Unit One is called “Cracking Open the Course and the Imagination” and I think that this title is very appropriate. My experiences with creative writing are very limited. In fact, I really have not done much creative writing at all. As a result, I did not know what to expect in this course and I certainly did not expect to be doing multimedia right away. What I particularly enjoyed about this unit was that it made me eliminate my preconceptions about writing and what creative writing entails. Can a creative writing piece be a story without any text at all? Absolutely. I now know that.

This entire unit has been about experimenting. Experimenting with sound, image, text, movement and ideas. Personally, I felt that the experiments with sound were very effective. At first, I hated the sound of my own voice. But, as I continued to record and experiment with different tones, I found that these alterations could be very powerful. For that reason, I chose to use sound as an integral part of my multimedia piece. I eliminated text completely and made my audience rely solely on listening to the story.

Another discussion that I found interesting was when we talked about entrances and exits and the terror of the middle. When I wrote the script of my piece, it flowed from beginning to end, but at the same time, there were allusions to other experiences and a great deal of repetition. I did not feel like the audience needed to be guided from the beginning to the end. I thought it would be interesting to make the piece interactive and to have each reader experience it in his or her own way and in whatever order he or she happened to choose. This made the piece, in my eyes, so much more dynamic.

In order to create this visual and audio hypertext, I used a program called Dreamweaver, which I had never used before. It is wonderful. It allowed me to create a directory page of my image and embed invisible links in the picture to other pages that I created. This forced the reader to explore the image and find the other links in my piece. Each link has a new image and plays a different piece of my story (there are eight links…try to find them all). When the audio is finished, the reader can link back to the main page and continue to explore.

I liked how a great deal of my story is hidden, because this was a very emotional piece for me to write. It is not easy to admit these kinds of intense and sometimes irrational fears and feelings of paranoia. Nevertheless, I did actually experience those feelings not too long ago and I am glad that I was able to write about it.

I am sad to be leaving the realm of multimedia in the course, because I think that it really opens a great deal of creative opportunity. However, I am also excited to explore other mediums. Creative non-fiction…here we come!

http://community.middlebury.edu/~cburke/directory.htm

http://www.archive.org/details/MiniNarrative_228

Or is that the wind?That blows her away from him.Her distance troubles him.Can he salvage their bond?Perhaps a trip to the country,The mountains and the fields where they spent their first summers.Summers that were quiet,Summers when they were happy.Can the wind ever blow her back to him?Or is it lost forever?Lost forever in those mountains.And in those fields. And in those few happy summers.

  WiredReliefSegmentation  InteriorBlack and White and Blue  

Clutter. Hair clips, an apple core, three unlabeled CDs, a stack of random papers, several sticky notes with friendly reminders accompany the regular items that adorn my desk such as my desk lamp, my moon beam alarm clock, which wakes you up with flashes of light instead of noise (it makes the process of waking up much more peaceful), my heart-shaped rock from Charlotte, and a candle. There is a poster of a London tube map hanging if front of my desk and a bulletin board on the opposite wall, which I only half decorated. A coat rack is situated in the corner with all my scarves and puffy jackets. There is barely any clean space on the floor right now. Instead, clothes, books, bags, boots, stripped socks, and pillows are covering the tan carpet. There is one window, which surprisingly lets in a fair amount of light. I have a lot of stuff in this small room, but that is all it really is to me: a room for stuff. I never really feel at home in it. Just cluttered and crowded and somehow alone.  

My first impression of Katie was from freshman year in high school when she had the infamous persona of “the girl who hates the world.” I was so intimidated by her. She scowled in the halls and looked absolutely miserable at school. I guess I never understood why an all-girls Catholic school was so terrible. I had gone to the school since the first grade and so I didn’t know anything else. Katie did and apparently being sent to Oak Knoll was a cruel punishment. That impression always amuses me because it was so misleading. There is a card hanging on my bulletin board and the quote on the front reads: “We are friends for life. When we are together the years fall away. Isn’t that what matters? To have someone who can remember with you? To have someone who remembers how far you’ve come?”. This card is surrounded by pictures of Katie and me and all of our friends. She looks so happy in all of them. I don’t quite know how the scary girl who hates the world ended up being one of my greatest friends.

Birthdays are terrible. There is simply too much hype. In your mind, or at least in my mind, I always expect that my birthday should be the best day of the year. They never quite live up to it and last year was probably the worst birthday ever. I was born on April Fool’s Day and that should probably be the first indication that I should not expect my birthday, a day designated for pranks and foolery, to be the best day of the year. Last year, April 1st landed on a Sunday. It was the last day of Spring break and I had gotten back from my team’s Spring training trip late the night before. We had to get up early on Sunday to drive to Hamilton College and play another tennis match. It was the dreariest day. It kept misting, drizzling, a little rain and then more mist, as if the clouds in Hamilton couldn’t quite decide on rain or just plain grayness. I played my match against a girl, who had a huge cheering section, so I was heckled incessantly the whole time. Then we packed up the van and drove back to Middlebury. I was so excited to see my friends, but everyone was moving back into school and catching up on work. I got several visits and went to dinner the next night to celebrate. But the night of my birthday, I spent mostly alone. I even cried a little, which I now feel really stupid about. But I was alone and disappointed. And I had to wait a whole year for my next birthday, my best day of the year.

“There is no longer anyone by that name here.” Those words cause an instant panic, a wrench in my side, my heartbeat quickens. I wanted to jump into action. Do something, anything. But there is nothing. No number to call, no information. Nothing. This desire for mobility, but the reality of paralysis is infuriating. My anger dissolves back into panic. Will he call this time? Will he be ok this time? Or will this be the time that he doesn’t call, the time he is not ok? My world will stop until I hear something, anything. But the world around me won’t stop. My sleepless night won’t change the sequence of events on these fateful nights. This lack of control is terrifying and humbling, but mostly terrifying. 

Late night food is apparently a tradition shared all over the world. When Tina, Katie, Deirdre, Evan, Steven and I would fall out of nightclubs in Leichester Square, we would be bombarded with all sorts of foods like falafels, pizza, onion rings and curry fries. But the hotdog venders were the worst. They would position their carts right outside of the clubs and all along Tottenham Court Road. Even if we were strong and would avoid the first vender, there would still be several more tests to come. The wafting smell of sautéed onions followed us the whole way home. Avoiding puddles, chanting and laughing, we would make our way up Tottenham Court, but there was no avoiding those hotdogs. I do not think that there was a single late night walking back that at least one of us did not succumb to their allure. It was incredibly American to stuff our faces with hotdogs in London, but they were not like New York City hotdogs, I think they tasted even better.

Dear Reader:

I have always considered myself to be a reflective person. I think I get that from my Dad. I am the second oldest of four children. My brother, Kieran, was an inquisitive child. He always wanted to know how everything worked: a dishwasher, a radio, a clock, a car. He was constantly talking and constantly asking questions. My mom recalls how she would buy books to satisfy his curiosity about How Kitchen Appliances Work or A Guide to Car Engines. She also joked about putting him to sleep at five o’clock so she could have some peace and quiet.

I, on the other hand, was very different, quiet, and reserved. I could never get a word in, especially not with Kieran around, and especially not with Kieran, Anna and James around. Perhaps that is one of the reasons that I have been drawn to writing. I think that writing requires a great deal of reflection and conscious thought. As I said earlier, I consider myself to be a very conscientious and reflective, like my Dad.

My mom used to send me on errands with my Dad. She says that she still wonders what our conversations were like, if, at times, there were any at all. A running joke in the family (be warned I am sure you all will be hearing a lot of stories about my family) is that one time I had been silent for a while in the car, peering out the window. My dad asked me what I was thinking about and I replied simply, “Math.”

Math. That story still perplexes me. Why would I have been thinking about math? I do not really like math. I was never terrible at math, but I also never really had any interest in math. Well, except of course, in that car, when I was about five years old. One aspect of math that I do like, however, is that it is straightforward. There is generally one answer and either you get it or you don’t. In that way, math is kind of refreshing, especially for me. I enjoy a sense of order, I like things to be organized and systematic and refined.

At the same time, however, I love being creative and exploring new mediums. I think I just do it in my own, reserved way. For that reason, I think that this course is going to be a challenge for me. I seriously considered walking out of the door yesterday. Throughout Barbara’s whole speech, my skin was crawling and my palms started to sweat. However, for some odd reason, I remained were I was seated. I even argued my case as to why I should be chosen. Even when I was told to go figure out which two people out of a group of five eager writers would get to stay in the class and I was only inches away from the door, I still did not leave. Then one boy bowed out. There were four people, but only two spots. Barbara resorted to ini mini mini mo. First time around, I wasn’t picked. I was relieved. Second time around, I had a two out of three chance of being safe, of getting off easy. But, I was chosen and invited into the inner circle. I read my first piece aloud and I survived. I think I am ready to be pushed and I hope you all will join in and push me.

Here’s to a great semester,

Clare

p.s. I am a terrible speller. My grammar school failed me. I spell story wrong a lot, but there is a legitimate reason for that. I write storey instead, because Storey is my middle name. I love my middle name. I wish it had been my first name. Although, pursuing creative writing with a name like Storey would be kind of strange. I am thinking about naming my daughter Storey so I hope she has no aspirations to write. Although, I guess she could always change it.