Dia De los Muertos 2015
Resonance of Remembrance 2015
For the project, Resonance of Remembrance, I wrote a memoir about my dad who I really feel strong about. How I rarely know about him, and how much I want my questions about him answered. This memoir is the kind of daughter, father relationship bonding, and it is a bittersweet kind of bonding that had effected my life in a big way. In my writing, I wanted the audience to get the feeling of curiosity, and the mystery of my dad memories that are out of reach. As for he is not the type to share these pieces that fit the puzzle. That was the soul purpose of the story. Through this project, I learned how to write proper sentences to send more feeling to my reader. For them to read this with out a distraction, with out a annoyance in front of their eyes. I now know properly how to write a sentence and that is a requirement to writing a story. In my story, I had to find a way to transition my thoughts to a memory. Other than letters printed on paper. I have also learned to bring these words to life through sound. I learned how sound can cause emotion such as joy, happiness, sadness, curiosity, etc.
One strategy that helped me when I wrote my memoir was when I changed my opinionated thoughts to the memory in my memoir just like the author Tim O'Brien did. One of his books that has helped me with this strategy was in his book, The Things They Carried. In the chapter "Spin", pg.22, Tim writes, "And right then you'd hear gunfire behind you and your nuts would fly up into your throat and you'd be squealing pig squeals. That kind of boredom.
I feel guilty sometimes. Forty-three years old and I'm still writing war stories. My daughter Kathleen tells me it's an obsession, that I should write about a little girl who finds a million dollars and spends it all on a Shetland pony. In a way, I guess, she's right: I should forget it."
This gives a look inside the memory from his eyes to the thought he has about telling all these memories. This strategy stuck out to me in a lot of ways. One knowing that the way he writes is poetic, mind blowing in fact in the sense of how he tells his stories. You never really know if it is a fiction story or non-fiction, what memories are true or false. This book has proved me one thing, it messes with my emotions, and it definitely does not fail on getting the message across to me. This is exactly how I would wish to make my readers feel. So, I tried to do exactly that. I tried to play around with the words when I described my mysterious dad. I wrote, "I am glad he didn't. I love him. Isn't that enough to plead why?
We were in his truck, it was late afternoon."
This helped me get my story and thought to the reader, the inside look of what I am thinking. If the reader understands the confusion towards my dad, the reader will want to come along with me through my eyes. Be in my shoes, feel the emotion, live though this little memory that changed my perspective of my dad.
In my writing, I kept in mind that if you are telling a memory, you have to be detailed and honest as possible. You have to acknowledge that actions say more than words, it also gives an inside look to your reader of how it really happened, not what you want to happen. Unless you are making a fiction memory, but it really isn't a memory anymore is it? It is unreal memory, so you can't really call it a memoir anymore. I kept in mind that to write more of my emotions but more of my surroundings, my five senses to accomplish my goal to hook my reader in, feel what I felt in the memory. In the chapter "Spin", in the book, The Things They Carried, pg. 24, he wrote, "Henry Dobbins sitting in the twilight, sewing on his new buck sergeant stripes, quietly singing, "A tisket, a tasket, a green and yellow basket." A field of elephant grass weighted with wind, bowing under the stir of a helicopter's blades, the grass dark and servile, bending low, but then rising straight again when the chopper went away.
A red clay trail outside the village of My Khe.
A hand grenade.
A slim, dead, dainty young man of about twenty.
Kiowa saying, "No choice, Tim. What else could you do?"
Kiowa saying, "Right?"
Kiowa saying, "Talk to me.""
This shows that he told the story how it was, not in his opinion.
I personally used this strategy in my memory when I wrote,
“"When I became of age, I worked at a third grader’s age. Went to school in scars, cuts, and burns that I carry with me to this day.” He looked quickly at his hands, then looked back at the rode. When he said this description, he seemed tense, his cloudy eyes staring right through the window of the white heavy duty van."
I told the story of the actions my dad did when he was telling his life story, the memories that he remembered as a young child. I felt like if I focus on my dads actions, it would give the reader a hint of his feelings towards these personal feelings he has been hiding. I did not put it in my opinion because part of good story telling, you have to let the reader be you, imagine my dad in front of you, looking at his own hands with some kind of expression that you have to figure out. Me as a daughter finally, getting the answers of her fathers heart.
When we used the writing of our memoir we had to figure out a way to blend in with the emotion with the power of music. The most effective sound in sending the message to my audience with the piano. I believe that piano is the most emotional and beautiful instrument there is. The only instrument capable of making me cry, capable to make me smile, and capable to make me gasp. That is exactly why I picked the piano to get the audience the feeling of the daughter in the story, that is confused and detached to the person she lives with. I used this piano song, Marriage D' Amor, to explain how I feel about my dad, the inside look of my thoughts.
By listening to others' memoirs and writing my own I realized that this project matters to me in the most peculiar way. It has shown me that small memories can be big. I realized that looking back at my past, it has made me who I am. I realized with out making mistakes, I would not have ended up where I am. I learned a little bit more about myself and what I am capable of as a writer, and the power I can send with ink and a paper. It can come to life, and send emotion with out even being alive.
One strategy that helped me when I wrote my memoir was when I changed my opinionated thoughts to the memory in my memoir just like the author Tim O'Brien did. One of his books that has helped me with this strategy was in his book, The Things They Carried. In the chapter "Spin", pg.22, Tim writes, "And right then you'd hear gunfire behind you and your nuts would fly up into your throat and you'd be squealing pig squeals. That kind of boredom.
I feel guilty sometimes. Forty-three years old and I'm still writing war stories. My daughter Kathleen tells me it's an obsession, that I should write about a little girl who finds a million dollars and spends it all on a Shetland pony. In a way, I guess, she's right: I should forget it."
This gives a look inside the memory from his eyes to the thought he has about telling all these memories. This strategy stuck out to me in a lot of ways. One knowing that the way he writes is poetic, mind blowing in fact in the sense of how he tells his stories. You never really know if it is a fiction story or non-fiction, what memories are true or false. This book has proved me one thing, it messes with my emotions, and it definitely does not fail on getting the message across to me. This is exactly how I would wish to make my readers feel. So, I tried to do exactly that. I tried to play around with the words when I described my mysterious dad. I wrote, "I am glad he didn't. I love him. Isn't that enough to plead why?
We were in his truck, it was late afternoon."
This helped me get my story and thought to the reader, the inside look of what I am thinking. If the reader understands the confusion towards my dad, the reader will want to come along with me through my eyes. Be in my shoes, feel the emotion, live though this little memory that changed my perspective of my dad.
In my writing, I kept in mind that if you are telling a memory, you have to be detailed and honest as possible. You have to acknowledge that actions say more than words, it also gives an inside look to your reader of how it really happened, not what you want to happen. Unless you are making a fiction memory, but it really isn't a memory anymore is it? It is unreal memory, so you can't really call it a memoir anymore. I kept in mind that to write more of my emotions but more of my surroundings, my five senses to accomplish my goal to hook my reader in, feel what I felt in the memory. In the chapter "Spin", in the book, The Things They Carried, pg. 24, he wrote, "Henry Dobbins sitting in the twilight, sewing on his new buck sergeant stripes, quietly singing, "A tisket, a tasket, a green and yellow basket." A field of elephant grass weighted with wind, bowing under the stir of a helicopter's blades, the grass dark and servile, bending low, but then rising straight again when the chopper went away.
A red clay trail outside the village of My Khe.
A hand grenade.
A slim, dead, dainty young man of about twenty.
Kiowa saying, "No choice, Tim. What else could you do?"
Kiowa saying, "Right?"
Kiowa saying, "Talk to me.""
This shows that he told the story how it was, not in his opinion.
I personally used this strategy in my memory when I wrote,
“"When I became of age, I worked at a third grader’s age. Went to school in scars, cuts, and burns that I carry with me to this day.” He looked quickly at his hands, then looked back at the rode. When he said this description, he seemed tense, his cloudy eyes staring right through the window of the white heavy duty van."
I told the story of the actions my dad did when he was telling his life story, the memories that he remembered as a young child. I felt like if I focus on my dads actions, it would give the reader a hint of his feelings towards these personal feelings he has been hiding. I did not put it in my opinion because part of good story telling, you have to let the reader be you, imagine my dad in front of you, looking at his own hands with some kind of expression that you have to figure out. Me as a daughter finally, getting the answers of her fathers heart.
When we used the writing of our memoir we had to figure out a way to blend in with the emotion with the power of music. The most effective sound in sending the message to my audience with the piano. I believe that piano is the most emotional and beautiful instrument there is. The only instrument capable of making me cry, capable to make me smile, and capable to make me gasp. That is exactly why I picked the piano to get the audience the feeling of the daughter in the story, that is confused and detached to the person she lives with. I used this piano song, Marriage D' Amor, to explain how I feel about my dad, the inside look of my thoughts.
By listening to others' memoirs and writing my own I realized that this project matters to me in the most peculiar way. It has shown me that small memories can be big. I realized that looking back at my past, it has made me who I am. I realized with out making mistakes, I would not have ended up where I am. I learned a little bit more about myself and what I am capable of as a writer, and the power I can send with ink and a paper. It can come to life, and send emotion with out even being alive.