Author Archives: 18haferamy

An exercise by Addonizio from Ordinary Genius, asks us to look around your surroundings. Just start listing off whatever random objects that you see. Then, once you have a list, pick a couple and start writing about if they were in love with one another. The goal is to invest ordinary objects with human feelings and let your imagination create its own little world. To fully get the explanation of my writing, I was sitting in a coffee shop while writing this. There weren’t all that many objects, but just enough to make it interesting.

Objects around me:

• Table
• Chair
• Couch
• Book
• Coffee
• Windows
• Voices

The tables and chairs in the Heidelbean loft were shut off from the world in 2021. With the new restrictions, students were not allowed to gather on them as they usually do. The Tables longed for the Chairs to be pushed up against them, the feeling of being wanted and useful. Hearing the way they glide over the carpet makes the Table feel as if they belong. The tables felt so weightless and empty without coffee all over them and the voices rushing over their surface. With the loft full again, it is said you can see the furniture smiling at students. Sometimes they even talk to each other happy to be used again and getting to see the other objects. 

This activity helped to realize that the smallest of things can help creative writing. Writing and art are everywhere around us. So, try it out for yourself. Maybe you will find there is life living upon you that you never expected.

Golconda Art Work

This piece of art, titled “Golconda” was painted by a Belgian surrealist René Magritte. This piece is supposed to be raining men that are all identical. Magritte was very interested in the seductiveness of it, while it is a fun painting, it also makes us aware of the fiction of representation. One thought is that he was trying to show the line between being one, and being a group, and how complicated that line is.  

My very initial reaction was literally “what the hell”, as it makes no sense at all first thing. It seems like a scene you would see in Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs or some alien invasion. 

One story it may tell is that all of the men seem to be an exact copy. Everyone’s the same. But in reality, if you look close, some of them are turned a bit and others are blurry. You can’t quite make out the faces of the ones in the far back. And the setting of the painting, in the middle of a town makes it all the more interesting.

When staring at this, my senses that are initially evoked are my sight of course. It almost looks like some sort of optical illusion or something. But after a while, it turns into confusion, and I can almost imagine feeling the men as bumps on a piece of paper. Some are bigger and some are smaller. 

The senses that this image engages are 

• Sight: I just keep seeing a bunch of floating guys

• Hear: If I were in this image, It would probably be very noisy with the sound of men chattering to one another. But then again, maybe it would be completely silent as if they were frozen in time.
• Smell: This image does not give off any scent to me, but typically men either smell like cologne of some sort or sweat and odor.
• Taste: I can’t think of any possible taste or flavor to give to these men

So I ask you to ask yourself. What does this image mean or represent to you?

Possible Story Ideas

This is a reflection from Prof. D’Alessandro’s question:

Write down ten things that might serve as possible story ideas, drawing from things that happened to you over the past week: people, thoughts, emotions, situations. Nothing is too big or too small, cosmic or microscopic.

I chose my ideas from things I saw in my room, things that had happened to me, and just random things that I thought would make an interesting story.

1. Tomato Farm
2. My Kitchen
3. Championship Team
4. Zeta Theta Goodbye
5. Sitting Alone In Silence
   1. Pick apart every feeling, emotion, thought that comes to mind
   2. Sounds: the refrigerator running, the air conditioner, the keyboard tapping, breathing
   3. What plans do I have today
   4. What is my purpose
   5. Who am I
6. Feeling Like Quitting
7. From a Professor’s Perspective
8. A Long Weekend
9. Paying The Bills
10.  A Day In Her Shoes

If I were to write “Sitting Alone in Silence” into a fictional story, I would add characters. Silence itself could be a character, possibly the main character. Maybe even the antagonist, who is there hovering over and always a bother. The sounds could even have their own characters/personalities. Maybe the air conditioner is the nice one, always trying to calm the nerves and make you comfortable.

While this list may have taken me a while to come up with and pick a favorite, it shows that you can write about literally anything. Every topic has a different direction that it could take, and each writer could interpret it as their own.

Stephen King

What Writing Is

The first thing that I notice about King’s writing is that he makes sure to set the setting extremely well. He mentions so many places and it immediately has my brain visualizing the words as if a movie is rolling by. Then he gets to talking about how people receive words and images. We did this with my team once. We all had to imagine an apple. Then they asked how many people saw a red one versus a green one, and there were those couple people that actually saw no color at all. So weird to me, but just shows that everybody’s mind is different and we all have our own perceptions. 

Toolbox

At first I did not understand the concept of the toolbox and how it related to anything. And then it hit me. It is no different than our very own liberal arts education. Although we are all studying one or two things, we are also learning a broad spectrum of categories. This is similar to the toolbox, how it has lots of things just in case. One of my professors once told me that you shouldn’t be a jack of all trades, but rather focus more on being excellent at one thing. I guess that would require just a small toolbox. 

My Thoughts

As I was finishing up reading, I suddenly got this feeling that I had been in the situation before. The words, and the rhythm seemed familiar. That’s it, the rhythm. The way the writing sets the stage, tells you how to feel and shows emphasis in all the right places. It was as if I was sitting back in band class listening to the instructor tell us how to play sheet music. I mean, music is also a form of artistic writing. Both are visual and provide the audience with emotion.