I have to write an autobiography by Wednesday. Just the draft, not the final piece. All my ideas have started out good and then I get them on paper and well .... they suck. I sound totally boring. The voice is flat. And then I had an epiphany.
It was after Monday's class and the teacher asked all of us who had missed the previous Wednesday to stay behind so he could fill us in on what we missed. We had missed discussions on sentences-how you can play with them, rearrange them, make them dance like little notes on the page. How you can use punctuation, alliteration, etc. And I had the greatest idea.
I would start my autobiography by writing short, staccato sentences about the major events in my life. Then I'd segue into a little dialogue about how non-interesting just the bones are (this is why I'm a history major not an archaeologist) and how you really need stories to flesh it out and make it interesting. Then I'd mention how blogging has become an excellent resource for preserving your memories right when it happened (well, at least that week). And then I'd include some of my previous blog posts that I thought captured some of the flavor of my life and my writing voice.
And then I had another idea. I'd write about having an epiphany. And I'd use it as a prelude to my autobiography. Kind of like a warm-up. I am a genius.
It was after Monday's class and the teacher asked all of us who had missed the previous Wednesday to stay behind so he could fill us in on what we missed. We had missed discussions on sentences-how you can play with them, rearrange them, make them dance like little notes on the page. How you can use punctuation, alliteration, etc. And I had the greatest idea.
I would start my autobiography by writing short, staccato sentences about the major events in my life. Then I'd segue into a little dialogue about how non-interesting just the bones are (this is why I'm a history major not an archaeologist) and how you really need stories to flesh it out and make it interesting. Then I'd mention how blogging has become an excellent resource for preserving your memories right when it happened (well, at least that week). And then I'd include some of my previous blog posts that I thought captured some of the flavor of my life and my writing voice.
And then I had another idea. I'd write about having an epiphany. And I'd use it as a prelude to my autobiography. Kind of like a warm-up. I am a genius.
Comments