing the script for a movie or TV show. I also like writing lyrics...if I could carry a tune or play an instrument i've always had a dream of being a singer/songwriter. In my dreams.

6. I'd like to be published in some kind of media magazine, like I said before.

Blog 15

how did I start?
I started my essay by thinking of a topic, which usually takes me the longest to do. I then begin by writing small paragraphs and pieces of my essay, which are generally out of order, just to see what I want to include.

when did I figure out my focus?
I figured out my focus when I realized that Buffy the Vampire Slayer got me through a lot when I was growing up. In class we did an exercise where we had to write about our topic through the eyes of someone else, and I wrote about it through my ex boyfriend's eyes. By doing this I realized what the show really did for me, and that became my focus.

what did I leave out? what did I change? what did I emphasize?
I didn't leave out much of anything, except for a lot of details on the show's plot. If I could I would go back and work more of this into my essay. I emphasized what watching this show did for me, and how the media can act as a comforting tool.

where did I get stuck and how did I get unstuck?
I orginally got stuck because I had another topic idea in my head, but I kept coming back to this topic, knowing it was really what I wanted to write about.

what were my major revisions?
I added in a new section where I discussed my ex boyfriend's first time watching the show with me.

how did my life (not on the page) affect my writing process?
During this time I was going through several things with my family, and I actually ended up watching Buffy to comfort myself, which was the theme of the essay.


where and when did I write my best? what time?
I write my best at night, in my room, at my desk with music playing in the background.


what writing rituals did I engage in?
I have to write at the end of the day otherwise too many other thoughts are in my head. I also like to have very little distractions around me, except for music.


how did I use thinking, talking and writing to develop my paper?
I talked to my mom and stepdad about the show, and we discussed when we used to watch it, how the show made them feel, and particular things that happened during that time of my life. I also made a list of seasons of Buffy in relation to how old I was and what was going on in my life.


how did I know when I was finished and how did I decide where to start?
I decided to start at the end, when I found out Buffy was cancled. As for finishing, I never truely feel like my papers are finished.

Blog 14

My process for writing my personal essay:

think of a topic. always the hardest part, takes the longest for me because i tend to choose something, than switch to something else, than go back to my original idea. which this essay i chose the topic of a bad christmas with my grandparents and sister, last christmas, but decided against writing it at the last minute because i wasnt over the situation yet.

i ended up picking the topic of the media as a way of comfort in the form of "buffy the vampire slayer." the topic was near to my heart because i watched the show religiously for 7 years. "buffy" was like a second family to me, something i always returned to when i was upset. i felt the topic pulling itself to me, and wanted to work on this for my personal essay.

i brainstormed aspects of the show to relate to my life, season by season, before i wrote the essay at all.

next i wrote several paragraphs out of order, sort of as a free write, some of which eventually made their way into my final essay.

i tend to work best when i write a lot about the topic, not necesserally in order, and then piece the writing together in a format which makes sense.

Instant Nostagia

Jim Morrison’s face is to my direct left, John Lennon’s to my right, and “Baba O‘Riley” plays in the background. If this was 1975, everything would seem normal. But this is 2007, and I should have posters of Britney Spears and Brad Pitt on my wall, while I listen to the Black Eyed Peas out of my stereo ipod and read gossip magazines, instead of Jack Kerouac’s On The Road. When my mother introduces people to my room, she always says the same thing. “Look! It looks just like the 60’s and 70’s!” When she talks about me, she always says the same thing. “Danielle would have fit into my generation better than I did!” I always find this amusing, and other people always find me charmingly nostalgic instead of weird and bizarre. I just don’t understand why.
If we think about it, our entire generation is based off of the past. What goes around comes back around, and around, and around again. The late 90’s saw a burst of sudden interest in swing music of the 1940’s. We also saw a fashion revival of kitschy 1970’s bell-bottomed jeans, yellow smiley faces, yin-yang signs, and loud colors. In fact, my favorite dress of my adolescence was an electric blue spandex ensemble with long sleeves, a pleated skirt, and a yellow etching of “far out” on the front. And this was purchased new in 1996. I guess it’s no wonder why I’m such a nostalgic teenager now, after all, I grew up listening to my parents music like most people my age, and realized that the 1960’s and 1970’s had far better songs and songwriters than we do now. I opt for Q 104.3’s classic rock playlist rather than the pop assortment on Z 100. Owens Lee Pomeroy once said, “Nostalgia is like a grammar lesson: you find the present tense, but the past perfect!” When people ask me why I don’t like this generation much, I have a simple answer. It’s just not as good as the past.
My stepfather was born in 1966, making him a teenager during the 1980’s, a time which he remembers fondly. “The 80’s definitely had the best music, the best clothes, the best movies and TV shows. Back to the Future and The Wonder Years were great. And Bruce Springsteen is still my favorite singer of all time.” Interestingly enough, Back to the Future focused mostly on time travel back to the 1950’s, and The Wonder Years were a retro look into the 1960’s. And isn’t it safe to say that Bruce Springsteen is the 1980’s rock version of Bob Dylan, the singer-songwriter who spoke to a middle class generation? Every generation has its fair share of nostalgia, whether we’d like to admit to it or not.
Turn on the television and you’ll notice a lot of reruns of TV shows from the 1980’s and 1990’s. Notice the feeling you get when you watch something like Home Improvement or Full House or even something more recent like Friends. I tend to feel safe, secure, and long for a past that includes having nothing better to do than stay home on a Friday night watching TGIF in footy pajamas with my parents. Nostalgia makes us all feel homesick for a time when we felt safer, more secure and like things were better. In this generation, with times as fast paced and turbulent as they are, we need nostalgia to keep that sense of security and safeness. We use nostalgia to make ourselves feel better when we’re stressed out, to calm ourselves down, and to look back on a not-so-recent past and sigh, knowing the good old days are merely a memory now.
Beginning in 2002, VH1 launched a 10 part series called I Love the 80s which featured popular figures providing comedic commentary on things like Chia Pets and Glow Worms, movies like Pretty In Pink, and singers like Tiffany and George Michael. If something like this had premiered any earlier in the brand new decade, or waited any longer, it may not have worked. In 2002, however, just after the September 11th crisis that effected our nation greatly and made everyone feel unsafe on US soil, nostalgia was just what we needed to feel secure again. VH1 realized that the I Love the 80s series was a huge success, and seized the opportunity to create more shows about decade nostalgia like it. They soon after launched I Love the 70s and I love the 90s, the former something many thought would be too dated for most young adults to find humorous, and the latter something many thought would be too recent to reflect on. However, both series worked perfectly with our retro-obsessed generation, and each got their own retrospective sequels, as well as the I love the 80s installment, which even got a third show, I love the 80s 3D. When I love the 90s premiered in 2004, my friends and I had a party, dressing up in our favorite 90’s ensembles, many of us raiding our parents closets, and some of us raiding our own for our outdated N’sync and Spice Girls t-shirts. None of us found it strange that we were reminiscing about a decade that had ended a mere four years earlier. All we saw was an opportunity to wear flannel and fanny-packs and not be ridiculed. Finally, the 90s, the culture of our youth, was getting its proper respect! Kind of.
I asked my best friend why our generation is so obsessed with the past. She told me,“ I think it's because our lives aren't nearly as exciting. People had more fun back then and less responsibility.” It seems that way to us now, but that’s probably not true at all. In fact, it’s almost entirely the opposite. The early 1960’s were a dangerous time, with civil rights issues and everyone scared of nuclear war. The 1980’s were filled with greed and a terrible drug epidemic of crack cocaine. Almost every generation before us had it rougher than we did, and without our current technologies, everything took longer to do and took much more effort. Responsibility as a teenager and even child was often much greater than the youth of this generation ever will receive. However, she’s also right, because that’s what we view the past as; a safer time for us to reminisce about, a time when things were classic and simple like in the 1950’s, or carefree and campy like in the 1970’s. We view the past in the way we wish it was, in the way that makes us feel the most comfortable, however distorted it might seem.
In the near future, what will we have left to reminisce about? Surely we will have squeezed out every last bit of nostalgia for the previous five decades, and no one wants to muse over the 1940’s, as exciting as they were. Eventually our generation will have no choice but to live in the present, having exhausted every last resource of nostalgia we have. There’s only so many old songs you can listen to, so many old movies you can watch, only so many old episodes of Family Matters one human being can take. Eventually we will have to become nostalgic for this generation, for things like American Idol, the Bush administration, Eminem, and Paris Hilton. Until that day comes, we can all plug in our lava lamps and listen to “Livin’ La Vida Loca” on our walkmans feeling as safe as ever.

Literary Journal Handout

Danielle Sweeney
Literary Journal Project
November 19th 2007
Creative Nonfiction

1. Analysis of the editorial description of essays accepted: http://www.slowtrains.com/slowtrainssub.html Looks for essays of fiction and nonfiction and poetry which “reflect the spirit of adventure, the exploration of the soul, the energies of imagination, and the experience of Big Fun.” Includes articles about things people are passionate about.

2. Description of several representative essays published in your venue:
Bob Dylan: An Appreciation of How He Is Now- an essay about the works of Bob Dylan
What Music Can Mean- an essay about the appreciation of classical music
Contemplating Kerouac: A Pilgrimage to Lowell- an essay about one mans journey to visit the birthplace of beat writer Jack Kerouac

subject matter: (perspective/politics/material) Varied, though their favorite topics to read about include music, travel, baseball, love, spirituality, childhood, coming of age, loss, sex, and humor. They do not accept genre writing such as sci-fi, horror, erotica, or romance. voice: wants to have submissions of essays that have subjects which showcase the passions of the writer.
depth of discussion: Focuses on the transforming power of things like music and art to the soul.

form: (modes of writing/experimental)- essays, poems, and fiction
artistry: moderate to high.
length: Fiction and essays must be less than 5000 words, poetry less than 200 lines.

3. Niche
Audience: people who are interested in art, music, and culture.
Purpose: To publish an aesthetically pleasing piece that reads on multiple layers.

4. Other-
Responds within two months
Only accepts via email
Must include a short bio of self with submission
All submissions should be emailed to editor@slowtrains.com

My personal essay done.

In the spring of 2003 during my freshman year of High School, I opened up my mailbox one afternoon to an issue of Entertainment Weekly with Sarah Michelle Gellar, the star of Buffy, on the cover. Initially excited at the prospect of reading an article about my favorite TV show, my face dropped the instant I read the headline: “Buffy Calls It Quits.” I dropped the magazine to the floor and stared into space in disbelief. This couldn’t be happening, it couldn’t be real. I guess I always knew that the series couldn’t last forever, that it had to end eventually, but it all seemed so sudden. “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” wasn’t just a show to me, it was therapy, a parent almost, teaching me life lessons and helping me grow up. Like millions of dedicated fans who read that magazine along with me, I felt my first real dose of heartbreak. It’s the spring of 1997, a Saturday afternoon, and I’m eight years old. My mother and my father had just finalized their divorce a few months earlier, so my mother, younger sister and I are living in a two family house which barely has room for all three of us. I’m comforted by the small living room, which brings the three of us closer together as we all sit on the couch watching TV or playing with toys. Actually, by this point it’s the four of us. My mother’s boyfriend Steve, who is now my stepfather, is basically living with us. Since I’ve known Steve since I was just a toddler, I don’t feel threatened by this, nor do I feel protective over my mother. However, I do feel that my once seemingly fine family is crumbling around me, and I do wonder why my Daddy left us. The sun is shining brighter than normal this Saturday, but as soon as the television turns on, it seems to dim the lights in the entire house. An eerie music fills the room as Steve raises the volume and tells us what we’re watching. “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” he says. “Maybe the girls are too young for this.” My mother seems to agree, but I beg to stay and watch the show for a little while at least. Even at eight years old I know what I’m interested in. My mother reluctantly agrees, but makes my sister leave the living room, after all, she’s only six. For the next hour the three of us are memorized by one of the first episodes of the newly premiered show, listening to the hip dialogue, laughing at all of the jokes, and jumping in our seats when the “bad guys” come on screen. Instantly I am hooked. Like most children who can remember everything about the first time they played with a certain toy, or most adults who can remember what they felt the first time they heard Led Zeppelin, I can remember exactly how I felt that first season of watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I felt oddly protected, not only from the strong blonde heroine of the show, but also by my mother and stepfather who were just as entranced with it as I was. We had formed a bond over Buffy, a ritual Tuesday night viewing of the show that was all I seemed to talk about in school. Even my friends called me “Buffy,” which must have seemed weird to my teachers. I was the nine year old who preferred vampires and demons to Barbie dolls and Pretty Pretty Princess. The first season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer began airing just after my ninth birthday in March of 1997, a full ten years ago. Based loosely on an early 90’s movie of the same name, “Buffy” was created by writer Joss Whedon when he decided he was sick of seeing the young blonde girl in horror movies constantly portrayed as the victim. He instead drew up the idea for a teenage girl named Buffy Summers who would be blonde, beautiful, smart, endearing, and oddly tough. Buffy was, as the title suggests, a vampire slayer, the “chosen one” who had the power to slay the vampires, demons, and forces of darkness. Try as she might to live a normal teenage life, such as join the cheerleading squad, attend her school prom, study, and date someone who didn’t turn out to be a vampire, normal just wasn’t in the cards for Buffy Summers. As the series progressed, so did my life. Just a few episodes into season two, my mother and stepfather got married, and we soon moved into a new house which would become the place where I watched “Buffy” for the next six years. Almost all of my memories of Tuesday nights with my stepfather and mother involve being in the family room on my couch, hypnotized for an hour by what was happening onscreen. In season four, Buffy and the gang embarked on College, and was starting Middle School. These occurrences were obviously not the same, but in my eleven year old brain I found this coincidence to be helpful and strengthening. After all, if Buffy could deal with changing schools and simultaneously battling vampires on a weekly basis, I could certainly handle the sixth grade. Sometimes the bullies, popular girls, and even teachers seemed like the forces of evil. Having Buffy in my mind at all times kept me stronger. I could do it all. Seasons five and six were especially dark, and did nothing to stop my mother’s claims that perhaps this show was to advanced for someone my age. Of course, she never won that argument, and I continued watching “Buffy”, only now I was too embarrassed to view it with my parents. I instead began watching the series alone, unless the episode was lighthearted or extremely important, in which case I would have to view with them and discuss all of the jokes and significant plot movements. During these years, when I was just beginning the leap from adolescence into pre-teens, and then finally being a teenager, Buffy was growing like I was. She was maturing, finding herself, going through dark and rough times, and I was finding myself too. Perhaps I didn’t have to fight an evil hell-god named Glory who would stop at nothing to find a key back to her home dimension, but my struggles seemed real and impossible at times too. I’m scared out of my mind right now, and he knows it. I’m sitting on my boyfriend’s bed watching TV and freaking out because I have to start college tomorrow. I gulp and sigh, I need comforting, fast. He doesn’t know what to say or do that’s going to calm me down, but suddenly a thought comes to him. Steve reaches for the DVD collection that I had brought over a month ago, one we hadn’t touched yet in between watching “Dazed and Confused” and “Forrest Gump.” He reaches for “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” season four, and puts the first disc in. All of a sudden I feel better. I find myself talking to him about the series, telling him all about how it changed my life, how I grew up watching it, and explaining to him the synopsis of every season until the point the cant take anymore and insists we just sit back and watch. One week and several episodes later, he is hooked on the show and ends up buying me more seasons on DVD so we can continue viewing together. Coincidentally, I’ve started college, and I’m dealing with it fine. I guess it didn’t hurt that the first episode he picked to play that day was entitled “The Freshman” and dealt with Buffy’s pre-college jitters. When the final episode aired I had to watch it in my kitchen sitting between stacked boxes and my microwave. We had just moved into our new house, literally three days before, and it was the first day our cable was installed. Of course, I panicked all week at the thought of my TV not working during the series finale, thinking of alternate places I could watch the show at. I sat on a folding chair surrounded by a cluttered mess of moving material, directly in front of the television, transfixed as I waited for 8:00pm for what I knew would be the last time. I was watching the episode alone, something I rarely did, because my parents were busy setting up our house in all the other rooms. I also put out strict instructions that if anyone in the house interrupted me during this house, I wouldn’t speak to them ever again. By 9:00 I was a wreck, crying and clutching at the screen, wanting more. I felt betrayed, abandoned, and lost. I also felt slightly embarrassed for crying over a television show, but at that point I didn’t care. “Buffy” had trapped me since 1997, leading me into a fantasy world that was full of vampires, demons, and ass-kicking blondes equipped with witty banter and sarcasm. I looked around my kitchen, at a house which was strange and new, a house which I had never watched “Buffy” in before, so it seemed fitting that I would never sit down on a Tuesday at 8pm to watch it here again. I knew my life was changing and that I was on the brink of growing up, and that by this time next year, I would be sixteen and wouldn’t have time for silly television shows. For that night however, I was still fifteen, I was still innocent and naive, and losing “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” was still the scariest thing the world had thrown at me. Looking back, I long for that night. Currently my grandmother is in the hospital, my mother has to go get tests done from the doctor, and my ex-boyfriend and I just got into a huge fight. I am a wreck. There are literally thousands of ways I could be dealing with my pain; most of them are unhealthy, some of them are illegal, and a few of them involve cookie dough ice cream. Instead, I sit here on my couch curled up under a blanket watching my favorite season of “Buffy.” For at least an hour I don’t have to remember why I’m sad, and I don’t have to think about what I’m going to do after the episode ends. Right now it’s just me and Buffy Summers, and I am as content as I was when it premiered ten years ago, as emotional as I was when it ended four years ago, and as nostalgic as I’ll always be.

Blog 9: Nature essay ideas/freewrite

Rain Ideas:

driving in the rain, my car hydroplanes and sends me sliding; I have to be extra cautious and squint to see. My windshield wipers don’t work that well either.

Hate walking in the rain. The bottoms of my pants get soaked and I feel like I’m sloshing around with extra baggage on me. Hate the way my hair frizzes when it gets wet, the way my glasses fog up and I have to keep cleaning them.

Hate the way the rain ruins nights, my mood, everything. Can’t drive fast or far when it’s pouring. Can’t have a party outside when it’s pouring. Plans get ruined from the rain. My mood becomes more morose when it’s raining, because of the dark skies and the grey clouds and the falling buckets of water.

Love the rain when I have nothing to do but stay inside and watch movies, curl under a blanket, read a book. Love falling asleep to the sound of rain falling. Love hearing the pitter patter of raindrops on my roof. Love kissing in the rain, running around in a summer rain when I have nowhere I have to go and need to look nice for. Love the freedom I feel in rain.

Lack of rain, or drought, causes everyone to be cranky. The grass becomes drier, crispy, and brownish. Temperatures are high, the air is arid and it’s almost hard to breathe.

Too much rain also makes people angry. Flooding conditions make it unsafe to drive and to leave the house. Cars crash easier. Parks and grass becomes damp, soggy, and muddy. Sports events can’t be played. I remember one time, about 5 or 6 years ago, when it rained for 11 days straight. It was as if the sun would never shine again.

Rainbows?

The process of creating rain is long and detailed. Essentially, it occurs when growing cloud droplets become too heavy for the cloud to contain and therefore fall to the ground as precipitation.

Rain water falls in a multitude of ways. Sometimes it downpours, engulfing everything on the ground in drenching mess. This kind of rain can include wind, which causes the falling rain to slant to one side, rather than fall directly down in a straight line.

Blog 8: Nature Freewrite and Brainstorming

-The park by my house, school 20 park -spent a lot of time there as a child during elementary school recess and after care -played "oregon trail" and "house" while running around in the grass -the "princess" tree that split into two sections which made it look like a throne, big enough for someone small to sit in which is what we used to do when we played pretend -the jungle gyms just got torn down last week, which had writing all over them and were covered by weeds all around -tire swings -playing in the mud and making clay out of it -the huge puddle when it rained that we would pretend was a lake -the basketball court/kickball from elementary school where i fell in 3rd grade and fractured my wrist -the huge meadow of grass and flowers that i lied in with my ex boyfriend for 3 hours one sunny spring afternoon -the park benches -the gazeebo, where all the bad kids go to smoke and drink at night, and i spent a lot of times in there talking to friends for hours, being with steve one of the first nights we met, writing all over the walls of it, climbing over the sides. -playing manhunt in the dark at the park -the summer we all LIVED at the park because my old best friend had to work at the daycare there from 9-3 -the spinning thing, for lack of a better name, that we would spin children on, which backfired one day when we spun some kid so fast he fell off and threw up =/ -the park looks different every season. in autumn the leaves all change colors and cover the ground. in winter the trees are bare and the grass usually is frosted. the ground is usually more damp and soggy too. in spring the trees are green and full and the grass is greenest and full of flowers. in the summer when it gets too hot and dry the grass gets brownish.

Blog 7

My story is about growing up with my Grandmother from when I was younger until the time that she died. The details that I selected were true to my focus, and I told a few anecdotes in segments, which displayed my grandmother’s distinct personality. I didn’t embellish her personality or hide anything about her to make my story more believable or more cohesive.
The only facts which I have set forward as true but I am uncertain about are the year and town of her birth. I’m only about a year off, and I’m 99% positive she grew up in Bayonne, however I included them because I was in a rush and didn’t have time to ask my mom what the definite answers were.
The sequence of my memoir is out of order on purpose, but the time and place of everything i talked about is factual.

Blog 6.5

In her essay, Mimi Schwartz discusses the differences between memoir and fiction. She draws the conclusion that the line between the two genres is murky, but essentially a memoir is a collection of memories that feel true to the person telling them. Her view on memoir writing tends to be that even if a memory didn’t exactly happen the way you’re telling it, such as the weather being different or a hair color being slightly changed, as long as it doesn’t play a crucial role in the story, it can be altered. She also argues for the usage of composite characters to be allowed when perhaps the two or three characters you want to talk about do not want their identities leaked. Schwartz does not advocate changing large details in the story, because this crosses into the line of fiction, but minor detail changes are allowed so long as this is how you remember your own story. According to these rules then, James Frey is a fiction writer. His novel, a so called memoir titled A Million Little Pieces which Oprah made famous by including in her book club, was so drastically changed from his actual life story that there’s no real way it can be included as a memoir. According to the smoking gun, and Frey himself, he changed huge details of central plot points, added characters which did not exist and didn’t need to be added, and included himself in a car accident which he was not a part of. His attempts to make his novel more interesting and sell it as a memoir instead of a fiction were done to draw more readers in and make them sensitive to his story, which worked up until everyone found out the truth.

Blog 6: my memior

Note: this is a rough edit of my memoir essay. it's very long, and i wrote the segments in a totally different order, so im not sure if this is the order they'll end up in. please tell me what parts should be taken out, what parts are necessary, and anything else you think is helpful. thank you!

Sometimes it’s hard to believe my mother and I are related. I’m sitting cross legged on my floor surrounded by photo albums and loose pictures, rummaging through them as I sweep off layers of dust and germs that have probably lived on these for several months. She walks into my room and frowns at the mess. “What the hell are you doing? Are you going to clean all this up later? Why haven’t you thrown you old school books out yet? Didn’t you just wear that shirt on Monday?” My mother is the queen of asking too many questions before I have the chance to process them, let alone answer them. I sigh, because it’s no use. I am messy and my mother is a neurotic neat freak. In our house, we have a couch you’re not supposed to sit on, towels you’re not supposed to dry your hands with, and a garbage can you’re not supposed to throw things away with. I’m constantly sad for the items she buys that will never be used for their true purposes. She comes over to where I’m sitting and picks up a picture of her mother during Christmastime from about ten years ago. “I miss her” she says softly, and I nod my head. I look up and notice that I’ve never seen my mother look so vulnerable.

It’s 1130 pm, which means it’s time for lunch. Which means it’s time for our salad platters. Salad platters are Grandma’s idea of a healthy lunch, which really means her idea of a quick way to feed us and get rid of leftover cold cuts. I think salad platters are the only thing my mother doesn’t fear us eating here, and since I’ve grown up on them, I love them dearly, like the way you learn to love your favorite sports team even though you know they always lose. I love the hardboiled egg half she always gives us, the pieces of provolone cheese, my favorite, and the rolled up pieces of salami and ham that I dip in Italian dressing. I even love that, even though this is a salad platter, there is technically no salad whatsoever in it. Grandma was always a comedian.

At three o’clock on the dot we rush into the living room to watch “General Hospital.” Grandma resumes whatever afghan she was knitting the day before, and I pull out a word find and a highlighter and try and find the words. I’m pretty sure “General Hospital” is the only TV show my grandma watches because she doesn’t have cable and usually falls asleep around 7pm anyway. Between the hours of nine and three, my sister and I can do whatever we want. Usually we alternate between playing bingo with Grandma or watching reruns of “Empty Nest” or “Saved By The Bell” on TV. Sometimes I pull out old photo albums from the 70’s and 80’s with the psychedelic printed covers, searching through the pictures of my aunts and uncles on family vacations and holidays. Everyone’s hairstyle seems strange and their clothes look extremely old fashioned.
Underneath all the trees you can barely tell it’s sunny out. I’m lying on a hammock in grandma’s backyard with her and my sister, staring up at the branches of the tree. I play with grandma’s soft black hair as she tells us the story of how my mother had a pet duck that followed her to school one day. I’ve heard the story about 100 times, but I always ask to hear it. This is my favorite part about going to grandma’s house, hearing her tell the stories from my aunt and uncle’s childhoods. Looking around the backyard is like seeing a museum from my family history. There’s the swing my grandfather put up years ago, a tire swing hanging from the tallest tree in the yard. Further back (this is the biggest backyard I’ve seen my entire life) there is the red shed, and my Uncle Andrew’s old dog is buried in front of it. In the middle of the yard should be the above ground pool where my mother almost drowned, but it was taken apart decades ago. On the white cement steps that lead to the backdoor are handprints and names of my three aunts and two uncles, one name per step. I trace the imprinted names with my fingers every day. When we go inside I ask to see the tape that I’ve watched about 30 times since I discovered it, the tape that has no sound other than the old music someone recorded over all the scenes. It isn’t black and white, but in a kind of fuzzy color that seems extremely vintage. On it are small episodes in my family’s history; my aunt and uncle’s wedding in the late sixties, a christening of a cousin, my great-grandma’s birthday party, and my mother dancing around the basement with her friends as a teenager. Everything on this tape makes me nostalgic for a past that I never was a part of.

My six year old sister Nicole looks nothing like me. She’s my half sister, born with my mother as her mother and my step father as her father, but she doesn’t resemble me at all. She does, however, have my attitude and pieces of my personality. Right now she’s asked me to put in a tape that she’s watched at least 20 times in the past month. It’s the video of my mom and step father’s wedding, something that occurred when I was nine and when she wasn’t even a twinkle in my mother’s eye. She is transfixed by this tape, which is so old that it’s a VHS, something that looks ancient to me now. Nicole and I watch my nine year old self dancing to “greased lightening” and my mom and Aunt Laura do the electric slide. I’m embarrassed by the late nineties dance music, but Nicole loves every second of this video, even though she’s nowhere to be found. When she saw it for the first time, she kept asking “where am I?” After I told her she wasn’t born yet, she didn’t seem to care anymore. She still watched, hypnotized by the images of a family that looked so dated to me.

“Ma, this can expired in 1997.” My mother is annoyed, and slightly embarrassed. She taps her foot and tries to reason with my grandmother, who seems oblivious and earnestly confused. “What do you mean? It’s soda, I’m sure it’s fine!” Meanwhile it’s 2002, and six years haven’t aged the Pepsi well, so when my grandmother isn’t looking my mom chucks it into the garbage. Grandma’s basement was like an ancient archeological dig, if you happened to be digging for outdated cans of soup and vegetables and boatloads of fabric and apoulstry. My grandfather was a carpenter, and even after he died she never got rid of all the fabric in the back of our basement. I guess she figured she would need it, just like she figured she would need all those six year old cans of creamed corn and broccoli. In her muumuu and favorite, possibly only, pair of Ked’s slippers, my Grandma prepares dinner for my family. My mom and aunt Andrea are watching her closely as she makes spaghetti and meatballs, making sure the ingredients she uses are fresh, and that she doesn’t end up accidentally putting peanut butter in the sauce instead of basil. It’s never happened before, but I really wouldn’t put anything past her at this point. Grandma’s getting old. Her memory isn’t what it used to be and her cooking, well her cooking is what it always was, a little scary, but always made with love.

I am constantly singing. It’s completely subconscious at times, and utterly embarrassing when I don’t realize I’m doing it. I’ll sing in the shower, sure, but unlike everyone else in the world, I also sing when I’m walking, when I’m working, when I’m around complete strangers, and when I’m around new friends. Everyone who knows me at all knows this about me. They will completely attest to my occasional belting out of “Edge of Seventeen” or “Whole Lotta Love” or basically the entire collection of songs by The Beatles. All my friends are aware of my aspiration to be a lounge singer and my endearing yet unhealthy obsession with American Idol. I guess the oddest part of all of this, the part that makes me slightly more embarrassed than the fact that I will serenade a crowd of strangers with “Michelle” and mess up all the parts in French, is the fact that I cannot carry a tune for the life of me. I’d like to say I’m a pretty good singer, but this would be a lie. In reality, I’m a mediocre singer who is occasionally tone deaf and should never be allowed near a microphone. It’s a wonder how I’m so drawn to music, lyrics, and the art of performance, and always have been. Or, almost always.

Grandma had one of the longest driveways ever. If I was to visit that house now, I’m sure the driveway would seem long, but not scary long. However at eight years old it seemed to stretch out into an eternity of never-ending blacktop. In the middle of the driveway, on the left side, was a small concrete set of steps leading into the side entrance of the house. There were two small steps on either side of a large platform which was enclosed by a rusty black railing. The platform was just big enough to fit me and occasionally my sister, and during those many summer afternoons at Grandma’s house, acted as my stage for all the shows we would put together. Grandma was born in 1927, smack in the middle of the Great Depression. She grew up in Bayone with her two older sisters during a dreary time, and with her father in Italy, my great grandmother had to take care of her three daughters mostly alone. I remember her telling stories about her youth, but more so I remember photo albums with fading pictures and dated hairstyles which I made fun of. Grandma was enthusiastic about a lot of things, but singing and dancing were her most revered activities. She taught my sister Caitlin and I tons of songs from her childhood, and was never happier as when we were making up songs and dances and performing them on our makeshift stage. Grandma would sit on her crappy folding chair with a glass of unsweetened Iced Tea in her hand, (which you couldn’t have gotten me to drink if you had paid me, and I was eight) beaming at us and clapping with delight. Our silly little performances were her greatest entertainment, and I learned to love to sing and dance all those summers ago, even though I knew I wasn’t remotely talented at either one.

Grandma is a huge Yankees fan. If we’re outside, which we usually are as long as the sun is shining, she has her portable AM radio with her to check the scores of the baseball games. If you ask her favorite player, it will always be Joe Girardi, and secondly Derek Jeter. Today we’re in the living room of my house, sitting with my step dad Steve, my mom, my sister, and my grandma and grandpa. The topic of baseball comes up, and Steve is also a huge Yankees fan, so he and grandma start a conversation about the current team. Enthusiastically, she says “That Jerek Deter is something, isn’t he?” I laugh. Steve laughs. Grandpa is to deaf to have heard her, but I’m sure he’d laugh too, after he yelled at her. My step dad stops laughing long enough to correct her mistake, but she doesn’t get it. “I said his name right, didn’t I? Jerek Deter! That’s not right?” Then she realizes her mistake and laughs with us. It’s no surprise that anytime someone in my mother’s family says or does something stupid yet endearingly funny, we call them “Mary” after my grandmother’s name.

She died about five years ago. I remember a lot of tears at the wake and the funeral, I remember my mother touching grandma’s soft black hair for the last time and saying she looked beautiful, but I also remember laughter. I have a lot of cousins, aunts, and uncles from my mother’s side of the family, and countless amounts of stories about my grandma were being told those few days we mourned, stories that I had already heard but loved hearing again, and new stories that grandma never told me. My favorite story happened right before the funeral, and didn’t involve my grandma at all, except in spirit. A few days before her funeral, my aunts and uncles gathered at Grandma’s house to sort through things, like who would be a pallbearer and what kind of casket they would buy. They were deicing on which mass card to use, and after looking at one for several minutes, my Aunt Andrea, the one with the personality most like my grandma, said “I like this one the most. Except, who’s this guy they have on the front of it?” My Uncle Andrew took the card away and smiled, then laughed. He passed it around to my aunts and uncles and they all laughed too. Finally, my Uncle Gary spoke. “Good job Andrea, or should I call you Mary. The guy on the front of the card is Jesus.”

Blog #5: Response to my Personal Essay

The personal essay I wrote was about growing up between the ages of 9 and 15 and watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer with my parents. In the beginning of my mom and stepdad's relationship, we began watching Buffy and it really brought us closer together. It also helped comfort me in times when I was upset, and was with me during my entire youth. I almost feel like I had a second family in the characters, that I grew up with them, mainly because the age that I watched the show was so young and such a developmental stage. I think I could've been happier in the way the essay turned out. I like the ideas that I had, and most of the things I said were exactly what I wanted to say, but I wish I had expressed my ideas differently. I'm just not sure how I could have done that better.

Blog # 3: Brainstorming on my Memoir

These are just random pieces from my freewriting during class which we wrote about several topics that were prompted to us. Oddly, I kept going back to a few specific places, time periods, and people. I'd like feedback on what seems to be the most interesting for an essay.



Memories of my Grandma's house, the big red house, the only red house on the block. The paint was always chipping off. The house number, 1112 (i actually cant remember, i'm making this up) was painted on a white stone in black lettering. There were flowerbeds every spring and the front porch had a wicker chair that she always sat in. The front living room was full of pictures of my aunts and uncles, mom included, and grandma and grandpa. The wall in the living room had a picture of each of my aunts and uncles on their wedding day, with my granparents wedding picture in the middle. Only two of the original couples are still together. The back room consisted of games for my sister and I to play with. Bingo, puzzles, and colorforms were our favorites. There was a small TV with no cable, so we always watched channel 13 which was PBS or any number of daytime sitcoms like empty nest or golden girls that played during the "old people hours" when everyone else was at work or in school. I could always be found digging in the piles of pictures in that room, lost in the photo albums with their psychadelic 70s prints, filled with pictures of my aunts and uncles from the "good old days". the photographs were faded and torn, and the hairstyles and clothes looked dated, but i always longed to be inside those pictures.

the kitchen looks the same in my mind as it always will. there was a long table in the center of the "dining room" and a phone with huge, i mean HUGE numbers on them and the longest cord known to man. that cord used to wrap around me and my sister. there was a fishtank in the dining room too, and after my aunt told me a story of how a fish once jumped out and fell onto her feet, i never ventured too close to that tank. my fondest memories of that kitchen were when grandma made us her famous"salad platters" which never really consisted of salad at all...just some lettuce, olives, ham, salami, cheese, and dressings, basically whatever she could find on a paper plate. and a hard boiled egg if she was so daring that day. i loved that horrible food.

I think i'm definetly going to write about my grandmother's house and my grandparents in general, I just dont know where to go from there, what to tie it in with. Maybe my family now, all of their children (my aunts and uncles) because both my grandma and grandpa have passed away.

Blog # 2: Schwartz: My Father Always Said

In Schwartz's essay "My father always said," she segments it into parts which all come together to tell the story of her and her father's relationship and each of them reacting differently to the same experience. The story begins by the author telling of her father's behavior and "favorite lines" about his native town of Rindheim. Her father is affected by World War II and got his entire family out before Hitler invaded, and moved them to Queens in NYC. Because of this, he clings to his recent past of Rindheim, and tells his daughter of then that "In Rindheim, you didnt do such things!" The family then travels to visit Rindheim and sees the old town where he grew up. The trip takes place only a few years after the war had ended, so it's really the first occurence for Schwartz were she truely sees an accurate account of what had happened to the Jews. Her father shows her around the town, shows her the buildings and tells her stories of the hardships of his people. In between telling the reader about this trip, she includes that she went back to visit Rindheim in 1993 when she was much older, insinuating that she researched her family history and the history of the Rindheim Jews more. The trip ends up doing two different things to her and her father. It makes a lasting impression on them both, but serves to make her father aware that the war is over, and it's time for him to move on and become part of the American way of life. For Schwartz, it serves to make her aware of her history and her past, and causes her to find out about her ancestors and their hardships.

Blog: My Personal Essay Draft

In the spring of 2003 during my freshman year of High School, I opened up my mailbox one afternoon to an issue of Entertainment Weekly with Sarah Michelle Gellar, the star of Buffy, on the cover. Initially excited at the prospect of reading an article about my favorite TV show, my face dropped the instant I read the headline: “Buffy Calls It Quits.” I dropped the magazine to the floor and stared into space in disbelief. This couldn’t be happening, it couldn’t be real. I guess I always knew that the show couldn’t last forever, that it had to end eventually, but it all seemed so sudden. Thus, I received my first dose of heartbreak at 14 years old. My “boyfriend” of seven years had finally decided to break up with me, not really giving me many reasons, leaving me standing in the sunlight wondering why, what had went wrong? It’s the spring of 1997, a Saturday afternoon, and I’m eight years old. My mother and my father had just finalized their divorce a few months earlier, so my mother, younger sister and I are living in a two family house which barely has room for all three of us. I’m comforted by the small living room, which brings the three of us closer together as we all sit on the couch watching TV or playing with toys. Actually, by this point it’s the four of us. My mother’s boyfriend Steve, who is now my stepfather, is basically living with us. Since I’ve known Steve since I was just a toddler, I don’t feel threatened by this, nor do I feel protective over my mother. However, I do feel that my once seemingly fine family is crumbling around me, and I do wonder why my Daddy left us. The sun is shining brighter than normal this Saturday, but as soon as the television turns on, it seems to dim the lights in the entire house. An eerie music fills the room as Steve raises the volume and tells us what we’re watching. “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” he says. “Maybe the girls are too young for this.” My mother seems to agree, but I beg to stay and watch the show for a little while at least. Even at eight years old I know what I’m interested in. My mother reluctantly agrees, but makes my sister leave the living room, after all, she’s only six. For the next hour the three of us are memorized by one of the first episodes of the newly premiered show, listening to the hip dialogue, laughing at all of the jokes, and jumping in our seats when the “bad guys” come on screen. Instantly I am hooked. Like most children who can remember everything about the first time they played with a certain toy, or most adults who can remember what they felt the first time they heard Led Zeppelin, I can remember exactly how I felt that first season of watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I felt oddly protected, not only from the strong blonde heroine of the show, but also by my mother and stepfather who were just as entranced with it as I was. We had formed a bond over Buffy, a ritual Tuesday night viewing of the show that was all I seemed to talk about in school. Even my friends called me “Buffy,” which must have seemed weird to my teachers. I was the nine year old who preferred vampires and demons to Barbie dolls and Pretty Pretty Princess. The first season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer began airing just after my ninth birthday in March of 1997, a full ten years ago. Based loosely on an early 90’s movie of the same name, “Buffy” was created by writer Joss Whedon when he decided he was sick of seeing the young blonde girl in horror movies constantly portrayed as the victim. He instead drew up the idea for a teenage girl named Buffy Summers who would be blonde, beautiful, smart, endearing, and oddly tough. Buffy was, as the title suggests, a vampire slayer, the “chosen one” who had the power to slay the vampires, demons, and forces of darkness. Try as she might to live a normal teenage life, such as join the cheerleading squad, attend her school prom, study, and date someone who didn’t turn out to be a vampire, normal just wasn’t in the cards for Buffy Summers. As the series progressed, so did my life. Just a few episodes into season two, my mother and stepfather got married, and we soon moved into a new house which would become the place where I watched “Buffy” for the next six years. Almost all of my memories of Tuesday nights with my stepfather and mother involve being in the family room on my couch, hypnotized for an hour by what was happening onscreen. In season four, Buffy and the gang embarked on College, and was starting Middle School. These occurrences were obviously not the same, but in my eleven year old brain I found this coincidence to be helpful and strengthening. After all, if Buffy could deal with changing schools and simultaneously battling vampires on a weekly basis, I could certainly handle the sixth grade. Sometimes the bullies, popular girls, and even teachers seemed like the forces of evil. Having Buffy in my mind at all times kept me stronger. I could do it all. Seasons five and six were especially dark, and did nothing to stop my mother’s claims that perhaps this show was to advanced for someone my age. Of course, she never won that argument, and I continued watching “Buffy”, only now I was too embarrassed to view it with my parents. I instead began watching the series alone, unless the episode was lighthearted or extremely important, in which case I would have to view with them and discuss all of the jokes and significant plot movements. During these years, when I was just beginning the leap from adolescence into pre-teens, and then finally being a teenager, Buffy was growing like I was. She was maturing, finding herself, going through dark and rough times, and I was finding myself too. Perhaps I didn’t have to fight an evil hell-god named Glory who would stop at nothing to find a key back to her home dimension, but my struggles seemed real and impossible at times too. When the final episode aired I had to watch it in my kitchen sitting between stacked boxes and my microwave. We had just moved into our new house, literally three days before, and it was the first day our cable was installed. Of course, I panicked all week at the thought of my TV not working during the series finale, thinking of alternate places I could watch the show at. I sat on a folding chair surrounded by a cluttered mess of moving material, directly in front of the television, transfixed as I waited for 8:00pm for what I knew would be the last time. I was watching the episode alone, something I rarely did, because my parents were busy setting up our house in all the other rooms. I also put out strict instructions that if anyone in the house interrupted me during this house, I wouldn’t speak to them ever again. By 9:00 I was a wreck, crying and clutching at the screen, wanting more. I felt betrayed, abandoned, and lost. I also felt slightly embarrassed for crying over a television show, but at that point I didn’t care. “Buffy” had trapped me since 1997, leading me into a fantasy world that was full of vampires, demons, and ass-kicking blondes equipped with witty banter and sarcasm. I looked around my kitchen, at a house which was strange and new, a house which I had never watched “Buffy” in before, so it seemed fitting that I would never sit down on a Tuesday at 8pm to watch it here again. I knew my life was changing and that I was on the brink of growing up, and that by this time next year, I would be sixteen and wouldn’t have time for silly television shows. For that night however, I was still fifteen, I was still innocent and naive, and losing “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” was still the scariest thing the world had thrown at me. Looking back, I long for that night. Currently my grandmother is in the hospital, my mother has to go get tests done from the doctor, and my ex-boyfriend and I just got into a huge fight. I am a wreck. There are literally thousands of ways I could be dealing with my pain; most of them are unhealthy, some of them are illegal, and a few of them involve cookie dough ice cream. Instead, I sit here on my couch curled up under a blanket watching my favorite season of “Buffy.” For at least an hour I don’t have to remember why I’m sad, and I don’t have to think about what I’m going to do after the episode ends. Right now it’s just me and Buffy Summers, and I am as content as I was when it premiered ten years ago, as emotional as I was when it ended four years ago, and as nostalgic as I’ll always be.

Never press "backspace" without saving these things first.

After mulling over the idea of writing about my father and his parents for an entire essay for the past few days, I’ve decided to retract my original topic idea and design plan. The incident was too recent and the wounds from that day have yet to heal, so until they do I don’t think I can write about the emotions I felt with much validity. Instead I’m choosing a topic which is much closer to my heart, but one that might seem odd at first glance. The essay I will write is about “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” It will not be on a superficial level about how much I love the show, but instead focus on how a simple television show shaped my youth, gave me a positive (at times) female role model, taught me life lessons on a weekly basis, and brought my once wavering family closer together. I had an entire two paragraphs devoted to how this essay is going to be meaningful and deep, but the evil backspace button on my computer decided to delete everything without me saving it. The essay will be relatable to all ages, as anyone can relate to having watched a television show and grown up with the characters, practically having them as a second family. We all grew up with “the Tanners” of Full House and secretly wished we were best friends with Cory Matthews of Boy Meets World. The media does magical things like that. It makes us feel as though our lives exist in two realities; the reality of watching something from an observers point of view, and the reality, or rather fantasy, that the characters which we have grown close to have simultaneously grown close to us as well. Perhaps females more than males will be able to relate to my essay more because I will be discussing how the character of Buffy Summers acted as a strong female role model for me in my youth, but males will be able to understand as well. The background information I will give won’t be extremely detailed, as that would bore most people. Instead I will give a brief synopsis of the plot and main characters when necessary. I will also have to include a short history of my family dynamic at the time of the show’s premiere, as it did bring us all closer together, as well as our dynamic at other crucial times during the run of the show. Hopefully in the end the reader will come away with an understanding that this show has helped me through bad times, has literally been my comfort during sad times, made me stronger, taught me life lessons, made me fall in love, and even given me my first real heartbreak.

A rough edit of my design plan

The purpose of this essay, or what i'm wishing to convey to my audience is that this past Christmas was not only the worst holiday i've ever experienced, but one of the worst days of my life. I was motivated to write this piece to release all my anger about the subject because I haven't really delt with it at all since it happened. I hope that the reader can come away with an understanding of why this day was horrible for me, and understands all the emotions I was feeling. To achieve this I will have to give some background about my father, his parents, and my sister and my relationship with them. I also need to emphasize how much Christmas is my favorite holiday, is perfect in my eyes, and spending the entirety of Christmas morning last year crying was a crushing blow to my perception of Christmas always being perfect.
I feel that my audience would be anyone who can relate to being in a family which isn't quite normal, or one that is big and blended. Anyone who is a child of divorce or has a poor relationship with one of their parents can also relate to my essay. Because people who will be reading my essay will be able to hopefully relate to how i'm feeling, it will be easier on my part to convey my emotions.
I think that the people who read my essay will not be surprised as to what i'm writing about. They will most likely have the assumption that my essay will have something to do with having a bad holiday experience, but not until they read more into the essay will they realize that it has more to do with a bad experience with my family.
In my essay I will have to tell the story of last Christmas, from morning until evening, because without telling of the day in its entirety I will not get my full point across to the reader. I also will have to include flashbacks of some kind to show my audience how my father behaved towards me and my sister, because without the understanding of my father's relationship with myself, my essay won't have a clear focus and will be hard to understand.