Week 7 // How to Read Like a Writer

(Typing as I read, so let's see if I can make sense.)

            "I realized writing is a word-by-word, sentence-by-sentence process.... [There are some] interesting ways that authors string words into phrases into paragraphs into entire books."

            Basically, reading is learning about writing, makes sense. The more you read the more you know if you like the writing style of an author and learn what not to and what to do in your own writing, even if you don't realize it. If you read a book from an author that is always incredibly descriptive and really helps you imagine an object, you'll probably end up incorporating it into your writing. However, if you read lame books, with lame authors, with lame words, lame stories, lame characters, lame, lame, lame, lame, and lame, you're writing might not be that lame because you know what not to do, unless you're lame. (I don't know why I did that... Probably because I'm lame.)

            If you want to better yourself as a writer by really analyzing the writing you need to ask why and how A LOT. How did they do this? Why did they do this?  How did they make me feel this way? Why did they place this here instead of there? Learn it's recipe. You'll probably destroy and burn the lasagna, but next time it won't be as burnt. Even if you aren't an author trying to write a book that will make millions, knowing and understanding how the way you write will affect your life especially through emails to potential clients or for any job, then I guess you're smart enough to see that you need to know this and understand how to apply and use genres, conventions, and all of that jazz we learn in class in our own writing.


Good Vibes

Week 6 // Everything's an Argument (Cont.)

            I must first say that I enjoyed the humour in the reading. Right now I'm taking Pop Culture and it's crazy how hand in hand these two classes go together. In Pop culture we are analyzing ads and we are asked to identify and answer some of the questions in this weeks reading; What is the purpose? What does it hope to achieve? Who is the audience? What appeals (logical/ethical)? What is the effect? etc. So, that made it somewhat more (but ever-so slightly) more appealing to me.

            Anyways, It was harder for me to gather examples of Pathos in reading, but the more I thought about it I can definitely see how writers can use it. But, as soon as I read about Ethos I became confused. Are they used together or separately is my question, I guess. For example, in the reading one of the examples for Ethos is, "We will not let fear break us!..... evil can kill a single person, but never defeat a whole people..." Isn't that playing off emotions as well? I mean, I see how it plays off of "character," because of the whole patriotic thing, but I don't know, it seems like it was designed for us to feel a mixture of things (scared, fearful, upset and then patriotic, strong, hopeful). I feel like that was a bad example. Rewording an example for Pathos, I believe that,"Filling the tank of an SUV in the U.S. has now crossed the $100 mark, stretching the wallets of families even farther than before," is a better example to me, but I don't know, now that I think about it, the same thing happens in my head, but for the most part I think it is Ethos. I just feel like you can't do one without the other without it becoming an entirely informative piece of writing, unless that's what Ethos was all along and I confused myself for no reason.

            I kind of feel like I'm running in circles at this point, someone ignore everything I just wrote and tell me blatantly what each is...... I think I understood everything else, like the logo's and such, but I'm so stuck on trying to understand this I don't even want to touch on it right now.


Good Vibes

Week 6 // Final Email

            I'm not going to lie. I didn't write the email. I chose a Brooks Alumni that I'm friends with and shot him a text explaining what I'm doing, so I'll just post the text and how my email should have looked.

(Text)

Hey Bobby, In my Eng 201 class we have to interview someone in a field we're interested in about their writing and the type of writings that have to do; emails to clients and so forth. I was wondering if you would be able to help me out and let me interview you for this project?

(Email)

Bobby,

            How was your trip photographing those artists? The shots looked amazing and it made me want to ask you to do an interview with me. I'm currently in English 201 at Brooks Institute and I have a project to interview an artist or someone in a field I'm interested in about the writing you have to do in your field.
           I know you graduated from Brooks Institute studying Visual Journalism, but I know you do a lot of Professional Photography work and I believe I could learn a lot from you and better prepare myself to enter the work force and create better relationships with future clients by having this interview with you. Please let me know at your earliest convenience if this would be possible or if you have any further questions so we can discuss a date that would best suit your schedule to make this happen.

Thanks,
Zhane
---------------
Zhane A. Ritchie
Student
Brooks Institute
[Email Address]
Mobile 123.456.7890

Week 5 // Crafting Electronic Messages

           How to start?.. I mean, this reading answered small little questions I had like how formal to be and so forth, but honestly, it kind of felt like they were answering questions as if we've never received or sent an email. I expect nothing more from a text book though so I'll move on.
       
            I've seen these conventions before, from school, work, etc. I know that you should always greet and sign off. Haha, I wonder how long it took that guy in the reading example to realize,"This is how everyone keeps sending me emails… maybe I should do that too.."

            Hmm, I'm struggling to write my blog for this one. It's an email. Pretty easy.

[Insert Greeting Here],

            Here is my formal email, but it's not that formal because, hey, I'm a human not a computer. No one needs an essay over the fact that lunch will be served in the conference room. Being that guy would suck… No one should be that guy. You're probably that guy always sharing and tagging people on crap on Facebook. Anyways, I digress… Here's the information you need from me and stuff. Cool beans. Woah, Don't abuse emailing. Keep your email hygiene up, yo! And don't spam your boss with an annoying group email. No one needs that crap in their lives.

Thanks so much!

Zhane

Zhane A. Ritchie 

Eng 201 Student

Brooks Institute

[Insert Email]

Office: [Insert Number]

Mobile: [Insert Number]

Please correct me if it seems like I'm being cocky, I don't mean to be, but we all have emails, right? It shouldn't be completely new.

I zone out when reading textbooks so I could be missing something crucial, but this is basically what I took away from the reading. I did read the other stuff about IM and Social media, so that was interesting (I guess), but I wasn't sure if we're only suppose to comment on the email part or not, but yeah. There you go.

Good Vibes

Week 4 // My Artist Statement

            So, After our last class I'm pretty sure this is wrong. But, here is my first draft I wrote for the assignment:

Reality is a prison and the surface is a lie.

I want to show you something more, the things others don't see that haunts us, the raw emotion we're told to conceal. But, I also want to show you something good, something pure, the thing we lost when we made the transition from child to adult; 

I want to show you complete self-honesty.

            That's it. I have the habit of listening to epic movie scores when I write, so things just kind of burst out of me when I'm told to write something I'm passionate about or when doing something like this. But, honestly, I found it bullshit that getting "too deep" is a no, no. As artists we're always feeling and always seeing something from a new perspective. If I have a piece that's "deep" I'm going to tell you something "deep."That's it. I'm not going to adjust because when you see an image of, for example, a homeless man all you see is a homeless man while I see a human being, a story, and a heart. I'm going to do that man justice by giving him an equally standing artist statement for the collection.

I'm definitely not dissing the assignment though, I like it.

Good Vibes

Week 4 // Everythings an Argument

            I must say, not sure if I didn't like this reading or not. While I know there are many different forms of arguments, I personal believe only one type should actually be used and, according to the reading, the Rogerian argument is probably just that. I feel like arguing for the sake of being right and drowning out another person accomplishes nothing. We're all too fucking busy to waste time being in a yelling match and trying to make every think and act the same way as we all do. Learn and be open minded to what is being said, TRY to understand. This doesn't mean you're admitting being wrong, you just understand why the other feels like that and gained a new perspective, no matter how messed it is. At least s-o-m-e-t-h-i-n-g comes out of it. You shouldn't try to convince or persuade, period. Lay down the facts, if they want to be ignorant and dismiss it well, that's just a shitty person. But, (sorry, reading as I type) I guess that's actually arguments to explore that I just described, but it makes sense that if you don't have all the information and simply assume something. If you're doing that though, as soon as new information is provided, you will adjust your stance accordingly.

            Oh goodness, so many reasons to argue, but now that I think about it we are always arguing. Arguing whether or not we should do our assignments or chill, arguing if we should get out of bed or sleep for another half hour. Yeah... I get it.

Good Vibes

Week 3 // Artists' Statements

            The artists' statements I read kind of varied. For example, Zhang Jingna, a photographer I've always been fond of, only had a simple about me, like where she was from and when she was born, and then proceeded to list of awards she has received while Christian Paul wrote about his vision and what photography means to him. I'm kind of torn between which approach I liked best.
         
            So, all of the artists' statements stayed pretty short and concise. I'm kind of just sitting here trying to write my own artist's statement and I don't know whether or not to do a short about me and things I've accomplished or what all of this really means to me. At the same time, I feel like statements are a preview to the work that is actually done. Like with Jingna, her photography represents where she is from and what she values and all of her awards basically testifies her life and how she feels about it. Paul's tells you what photography is to him and what it should do and it really show's in his work as well. So, I guess an artist statement is just suppose to represent your art and who you are as an artist before we move forward to actually feasting our eyes upon it.