Hello readers ;)
Here is my 'rough' proposal for my final piece for my writing major. It's the proposal we have to submit. Once you read it it's kinda self explanatory.
Please let me know your thoughts in the comments.
Sal :)
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Title:
Either:
a) Gender is undistinguished to love
b) The knots in the pit of her stomach attempt to stitch up the hole in her chest.
Summary:
The aim of this piece if to combine the skills I’ve learnt within my writing major to produce a piece that will hopefully showcase my writing ability. Area’s that have influenced me the most are writing from the edge, genre, and autobiography / memoir.
Rationale:
My piece will be collections of short journal entries – in the omniscient first person. It will tell of the struggle my main protagonist has with being a teenager and also coming to terms with her sexuality.
Issues / problems this piece will address include: Gender, sex, stereotypes, bullying, violence, hatred and oppression, through too emotions such as love, sadness (Depression), self-doubt and suicide.
By writing through stream of consciousness’ inspired by Virginia Wolfs ‘Mrs Dalloway’ the protagonists main thoughts will hopefully allow the reader an insight into the world of a teenager coming to grips with being in her teens which as we all know is hell, combined with the added weight of coming to terms with their sexuality. I plan to do this through a journal entry of the thoughts of the main protagonist, along with poetry and other ‘bits’ you’d find in someone journal. The poetry will allow for a 2nd and 3rd person ‘you, she, he’ to be voiced also. Perhaps letters from the main protagonists love interest, thus allowing an insight into ‘their’ perspective of this journey, which cannot be achieved with omniscient narrative.
The influences from a writing perspective will be drawn from some of the following:
Craig Raine: ‘A Martian Sends a Postcard Home’ influenced my writing with his visually descriptive piece, especially his line ‘Everyone’s pain has a different smell.’ (Raine, 1996, line 30). That is the type of essence in which I want to achieve within my writing.
Allowing others to feel, smell and taste my main protagonist’s emotions, to laugh and cry with them, and also have a feeling of wanting to help defend them in their life battles. If I can convey this and expose the darkness that surrounds this topic (Teenage gender and sexual identity issues) through my writing, then I feel that I have accomplished something over the past four years of my degree.
Others who have influences me within my writing genre selection are
Ken Bolton: ‘Talking to you’. – Examples of a ‘natural voice’
Gabrielle Prendergast: ‘White Christmas Eve’ – shows how language can express emotions through word. ‘I’m bending backwards. Spine explodes. A coiled spring into white wing’ (Prendergast, Citied in Smith, 2005, p.15)
Ruby Langford: ‘My Names’ - Shows how to apply progression within writing - Langford’s ideas of establishment of identity.
Gregory Corso: ‘The Mad Yak’ - Subjectivity within writing allows the perspective of the subject, their feelings, opinions and beliefs to be seen, or portrayed onto the page.
Inga Clendinnen: Memoirs are a very personal account of a journey that has taken place. “I turn the Kaleidoscope, a new pattern dances in the glass. It is all refractions, shifting plays of light on the fragments of memory.” (Clendinnen, 2000, p. 140) Clendinnen’s writing style allows the reader to be a companion on that journey, and gives a privileged view of private moments of her life.
Finola Moorehead: ‘A novel in ten lines’ Short and sharp from beginning middle and end in ten lines – it can be done. I plan to incorporate this into my piece.
Finally Hazel Smith: Smith asks us to think about ‘open-minded strategies with diverse outcomes.’ (Smith, 2005, vii). I hope to achieve this.
References:
Bolton, K. ‘Talking to you’, Talking to you, Rigmarole books, Clifton Hill. (Available to view online at: http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/bolton-ken/talking-to-you-0055017)
Clendinnen, I. 2001, Tiger's eye: a memoir, Scribner, The University of Virginia.
Corso, G. 1994, ‘The Mad Yak’, in Paul Hoover (ed.) Postmodern American poetry, Norton, New York.
Langford, R. 1988, ‘My Names’ in S Gunew and J Mahyuddin (eds), Beyond the Echo: Multicultural women’s writing, UQP, St Lucia, pp 91-93.
Moorehead, F. 1982, ‘A Novel in Ten Lines’, in Anna Gibbs and Alison Tilson (eds), Frictions: An Anthology of fiction by women, Sybylla, Fitzroy, p.201.
Prendergast, G. 1991, White Christmas eve’, Unpublished, Cited in Smith, Hazel 2005, The writing experiment: Strategies for innovative creative writing, Allen & Unwin, NSW
Raine, C. 1996, ‘A Martian Sends a Postcard Home’, in Margaret Ferguson et al. (eds), Norton Anthology of Poetry, 3rd Edition, Norton, New York and London, p.1397.
Smith, H. 2005, The writing experiment: Strategies for innovative creative writing, Allen & Unwin, NSW.
Woolf, V. 2008, Mrs Dalloway, Oxford University Press, Melbourne.
