Journals 7-9

Intro

Have you ever wanted more? Not more money, or more fame, or more stuff, but more out of life. Have you ever stopped in the middle of your day and said "What the hell am I doing all of this for?" Day after day you go to your job or your school and you know what will happen the next day, more work or more school. Have you ever said "If only I had more money I would just drop everything and get away."? If so, you are not alone. For some reason people continue to believe that it is necessary to wake up each day and hate where it is they are going, only to go to bed that night knowing they have to go to the same place the next day, and the next. Have you ever stopped for a minute and just listened to what was happening around you? Put down your phone, stop ordering your coffee, sit for a minute and just be. Though for some to be is not enough, they must be something. Know that you are not alone in your want to just be. Others have struggled with this want in a society full of somethings, so just know that you are not alone.

“In reality, long-term travel has nothing to do with demographics- age, ideology, income- and everything to do with personal outlook. Long-term travel isn’t about being a college student; it’s about being a student of daily life. Long-term travel isn’t an act of rebellion against society; it’s an act of common sense within society. Long-term travel doesn’t require a massive ‘bundle of cash’; it requires only that we walk through the world in a more deliberate way.”            –Rolf Potts

Prologue

            This isn’t one of those stories where the hero writes about their amazing story and how they have accomplished so much and so can you. Where after a three year break of whatever it was that was heroic they figured they would write it down. Some record their story for money. Others for fame. However, there are those that write to hopefully have others learn and expire others. This is not a cocky “I accomplished (blank) so I know what I’m talking about so listen”. It is simply a record of how an experience or journey changed or affected them, so if others can get something out of their story then all the better.

            Let me make it clear right away, I am no hero. I didn’t save an old lady and her cat from a burning house. I didn’t fight in wars across seas. I didn’t lead my team to glory. I am simply a girl that without certain knowledge would have hated her life. Without life changing advice and guidance, would have ended up as another cog of society, a future laid out before her. I heard the words of a writer and knew they were spoken to me. That what my life was destined to be was in no way unchangeable. I wasn’t destined to be a princess or a prostitute or anything with a life full of jewels or johns. But more I only had one mind set of what my life could be in this world, and everyone I surrounded myself with supported this mind set. It is not a mindset unlike many others. I am no hero for choosing to choose where my life would go, but still I might have saved it.

            I was simply a teenage girl. I had done everything right or so some would say. Played sports most my life and did fine. Was a good student and could choose from a number of universities. Extracurriculars, church, Sunday school, family, a couple nice boyfriends, friends, job, dog, shopping, tv, volunteering, facebook. Everything needed to make an eighteen year old girl in middle America happy right? I do not want to sound ungrateful for having a good upbringing, a solid family structure, good education, and a social life. I know that I won the lottery of life in being born who I am. I stopped complaining aloud at a young age when I figured this and eventually got good and not even complaining to myself.  But I found myself stuck in a life where I could see decades ahead. All of a sudden I wanted to live spontaneously, not knowing what would happen one day to the rest. I looked around for help and guidance but everyone around me reassured me that this was a normal reaction to graduating and that I just need to pick a school and push on.

            I did not push on. I made a choice for myself and stuck to it. I changed my life. It was not easy and I would not have been able to without guidance. I am writing this for you, whoever may read this, now ten years later hoping to make it clear that there are other options. You may be completely fine with where you are headed in life and that is great. But if you are not, if you are searching for what you want out of this one short life, not knowing the array of options and adventures to be had, then please continue reading.

            I am no hero. I have done very little heroic. I simply made a decision that I thank myself for making every single day. I hope that I can maybe inspire those to make the correct decisions for their own lives or at least explore the options of life.

First Chapter idea

My hope is that I can grab the audience’s attention with the intro, and effectively introduce them to the main character with the prologue. My hope is that the prologue makes the character relatable and gives a tone to the piece right away. I then want to move into a narrative where the narrator still gives insight on these past experiences. I want to begin the chapter with the narrator going to a reading from a travel writer visiting a university in a neighboring town. She is struck by what he says and she has not felt this kind of excitement inside her before. As a naïve teenager she takes it for affection and begins to romanticize about the writer while he answers questions from the audience. She introduces herself afterwards and she asks (almost begs) to meet with him on campus the next day for coffee and to discuss his travels in more details. In this conversation he realizes that she may have romantic feelings for him and he sets her straight. She was thinking that maybe an affair with an older man was the excitement she was looking for but instead she received guidance that will change her life. They exchange emails and agree to stay in contact and he becomes a source of inspiration for her to leave behind the life she does not want.

I decided to try the suggestion you gave about writing the character from a female’s POV. It has not been a challenge yet but I imagine I will have to work and actively be aware about the possible differences in dialogue that I would write for each sex. When that suggestion was given I thought about it and realized I have written very little with strong female characters or a female character as being the main protagonist. This will surely be something new and exciting for my writing which is always needed.

I’m just curious if I have set up the chapter well with the intro and prologue or if it may be too much. Do I need to jump into dialogue and action sooner? Will writing from the first person work well for this story? And any other suggestions or questions are very much appreciated.

Journal 6

Character Sketch


-Doug Mathis
-Age 18
-Senior in high school. A-B range student without generally trying. Has never been very interested in school, he has always learned more from doing and trying things himself. Everyone expects him to go to college and he'll get into some decent schools. He doesn't feel that four more years at least of school is worth all of the time, money, and energy.
-Always has been a decent athlete but has never had the motivation to go out for a team. He enjoys pushing himself physically. Long runs nearly every day. Hiking tougher and higher places on the weekend. Skiing harder and steeper slopes each winter.
-He is always turning down requests from friends and family to go and do his own things. He would rather hike a ridge by himself then go to the movies with a group of buds. He would rather spend the whole weekend backpacking rather than visiting relatives with the rest of his family.
-It is not that Doug does not enjoy his family and friends, they have just started to become mundane to him. The same things happened in his life for eighteen years. The same movie theater. The same houses to hang out at. The same birthday dinners for each of his three siblings, all younger than him. The same routine each Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. He desperately wants to experience new things and everyone around him seems fine with their routines.
-He knows college is yet another routine middle America now does. He can see the path most people he knows takes, including the future path's of many of his friends: highschool, college, career, wife, kids, retirements, death.
-This traditional pattern of life doesn't appeal to him in the least bit. He wants to see more, experience more, know more, and he knows the only way to do this is to leave and experience things for himself.
-He is a personable person and easy to talk to but he has found that people simply talk about the same things again and again. He wants intellectually stimulating conversations and he has never found that in the classroom.

I haven't fully decided what Doug will look like but I know I want him to be very average. Average height, weight, build, exct. There isn't much that sets him apart from millions of other 18 year old white boys in America. This is part of his problem. He is very much a part of Middle White America in many ways and it traps him. He yearns to "spread his wings" and leave the binds of society.

He has recently begun to find inspiration from stories, namely text. He has begun to read London, Thoreau, and Muir as well as contemporary travel writing. He has begun to talk to travelers online who share their travel experiences and encourages Doug to live for himself. He finds inspiration from these people and knows that if they can do it, so can he. 

Journal 5

Thoughts on the class thus far.

So far I have enjoyed this course and what we have read. I must say that I am not a hug fan of a lot of young adult lit. but the selections so far have varied and have made us think. The great part of only spending a week on each novel is that if I do not like one of them, we will soon be talking about a new one.
I think the class has done a good job with discussion, especially with students leading those discussions. In a lot of classes I have seen professors ask questions with no body in the room wanting to respond. These discussions are obviously dry and uninformative. The atmosphere in this class is such a way that everyone should feel comfortable with sharing their views and the leaders have done a good job of getting participation from most of the class. The fact that we have new students leading the discussion each time means we will always be discussing the books in different ways. Each quiz isn't the same and neither are the discussions. With a class full of future teachers however, there are a lot of talkers so this helps.
My one criticism is that on Thursdays the book talks can get long. We do this for the first forty five mins hearing about several different books. Those leading the book talks don't want to spoil anything so we can only go so deep into those novels. I like the idea of the book talks but would rather have a few on Tuesday and a few on Thursday to split up some of the time. Otherwise I have enjoyed this course and I look forward to when I lead my own discussion and book talks.

Journal 4

Potential opening for first chapter.


-Have you ever wanted more? Not more money, or more fame, or more stuff, but more out of life. Have you ever stopped in the middle of your day and said "What the hell am I doing all of this for?" Day after day you go to your job or your school and you know what will happen the next day, more work or more school. Have you ever said "If only I had more money I would just drop everything and get away."? If so, you are not alone. For some reason people continue to believe that it is necessary to wake up each day and hate where it is they are going, only to go to bed that night knowing they have to go to the same place the next day, and the next. Have you ever stopped for a minute and just listened to what was happening around you? Put down your phone, stop ordering your coffee, sit for a minute and just be. Though for some to be is not enough, they must be something. Know that you are not alone in your want to just be. Others have struggled with this want in a society full of somethings, so just know that you are not alone.


I decided to go with second person point of view for the opening because my idea is that this will make the reader think about their own lives and get a sense of the tone of the novel.There will be those who do not agree with this opening and this book is not for them, but my idea is that others will relate and will know immediately that this book is for them. The second person point of view writing can be very effective and strong when used in small doses so after this opening the writing would switch to either first or third person narrative and we would be introduced to our protagonist and the story would begin.

Joural 3

In this journal I want to talk about my idea for my own young adult story. The story will be inspired by my own life and the way I think now, but for a teenage audience. It will be about a teenage boy searching for something outside the societal norm as a way to live. He has grown up thinking that the only path he has to choose is college, then career, then marriage, then children, all the way to retirement. He has always known that he wanted something different from this norm but never knew what other options he had to choose from. He will be exposed to a vagabonding sort of lifestyle, either by a friend, someone older, or perhaps literature. (How I will expose this to the character I am not sure yet, perhaps it will take a number of these things to really open up the character to these things.) The novel will begin with exploring the characters mundane life and how he yearns for something more, something new. He will have his ow traveling experience that will ensure him that this vagabonding lifestyle is what he wants his life to be. My idea is that a young adult audience will connect with the idea of wanting more out of life then the lifestyle that is laid out for so many of us. Hopefully a reader will realize from this book that there are options and that there are others who have gone off the beaten path and mad their own futures. 

Journal 2

For this Journal I wanted to talk about the book "Liar" that we read for class. The discussion in class was primarily about metaphors and symbols in the text. A class discussion should not be based around the simple question "Did you like the book?", rather that question should be answered outside of class, as in a journal entry. To answer the simple question, no I did not like this book at all. The first section of the book made it into a crime drama set in a high school and rather than following the case or a detective, we followed a student. There were parts that were cliche that have been done before, like the grief of the students and the questions and rumors that arose. The text did not progress very quickly and the reader was not drawn in. Then we got to the second section. In here we find out that the main character is actually a ware wolf, and she has been lieing to the reader the whole time, even though she made it clear she would not. This section was just ridiculous, I almost couldn't keep reading. It was if the author got bored half way through and didn't know where to go for the story, so she just tossed this in. This section was not a believable plot twist. It was too different and too ridiculous for the reader to take seriously. The third section really just exposed the many lies that were told to the reader. Because I was lied to the whole time, it made me question the point of actually reading the first parts of the book. In class many ideas were brought up about what the book may actually be about or what may actually be happening. A reoccurring idea was that she was in a mental hospital and all of this was not real. My problem here is that I did not see enough evidence in the text to make me believe that that was what actually happened. If something that "out of left field" was what the story actually was, then we as readers need more evidence to lead us to that understanding. I'm just being honest in this journal, saying I very much did not like this book. In class discussion is  no place for simple "I liked/disliked this book" statements, so I will save said statements for journals.

Journal 1

Coming into this class I was not sure what to expect. Would we be reading books like Harry Potter and the Hunger Games, or looking at pieces of literature that were for a younger audience? Would it be a discussion based class, or a class about how to teach these books to former students? So far I very much enjoy the discussion aspect of the class. It seems to be mostly discussion based with some comments given and some discussion on how we may approach teaching these books to students. I would not enjoy a class that was primarily based on how to go about teaching these books. Like others in the class I do not plan on going straight into teaching after college and I would much rather have a class where discussion of the books as a whole is the primary objective. I look forward to all the books we will read this semester and look forward to getting insight from the other students. I have enjoyed most of my literature classes while in college as it is a relief to have other students that actually completed the reading. I also look forward to writing the first chapter of my own young adult novel. I have some ideas brewing and after a full semester working on it I think the final outcome will be solid.