Author Archives: dousar12

E – Week 5 Poetry

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Fantasy lives inside my blood.

It has defined my childhood since I could read.

I got Harry Potter for my fifth birthday, wrapped

With shiny unicorns. (I still have that

paper somewhere). When I was nine I read

Tamora Pierce for the first time.

And this was fire in my veins because

I wanted to be Kel, Protector of the Small.

Here was a woman in writing that I

Not only could, but wanted

To look up to. 

Stories like these I’ve wanted to write

My whole life. So why now but

Not back then? It is still

Rough.

Still easy to tell that I love Tamora Pierce,

My own style immature. But maybe

Telling my own story means that now

I can tell other stories. Or at least…

That’s what the novel taking over my life says.

E – Week 5 Bachelardian Reverie

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Ironies in Rose

Autism doesn’t feel like

A disorder. It feels  different

An excess of input of empathy,

A lack of theory of mind, not mirror

Neurons. Here psychology shows itself

Why ask an autistic person instead of

Developing conclusions based on theories

Lab rats, brain scans, differences. That input

Should not be separate from the stories of

The brains being scanned, from the ideas.

Different doesn’t mean unable to express ourselves,

Non-verbal doesn’t mean unable to communicate,

Doesn’t mean infantile. Sometimes different just

Means different. So here I am a subject, a disorder.

I lack mirror neurons, have deficiencies in certain chemicals.

But what does that tell you about what I need?

E – Week 4 Log

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How to Survive Being Blessed – 20 hours

It’s coming along fairly well. Managed to get another twenty or so pages written. Chapter 1 comes in at twenty six pages, and it’s kind of depressing. I guess I knew that when I started writing Mauri’s piece, but it’s just kind of brutal. Still in a fairly rough draft, but it’s better than what I started with and it has a coherent timeline now. A bit stuck at the moment, because I’m trying to have time elapse without reverting into a mode where I tell the writer everything instead of showing them, but considering the page count and how much left I have to tell, it’s kind of necessary. I’m still amazed at how much the writing flows and how much I enjoy it, even though so much is happening to the character. I feel like I’m going an alright job showing all of these intense emotions, but I haven’t had anyone willing to read my handwritten drafts yet, so that I will have to wait and see about.

Monday – 5 hours

Tuesday – 6 hours

Wednesday – 4 hours

Friday – 5 hours

Class Work – 13 Hours

Haven’t been able to keep up with the class work as much due to failing physical health. I have a meeting Monday 2 p.m with Meredith at the disabilities office to see what needs to be done. It isn’t so much that I haven’t been doing the work, or been trying to do the work to the best of my ability as just I can’t physically go out to go to class, which is why there is the reduced time. Spent a lot of this weekend doing all of the reading. I really enjoyed the Neuro, and the way that it looks at how we see mental illness. Writing the conversations is still something that I enjoy, trying to find the voices of the authors and capture them for the page. The Susan Howe was equally amazing, although it was a bit hard to follow, to see how all of the pieces connect. At any rate, after this week, I will probably have to revise my contract in order to accommodate for my healthy.

Sunday – 5 hours

Monday – 4 hours

Tuesday – 4 hours

Publishing – 10 Hours

Ended up spending way more time than I expected on this project this week. When I met with Sandra at the writing center she suggested a great resource, The Writer’s Market, which I used to research different publishing avenues for my book. Originally, she was thinking that it would do better in a literary journal or magazine, but the word count means that it doesn’t really fit into either. There is a short list of publishers that I found that work with either novella length pieces or transgender works. Now I need to write a cover letter, a synopsis, and a bio of myself. I also need to do research on all of these different publishers to make sure my cover letter is selling what they want to buy. This is going to take way more time than I originally anticipated, just in researching all of the publishers and writing all of this stuff that has to be revised over and over again. I met with Sandra twice in fairly quick succession, but she is too busy to meet with me during week five. She also wanted to make sure that I had enough time to get all of my writing done and she had enough time to read more than a few pages of my draft so I am meeting with her again Wednesday of Week 6. She also enjoyed what she had read of my work, telling me that she actually wanted to continue reading which is a pleasure and something of a rarity for her. I’m actually starting to feel like there might be people willing to pay to read my book.

Wednesday – 4 hours

Thursday – 2 hours

Friday – 4 hours

 

Total: 43 hours

Cumulative: 194

E is for Writing Spring

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Field Study Proposal

Writing fiction creates a world where we can explore the deepest elements of being human, and that is the goal of my novel. How to Survive Being Blessed is a story of those who have been touched by the gods. It is fourteenth century England, but the Greek and Roman gods are still worshipped. The gods have been proven to exist and people serve them as best as they are able. The gods are not always perfect but they care for their people, while the government is too tied up in protecting the wealthy to actually do things that matter very much for its citizens. There is Mauri, who has been blessed by Hermes and chosen by Morpheus to spread dreams all across the country. There is Clarabelle, who serves no gods, preferring to believe that humans could one day take care of themselves enough to not need the gods. Mauri’s son Tom has been touched by Ares and learns how to fight not just for fighting’s sake but for justice and those who have been wronged. Colin is a boy, has always been a boy, and it is just a matter of proving it to everyone else. He has been blessed by Morpheus and is held in high regard because of the way he pursues his dreams. Nightingale has been chosen by Aphrodite to bring people together. All of them go through trials and terrors because of the work they have chosen to do with their lives and the gods that have chosen some of the work for them, and all of them struggle to find themselves and survive in the wake of powers so much greater than themselves. More than just writing a story, I seek to answer what it means to write. Why do I feel the need to tell this story? What does culture say about women, fantasy, and bodily autonomy? I seek to listen and to counter all of these stories with tales of my own, using the Holdrege format to tell the story.

The novella I finished is included as an appendix to the Spring paper. It is 24,000 words long and encompasses the story of Mauri. I was unable to write the whole thing due to time constraints and the unexpected length of Mauri’s story. I hope to continue to work on the stories for the other characters and eventually turn it into a full length novel or series.

 

ABCs and 123s – weekly log and field notes

  • E – Week 9 Log June 2, 2013 Monday 4 hours writing term paper Total hours: 4 Tuesday: 4 hours writing term paper 8 hours digitizing story Total: 12 Cumulative total: 18 Wednesday 4 hours digitizing story 7 hours writing term paper Total: 11 Cumulative total: 29 Thursday: 6 hours digitizing story Total: ...
  • E – Week 8 Log May 26, 2013 Monday 4 hours editing Your Journey Home 3 hours digitizing How to Survive Being Blessed My handwriting is terrible Total: 7 hours Tuesday 4 hours writing poetry Too sick to go to class, wrote a reverie on ...
  • E – Week 7 Log May 18, 2013 Monday – 3 hours reading. Wanted to finish brushing up on Tawada before the seminar. Wanted to explore some more of the text. I’m starting to see Perloff’s delightfully dry sense of ...
  • E – Week 2 Log May 14, 2013 Class Work 10 Hours The rest of the class was at the retreat this week. I stayed home because the woods aren’t really cripple friendly. I spent several hours writing poetry ...
  • E – Week 1 Log May 14, 2013 Class work 20 Hours It is the first week of class. Lots of reading, lots of different sessions to attend. All kinds of new information. This is a great idea and ...
  • E – Week 6 Log May 12, 2013 Classwork – 10 Hours The reading from Rose this week was particularly dense with medical jargon. It was a bit of a difficult read. Also hard to think about the idea ...
  • E – Week 5 Log May 4, 2013 Core Program – 20 Hours The chapter from Neuro was absolutely amazing. It was easier for me to read, somehow, despite the fact that normally I find Rose a bit dense. ...
  • E – Week 4 Log April 29, 2013 How to Survive Being Blessed – 20 hours It’s coming along fairly well. Managed to get another twenty or so pages written. Chapter 1 comes in at twenty six pages, and ...
  • E – Week 3 Log April 21, 2013 How to Survive Being Blessed – 20 hours The story is starting to come along. I’m working on the second draft of a couple of people, Mauri/Auntie being one of them. It’s tough ...

Neuro Reverie

  • E – Reverie Week 8 May 24, 2013 “As for cognition, do we not think, literally here, with hands and eyes?” pg 230 “..there is nothing to fear in the rise to prominence of neurobiological attempts to understand and ...
  • E – Week 7 Reverie May 19, 2013 “…your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules,” page 200 “…the self/nonself ...
  • E – Week 6 Reverie May 11, 2013 Images do not speak for themselves. But what happens when they do? It is easy to see criminal acts, we do Through computers. But what makes The brain so amazingly different? Why is the brain ...
  • E – Week 5 Bachelardian Reverie May 4, 2013 Ironies in Rose Autism doesn’t feel like A disorder. It feels  different An excess of input of empathy, A lack of theory of mind, not mirror Neurons. Here psychology shows itself Why ask an autistic person ...

Poetry

  • Week 9 Poetry Collection Says who? I am owned by these fictional characters They guide my waking life, rule what I have the chance to do. I tell them what I want them to do. They retort with ...
  • E – Week 8 Poetry Collection Perloff – this poem is to make up for the class I missed on Tuesday.  A Rose by any other name would smell as sweet, And Nikolas certainly makes Perloff sweeter. How refreshing ...
  • E – Week 7 Poetry Collection The Most Beautiful Thing – somewhat suggestive The Most Beautiful Thing Oh it’s dark. But a small light shines, Illuminating what little I can see of her. It’s blurry. My glasses are next to ...
  • E – Week 4 Poetry Collection Home I am built From the taunts of catty rich girls. They are hurdles on my path To boyhoood.   I am filled With the sounds of rushing Creek water. Peace and quiet here When nowhere else feels Like home.   I ...
  • E – Week 3 Poetry Collection Life Life is a journey of seeking. We look for what we want to do When we grow up. We look for items, family Schools, careers, friends, books Better days, food, bathrooms, language. A college, a love, ...
  • E – Week 2 Poetry Collection Ironies in Insults Calling someone a pansy Is a bit ironic. Pansies are tough flowers. Scouts of spring peeping Up through snow and freeze. They don’t need much water Thrive with very little attention. Not the kind of ...
  • E – Week 1 Poetry Collections I Graph Relationships Novelists are actually mathematicians. We graph the interplay of conversation Show the probabilities of human interaction Write equations for the human heart Breaking down the large and infinite into Personal chunks of people   There ...
  • E – Week 6 Poem I was four. Which is funny, because One in four. This number seems low To me because of who I know. So many Survivors. People with broken hearts and Violated bodies.   Stuck inside life with ...
  • E – Week 5 Poetry Fantasy lives inside my blood. It has defined my childhood since I could read. I got Harry Potter for my fifth birthday, wrapped With shiny unicorns. (I still have that paper somewhere). When I ...

Poetry Observed

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Term Paper Abstract

Abstract: How does my novel How to Survive Being Blessed recycle neurons? The first stage is taking ideas from culture to recycle into my own characters. The second stage is by using my own experiences. The third and last stage is by creating a story that is new and different from culture that will allow young adults to read about people who are like them, rather than the people that culture sees as beautiful or powerful.  

Read full term paper

E – Week 3 Log

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How to Survive Being Blessed – 20 hours

The story is starting to come along. I’m working on the second draft of a couple of people, Mauri/Auntie being one of them. It’s tough going, because for right now I’m just trying to get everything out and this story is turning out to be so much bigger than I imagined. It’s still fun, still amazing, still rewarding, and it’s especially awesome now that I’m starting to get into the rhythm. It’s starting to look like I might have to rewrite Colin’s piece in order to have it fit in with the rest of the story, but other than that, it’s looking good.

Monday – 4 hours

Tuesday – 6 hours

Wednesday – 5 hours

Friday – 5 hours

Class work – 15 hours

The poetry workshop this week was phenomenal. Watching everyone perform was fantastic, and it was even more amazing because of the way everyone reacted to my poetry observed video. Seminar was, as always, enlightening and it’s interesting for me to realize that I’m much less of a science person than I assumed I was. Rose is still incredibly dense and difficult for me to get through, and I don’t understand why he doesn’t try to make his writing clearer. Howe was equally dense, but somehow made my head hurt less. Maybe because Howe is the type of writing where if you relax and let it hit you it makes sense. Where as Rose is just…. Dense. Very, very dense unnecessarily.

Sunday – 4 hours

Monday – 3 hours

Tuesday – 6 hours

Thursday – 2 hours

Publishing – 5 hours

Met with Sean Williams who showed me how to ePublish. It looks like it could be a good option, although I would have to do much of my own promotion. There’s some basic steps I could take and my manuscript is going to need more editing before that happens. Also met with Sandra Yannone at the writing center and she gave me some excellent advice about finding and researching places like journals or magazines that would be more likely to publish my work. As it was, I also spent about three hours proof-reading it again and there are apparently still typos. Fun times. I think I need to get some fresh eyes on it because I am absolutely sick to death of it at this point.

Tuesday – 2 hours

Friday – 3 hours

Total: 40 hours

Cumulative total: 151

E – Final Presentation Poem

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When I write I

Recreate the stars

Giving them a rhythm

Absent in the real world

Life doesn’t flow but story flows.

 

Still, the starts they are

And here in this tiny world,

Though I create it,

I am not God but bard,

For stars would obey God

Instead of

Demanding better music.

To the outside,

Writing is awkward. Attempting to build

A house, a home, a cottage

Out of marshmallows and toothpicks.

Language is clumsy, fragile

One wrong letter shattering

The entire structure

 

Harder still when something

MATTERS

These stars and hand I was dealt

Are similar to others

Who have been cast out

Thrown to the wolves, to be

Devoured by hate and pain and

Loneliness.

 

I have toothpicks and marshmallows

Shallow platitudes and reassurances.

Yet my toothpick house

Draws people to admire

Such a foolish work.

Look closer I say

See these wolves

And my people left

To be devoured?

They look. How courageous, they say

About my toothpick house.

What a marvel, a wonder a show.

Steam flows out of my ears.

Running from the wolves

Is not a show, is not courage.

I am not superior to those who died

For lacking my head start of skin color

And not being able to run faster.

 

Building a toothpick hut of

Letters and hope and

Tears

Might be foolish, stupid courage

But I am not a soldier

I know not how to fight

So this is how I do battle, because

What I know is toothpicks

And marshmallows

And persistence beyond what is healthy.

I will build a spectacle

To draw in those that know not what they do

Attempting to get them to change.

 

So you have your people

Left out in the cold.

Foolish courage borne of desperation.

Find your toothpicks and marshmallows

What story would you tell?

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E – Week 8 Poetry

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Apparently

I write well.

This comes as something of a surprise

Because I feel out of practice

And I so seldom write what I like to read.

 

But somehow I manage to capture

People, struggle, emotion and

Put them to a page.

With my words I can give people feelings,

Teach them about the world.

Even as this power bemuses me.

 

There are worse super heroes to be

Worse powers to try to wrangle, or I

Tell myself that when

I never can wash of the ink from my hands

The people in my life are tired of hearing about

Whatever I’ve written

Or when my characters decide they don’t like my plot.

I wouldn’t trade it even still,

This magical power of words.

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E – Week 8 Log

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February 25th

Seminar paper: 2 hours

Reading: 4 hours

Total: 6 hours

Weekly total: 6 hours

Texts: Reading and the Brain, Unoriginal Genius

February 26th

Seminar participation: 1 hour

Editing: 4 hours

Reading: .5 hour

Total: 5.5 hours

Weekly total: 11.5 hours

February 27th

Discussion participation: .5 hour

Paper writing: 1 hour

Logistics, organizing, preparing: 1 hour

Reading: 1 hour

Texts: Writing Books that Make a Difference

Total: 3.5 hours

Weekly total: 15 hours

February 28th

Reading: 1 hour

Editing: 2 hours

Feedback/Meeting: 1 hour

Total: 4 hours

Weekly total: 19 hours

Texts: Writing Books that Make a Difference

March 1st 

Reading: 2 hours

Paper writing:  4 hours

Networking: 1 hour

Total: 7

Weekly total: 26

Texts: Writing Books that Make a Difference

March 2nd:

Paper writing: 2 hours

Logistics and organizing: 1 hour

Poetry writing: 2 hours

Total: 5 hours

Weekly total: 31 hours

Master total: 180.5 hours

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E – Reverie Week 8

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History of the Stars

Listen little one

And the stars will speak

Though the tales they tell

Aren’t pretty or pleasing

Earth’s history wasn’t always

Quite so bathed in blood.

But the stories of the stars

Tell of human history

And sometimes it seems

We could tell history

As bloody horror stories

Fit only to haunt nightmares.

No, not a pretty tale at all.

Not fit for you, dear child.

Scariest of all though, little one

Telling the tale will come to you

What you do, the stars will keep.

Whether you bathe the tale in blood

Or astonish the stars with peace

Is entirely up to you.

So sleep sound little one

This burden is not yet yours.

Some day, you will whisper prayers

Over the heads of your own sleeping children,

Wishing this burden wasn’t theirs

As I wish it wasn’t yours.

Good luck little one,

I hope you never need it.

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E – Week 7 Poetry

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If the pen is mightier than the sword

Why do I feel so helpless?

But my words are not alone

I am fighting the words of others

The writs and laws of culture

 

“You’re worth it,” I whisper

As thousands of words of hate

And scorn, and jeer, and shame

Say just the opposite.

 

Culture is harsh to those

Who are different

Different isn’t pretty after all

It is scary to think

That society is nothing but illusions

There are always exceptions

 

But those on the fringe know better

Find themselves in small pockets of love

Build fortresses out of

THEY WERE WRONG

Guard them with love and compassion

Seek out those who have no one else

And envelop them in love and care

 

Words are mighty. Mightier

Than we like to admit.

But how mighty

Against other words?