MAKEUP POST

Make Up Days

February 25, 2015

            The first half of the class we discussed the Book of Mormon. The class went around and shared their experiences during their reading of the Book of Mormon. One of my favorite comments made during this particular class discussion was Nicks. He first started talking about Ether’s prayer, and comparing her prayer to other in The Book of Mormon. First he compared Ether chapter 3, then to the brother of Jared’s prayer and then ultimately to the Lords prayer with Enos. He noticed several similarities and how the prayers are have positive responses. I thought it was funny when he said he was looking for the “how” so he could use them… Clever. Finding the different genres of prayer in the BOM is a really interesting idea to me. Rhetorical prayer is something Professor discussed and this is the most interesting. I never thought that there might be a deeper analysis to the more open heard prayers we read about in the BOM.  I think the more out loud/untended to be heard prayers are the most important to remember. They might seem like they weren’t meant to be heard but in fact it is like inception, where that’s what they are trying to make the people think. I never thought of it in this perspective.

            The second half of the last period we had a guest speaker come and discuss his book with the class. Doug Thayer had made a point to our class that stood out to me. He first told us about how he thought the beginning of his book was going to be overlooked by the reader. He said that he thought his readers might not believe his story because the kid lives through this giant avalanche ant that just wasn’t the believable. However, he said he had to do some of his own research to see if that is even possible. And it was! I think is great aspect to point out to the class. That doing a little bit of research on your story can make it seem believable even if the story itself didn’t happen. He stated how once he was passed convincing the reader that he wasn’t going to die and that it was plausible the rest of his story set off. This was interesting to me because he started his story off with such a BAM that it actually helped him ease into his story rather than a building climax.

Make Up Day ##### 2

            So the other class period I missed, is actually not up on the LINK to listen to so for a make up blog post I am going to do a little bit of everything.

            I first want to discuss the one-on-one interviews we had with the different authors we read in class. This was something I had never done in a class before and it was extremely helpful/interesting to get inside the authors’ heads. One thing I realized that surprised me is there wasn’t a whole lot of planning on the author’s part during the writing process. One in particular I remember was Luisa Perkins, Dispirited. She mentioned that she wasn’t originally going there with that book but that’s where her mind and writing took her. It was important for me to understand that when writing more creative writing because being an English Major I had always been taught to plan out your next move and have evidence to back it up in my papers. Her plot was complicated enough that it made sense to me that her writing took her in that direction more than her first initial plan. However, she did say even though it was different when she first starting writing the novel she used many of her original idea through the entirety of her novel. Interviewing the authors was a reliable way to know the intentions of the novels, which I personally really enjoyed.

One last thing I want to blog about is the blogged style writing. This has open another vision of writing I have never tried and I am OBSESSED. I think it has really broadened my writing style to a more modern type of writing. I actually was inspired to start my own blog. I have written blog post but I am yet to publish the blog due to the learning curve of developing the actually page. But I can now write important aspect in life that EVERYDAY people will read which is something I have never figured out. I used to have to beg my friends to read my “boring” analytical readings. Well now I have learned to analyze important information and rely it in a more modern way that people enjoy reading. YES!!! Well I don’t know if this counted for a make up blog but I wanted to write about it anyway. Thanks everyone for a great semester!