I am not particularly proud of this peice... but if I sorted through my peices and only showed you the good ones I would feel a little cheap. This Exercise is about using an object to try to define a develop a character. You describe the object instead of describing the person, but you accomplish the same thing, but it is much more stylish. Unfortunately my attempt looks sloppy at best, but I stand behind the exercise becuase I think it holds value in helping one learn to develop characters more creatively.
My browser isn't letting me put this in italics... so you will have to pretend... If you don't have the imigination to do that, you have no business reading a blog that is going to spend a lot of time talking about writing...
Start italics...
On the wall behind Randolf Grey's desk, mounted on cardstock, and set into a simple black frame was a cheque. It was the first Cheque Randolf Grey had ever for more than a five thousand dollars. The papaer was browned with age, the penmarks were fading and it had various bank stamps printed on it. Randolf remembered very well writing that cheque. He had come from a poor family, and Grey looked at that cheque demonstated who he had become: a magestic creature that had risen out of the ashes of poverty.
Randolf had made sure he recieved the cheque back after the bank had cleared it. It meant more than just money to him, it reminded him that in a long line of failures he alone had been a success. Whenever Grey was feeling discouraged he took a few minutes to look at the cheque on his office wall, to remember how he had to work to get where he was now. The cheque was for a local hospital in his home town, and was his way of giving a little back.
End italics...
I spent more time talking about grey, and strayed a little from the point of the exercise. I think I should have chosen a better object, but I was also on a time crunch. It isn't a great piece, but I am able to see ways to improve my writing as I read it.
The next piece I am going to post will be much better.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Monday, June 1, 2009
Archie made the wrong choice.
Recently I read in the paper that Archie was going to propose to Veronica, and ask Jughead to be his best man. Veronica is thrilled and callously posting about it on her blog, and Betty is distraught of course. In my opinion Archie has definately picked the wrong girl. Here is why:
Veronica, while attractive, is incredibly high maintenence. While she is rich, which is usually a bonus, her father is the source of all the money, Veronica is only a source of debt. Mr. Lodge does not like Archie, so it is unlikely that money will contine to pour Archie and Veronica's way after the wedding, and Archie will soon be broke, (they will probably have a spectacular wedding though).
Betty, on the other hand, is still beautiful, maybe not in the decked out classy way like Veronica, but I always liked Mary-Ann better than Ginger anyways; I don't think I am alone here. Betty will be an excellent mother, and wife, and will support Archie through his life. All traits that neither time nor bankruptcy can take away. Here's hoping that Archie sees the light before it is too late.
While the above is as irrelevant, and vapid as celebrity gossip it got me thinking about choices, and how they define our characters.
Let me pose a question.
If I were to tell you a man was an alcoholic what would you think of him?
And how would that perception change if I told you this alcoholic had been sober for ten years?
If I told you a man had AIDs, what would be your first thought about him?
And how would that change if I told you he had contracted the disease while working in a free clinic in Africa?
Those questions deal both with choices, as well as how the world can percieve things when they don't know the whole story.
My father is suffering from non-alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver. When I tell people this I always make sure to emphasize the non-alcoholic part, becuase if people do not know me, or of my background, they are likely to assume otherwise. The doctors did not even believe my Dad when he told them that he had never had a drink in his life.
So the question is who are we? The person that we are percieved to be? Or the person we chose to be, possibly despite perceptions?
On a recent house episode Kutner, may he rest in peace, described a patient as a Harry Potter. It was a man who had very negative thoughts, but he chose not to say them, but to instead take on the role of the nice guy. Before his illness struck, and he was unable to censor himself he was a sort of anti-House. Kutner compared him to Harry Potter becuase when Harry was being sorted he was told he could be great in Slytherin, but Harry did not want to risk following the path to evil, and power. While the potential is still there in Harry, he chose not to acknowledge, thus becoming someone entirely different than the Sorting Hat first saw.
It is interesting the way in which our choices may depict aspects of ourselves we may not acknowledge. I know of someone who once may have been labeled a rebel. He was never a bad guy, but he you would never call him the good guy either. But when he decided he wanted to date a girl entirely different from himself it indicated his desire to move from rebel to a more clean cut conservative guy. The girl he set his sight on would not date him otherwise.
In that way I think our choices do not neccesarily indicate who we are right now, but they often indicate who we will be in the future. If Harry had chosen to be put in Slytherin nothing about him would have changed, but he would have moved down a very different path.
As I think about this it forces me to look at my own choices over my 21 years, and see which ones have affected my life positively, and which ones I am still kicking myself for. But if there is anything that Led Zeppelin has taught me, it's that there is still time to change the road you're on.
Veronica, while attractive, is incredibly high maintenence. While she is rich, which is usually a bonus, her father is the source of all the money, Veronica is only a source of debt. Mr. Lodge does not like Archie, so it is unlikely that money will contine to pour Archie and Veronica's way after the wedding, and Archie will soon be broke, (they will probably have a spectacular wedding though).
Betty, on the other hand, is still beautiful, maybe not in the decked out classy way like Veronica, but I always liked Mary-Ann better than Ginger anyways; I don't think I am alone here. Betty will be an excellent mother, and wife, and will support Archie through his life. All traits that neither time nor bankruptcy can take away. Here's hoping that Archie sees the light before it is too late.
While the above is as irrelevant, and vapid as celebrity gossip it got me thinking about choices, and how they define our characters.
Let me pose a question.
If I were to tell you a man was an alcoholic what would you think of him?
And how would that perception change if I told you this alcoholic had been sober for ten years?
If I told you a man had AIDs, what would be your first thought about him?
And how would that change if I told you he had contracted the disease while working in a free clinic in Africa?
Those questions deal both with choices, as well as how the world can percieve things when they don't know the whole story.
My father is suffering from non-alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver. When I tell people this I always make sure to emphasize the non-alcoholic part, becuase if people do not know me, or of my background, they are likely to assume otherwise. The doctors did not even believe my Dad when he told them that he had never had a drink in his life.
So the question is who are we? The person that we are percieved to be? Or the person we chose to be, possibly despite perceptions?
On a recent house episode Kutner, may he rest in peace, described a patient as a Harry Potter. It was a man who had very negative thoughts, but he chose not to say them, but to instead take on the role of the nice guy. Before his illness struck, and he was unable to censor himself he was a sort of anti-House. Kutner compared him to Harry Potter becuase when Harry was being sorted he was told he could be great in Slytherin, but Harry did not want to risk following the path to evil, and power. While the potential is still there in Harry, he chose not to acknowledge, thus becoming someone entirely different than the Sorting Hat first saw.
It is interesting the way in which our choices may depict aspects of ourselves we may not acknowledge. I know of someone who once may have been labeled a rebel. He was never a bad guy, but he you would never call him the good guy either. But when he decided he wanted to date a girl entirely different from himself it indicated his desire to move from rebel to a more clean cut conservative guy. The girl he set his sight on would not date him otherwise.
In that way I think our choices do not neccesarily indicate who we are right now, but they often indicate who we will be in the future. If Harry had chosen to be put in Slytherin nothing about him would have changed, but he would have moved down a very different path.
As I think about this it forces me to look at my own choices over my 21 years, and see which ones have affected my life positively, and which ones I am still kicking myself for. But if there is anything that Led Zeppelin has taught me, it's that there is still time to change the road you're on.
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