Freytag's Pyramid

Such an understatement when I say "...a lot has happened in the past two weeks." An incredible amount of processing with school, family, freelance work, school, family, freelance work (wait, I'm feel redundant here). I'm trying to let everything soak and percolate in my mind while purge everything toxic out of the body, mind, and heart. It's tough. But I'm finding that practice and failure are two things I've grown accustomed to. Now, when I use the word failure, I mean it in a way that is productive. There are many instances where I feel as though I have failed miserably but choose to learn as much as I can. 

In any case, it's all about (what one of my professors would say) 'productive failure'. I wanted to share one of the gems this week - Freytag's Pyramid. Surprisingly, my professor is having us map and chart the tension, complexity, and/or rising action to our works. While it's proving to be a pretty awesome exercise, for my obsessive compulsive brain, it's going to be an exercise in teasing (and failing productively) out what is most important. Wish me luck. Above, you'll find a handy illustration. Enjoy! Feel free to drop a note if you've studied Freytag's Pyramid or want to share any thoughts about your writing process. :)

The Write Way to Exercise the (Writer's Block) Demons

Fortunately, we did not have to re-construct and instruct our "reader" to re-create the above structure!

After the first official day of school, I learned a lot about my writing style, practice, and overall process. When I write, I have a tendency to be madly in love with the free writing. No editing. No re-reading and re-writing. Just sheer, don't give a fack and throw all the words to the wind and let them land wherever and however they get onto the page. Typically, I type my free-writes and initial drafts, which may come as a surprise to some of my classmates because I write profusely in my notebook during class. But that's in large part due to me being a kinesthetic learner. I need to do something with my hands while listening to a lecture or sitting through a meeting. If I'm forbidden to write during class or work meetings, I would go mad. My attention span would be shorter than a gnat.

My writing seminar is titled, Voices (for obvious reasons I don't think I need to explain but let me know if you need me to elaborate, more than happy to do so). Our professor, writer Eric Olson, led writer-reader exercises. One individual was the writer while the other participant was the reader. The writer had to construct building blocks and instruct the reader to re-construct the writer's design. Both writer and reader were facing opposite directions and the writer was the only one that could speak and provide instruction. It was fun watching the writer describe how they organized the building blocks to the reader. Seeing the reader re-build, in most if not all cases, something very similar was exciting.

What did it teach me?

To be mindful of what I am trying to communicate to my reader since the reader may interpret what is being communicated differently. Want to learn a variation of this exercise? Check out Casey Reas artist talk earlier this year at The Creators Project here. Lots of fun AND I had the opportunity to meet Reas (nice guy!).

Quora: The Virtual Place for Questions (and Answers)

One of my dear friends and extremely talented artist, Matt Ganucheau, suggested I hop onto Quora (Side Note: Matt ALWAYS has something awesome to share so you may be seeing his name mentioned here quite a bit). Quora is a unique way to socially network with like minded folks (or people that think it's funny to be offer up a lame answer but I have yet to see this happen). It is a virtual spot where you can ask questions and get answers. You're also able to "Thank" (think of the "Like" function on Facebook) other Quora users and vote up answers to questions. So, imagine if Reddit and Pinterest had a brilliant prodigy lovechild, that's pretty much how I view Quora. Now, it doesn't replace writing your papers or answer the difficult abstract questions you need to address for your thesis BUT it is a great stepping stone to see what others think of your questions, research, and most importantly, its a place to learn something new (constantly)! Are you on Quora? It would be great to connect and check out your questions and maybe, just maybe, answer your questions. I know I would appreciate your answers to my questions. See you there.