Week 4 Theme 1

Two moments clearly defined my writing style, although there were actually far more than just two defining moments. The first happened in junior year of high school, when my English teacher mentioned my “dry wit” in his class comments. I did my best to exaggerate the qualities that he thought worth complimenting by poking at the mundane elements of life.

The second moment happened last year when I read a list of bad similes. I began to respect unusual combinations of ideas. This first started as a daily notebook of off-the-cuff word associations: “rocket goat,” “honey marmalade,” and so on. The last entry was “conversation pit.”

In the passages that I bolded, you can see my attempts at addressing unnoticed details: the gloomy sky that any Portland resident has long learned to ignore, or the problem of finding seats at airports because people always put their coats on the seats. I end the paragraph with a sort of homage to Tim O’Brien’s writing in The Things They Carried and his unusual knack for ending thoughts with short, pointed sentences.

The bolded lines in the second paragraph are characteristic of my writing starting last year. They’re collages of images and multiple cultural connotations, sparing the rod, purgatory imagined by South Park as a plane stuck at the gate, the overwhelming dullness of modern art museums, the barren (Spartan) but functional Samsung branded poles, and so on. I’m often afraid that the connotations become too dense and start detracting from the story itself.

So when you read the sentence I underlined, it seems uncharacteristic. “Drift” is a verb commonly used with eyes, and “exercise videos” is a not-so-subtle way of saying “she’s exercising”. Neither carries the additional connotations I like to include when I write my sentences, which probably explains why my favorite pieces of writing seem to always straddle the border between artful and distracting word choice.

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Selection: Week 1 Theme 1

Rows of black leather seats line the side of the room, some facing the windows that reveal the steady parade of planes lazing by under the Portland afternoon overcast. There are never enough seats.

For the lucky child who was spared the Benadryl, this purgatory reminds him of a modern art museum. Adults stare at the wall, engrossed by the Spartan arrangement of Samsung cell phone charging stations and flight information displays. He tried to sleep, but some door alarm is beeping from just far enough away for only the undistracted to hear. His heels are sore. His Nintendo DS is out of battery. He already complained to his mom. Everyone is in silent agony, but nobody wants to admit it.

His eyes drift to the other end of the terminal, where a woman, standing in front of the window, is swinging her arms like the women do in his mother’s exercise videos. The woman has been sitting down and getting back up every few minutes. Other signs of life drift by. Another child locks eyes as she speeds past on an airport car with her dad in a wheelchair. A well-dressed man loses his sandwich lettuce to gravity, but not before trying to catch it on its way down.

A college student who was also watching the lettuce turns to check the time on the ticket counter marquee. He smirks, pitying the blank-faced crowd as he digs into his suitcase like a kid with a better idea.