These prompts get worse and worse.

[seiberwing]

At some point in your school life you were asked to write an essay that made you angry or anxious. (You needed the grade? You hated the subject? You didn’t have time? You were in love?) As an exercise in showing yourself the difference between that school essay and creative nonfiction, write, in the first person, the story of writing it. See it as a chance to tell the (emotional, atmospheric, judgemental?) truths that had no place in the essay you were assigned.


There's no way you can get anything vaguely relating to interesting out of this; we're all going to come up with mostly the same thing anyway. Yeesh. And he wants me to make something up because I've never had an experience along these lines that I could make into a registered prose piece, which is idiotic considering this is the chapter on creative nonfiction, and several other girls in the class have talked to me on how stupid a lot of the prompts/intense study of examples in the book are. Blech.

In better news, 92 on my Chem exam! Woot!

Comments

[psychokitty013.livejournal.com]

...That is one of the most idiotic essay prompts I have ever heard of.

On a second note: Congratulations on the 92! *hands you plate of E-cookies*

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

No kidding. And if some of us have to make it up because it never happened to us, rather defeats the purpose. *munch*

[psychokitty013.livejournal.com]

So true. It makes me amost afraid to ponder what college'll be like...or at least if I'll have to do an assignment like that.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

I just wound up with a bad teacher who doesn't permit dissent. Most of mine are okay.

[psychokitty013.livejournal.com]

Good to hear that the majority are okay. It's still no fun having a bad teacher though...Bad teachers are what made me hate Gym.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

Bad teachers suck every which way. I'm doing a half-assed job on what he gives us to do and then going off and writing my own things.

[psychokitty013.livejournal.com]

*grin* Then all the more power to you.

I hpe my Dad gives me the first season of Beast Wars soon...I wanna rewatch all the Dinobot character development.

[beckyh2112.livejournal.com]

See, if this was just about any school assignment that made me angry or anxious, I could probably do something with that. For instance, the tests I am studying for every spare minute this week. Or my Biology test last week. Lots of anxiety there.

But essays rarely make me anxious or angry. It's the fact that I have bull-shitting skills, and so am never worried about anything I can take my time with.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

I've had a couple where they told me what view to take on the subject, and it pissed me off that I had to. But if it's purely objective, I'm great with it.

[goldcelestial.livejournal.com]

bwa?!
i don't think i could even invent something relating to this prompt.
what does being in love have to do with an essay anyhow?
later, I may send you the choice bits of my eng class, and the pain they elicit in your eyeballs
here's one:
"an arrogant maid with a heart of black
face so fair, and eyes so deep
she hid herself behind ringlets of cherry
her arrogance attracted evil
the attention of a filthy witch
feared above all: sorrowful, hateful
jealous of beauty that she had lost"
that's just stanza one...... and the title is "epic once of thrice: blue roses"
this might just send you into a deeper pain of being,
but i think it's funny
in the oh god I want to gouge my eyes out afterward.....

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

...oh my god, the pain. And I though the 'black rose with thorns' one that got contributed to Branching Out was bad.

[lunatron.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on the exam! Bleh to silly writing prompt.

[stace-s.livejournal.com]

Eh, not entirely related, but in more than one of my classes I've had to write (short) "autobiographies" and I hatehatehaaaaateHATE them! So maybe if you've had to write an autobiographical piece, you could do this essay on the challenge of having to expose yourself to strangers? Because I understand not feeling anxious over essays, I usually don't either because I find writing easy. So maybe think of some subject matter that you've had to cover that made you upset. Anything political?... I dunno, good luck! =)

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

Well, doing a report on Dracula (the dude, not the book) made me uncomfortable--but creepiness aside, it was still pretty cool. I can deal with writing about myself, I just don't like to. My life is boring.

[stace-s.livejournal.com]

Boring isn't necessarily bad, remember the old Chinese curse: "May you lead an interesting life" ;)

Hey, I got an idea! Why don't you write your paper about how writing the paper you have to write makes you uncomfortable! It'd be brilliant! XD For serious, you could make it work, since this prompt IS making you uncomfortable. Think about it.

[stace-s.livejournal.com]

And dude, Dracular was an awesome book! XD

[stace-s.livejournal.com]

Dracula was just okay though.... stupid no-edit button.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

Really? See, I always sympathize with the monster.

*grin* And I also read this.

[dragoness-e.livejournal.com]

Oooh! Another fan of Fred Saberhagen's Dracula! The rest of the books in the series (he didn't stop with just the one) vary in quality.
Thorne is eh, Old Friend of the Family is entertaining if a bit pedestrian, and Dominion rocked--semi-Lovecraftian theme, and a really great punchline (paraphrased from memory):

Nimue has been hunting for Excalibur, and finally has Merlin under a compulsion spell so he has to tell her where he hid the sword:

Nimue: "Where is the sword? You must tell me!"
Merlin: "In the hands of the Prince of Wallachia. He's standing behind you."

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

I read those two, although Thorne was confusing as hell. Haven't seen Dominion or any others.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

I'm considering it, but I'm also weighing it against my teacher's sensitivity to anything he percieves as a threat. Maybe if I change it *just enough*...

[ravenology.livejournal.com]

Argh. Typical. It seems to be a trend with creative writing that a lot of the prompts they give you are really boring, really useless, or just plain really stupid. My sympathies.

Congratulations on your Chem exam result, though!

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

Many of them have been, but this one is extra stupid.

[newagelink.livejournal.com]

... i bet you had to pay like $100 for that english book, too.

yay for the chem exam!

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

More like 30-40 bucks, but yeah, not worth it. Should have gone with 'Writing Down the Bones'.