Self Assignment

The report of my death was an exaggeration.

As Mark Twain wrote in a note to the London correspondent of the New York Journal, dated June 1, 1897:

"The report of my death was an exaggeration."

This gets misquoted all the time. 

Here's a common variation found in various and sundry places all over cyberland:

"The rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated."

What the hell is minimalism?

Editor's Note:  This is a sample thread from the recent Craig Clevenger intensive.  It's on the theoretical side, and doesn't showcase any private submissions of students' creative writing or other sensitive materials.  Rather, it's a good small sampler of the level of talk that goes on in our advanced writing classes.  Enjoy.  Mark Vanderpool

There seem to be multiple definitions floating around!

When I think minimalism, I think first of Ezra Pound, who says:  "Use no superfluous word, no adjective which does not reveal something."  (He's talking about writing poetry but I still feel it's pertinent)

Chuck Palahniuk talk's about how what Tom Spanbauer teaches is 'minimalism', and even suggested at one point that they'd be writing a book about it together.  In Chuck's case, I imagine minimalism is characterized by cramming as much power into your words as possible while using the minimum amount of words; similar sort of thing. 

In the senses above, I think of minimalism as a set of techniques that improve efficiency of one's writing.  Cain and Camus come to mind.  Efficient, powerful, evocative storytelling.

Reviewing Quick Tips

...

deleted some porn.

this thread was hacked.

 

edit: hey lookit me, i can edit it too.

First Chapter?

Just needed to get this out here, out here with the zeros and ones.

 

Every morning I wake up to a new episode of the Sitcom: My Life. Starring me, me, me and the people surrounding me. Hearing that fake laughter from an invisible audience. Laughter. My co-actors are my friends, my landlord. Perhaps the direktor is my boss, my job, faith? Please, laugh now, come on, go ahead. I take a piss while I’m brushing my teeth. Too be honest, there just isn’t too much to talk about when it comes to my life. It’s just boring, I can barley stand it, thinking of it myself. Every morning I take the same bus, the same ride, to the same stupid, boring job, to the same grey steel-and-glass building I’ve worked at for years.

Destination: Cold Coffee.

Destination: Stress.

Destination: Paper Cuts.

The Effect of Drugs on the Experience of Temporality

 

Drug Time

 

Let us think this thought in its most terrible form:  existence as it is, without meaning or

aim, yet recurring inevitably without any finale of nothingness:  “the eternal recurrence.”

 

 

Just curious--what is everyone's biggest fear?

Just thinking about haunted and wondered--what is your biggest fear?

Newbie feels apprehensive

Hi

I just recently signed up for the writers workshop after a long debate with myself. As soon as I submitted my payment info and logged in to check out the whole process, I grew apprehensive again. The reason being, I feel very uneasy about taking my work and putting it out there in cyberspace for hundreds of strangers to read and digest how they see fit.  I assume these are pretty normal feelings for most people on here. I have to admit, criticism  and the idea of people dissecting my writing scares me a little, but I know its essential to put yourself out there, to recieve constructive and possibly destructive feedback. Anyway, Im wondering if any of you out there have shared my concerns but feel that doing this has ultimately been  rewarding  and has enhanced your writing experience . I look forward to hearing from you

thanks

 

 

Could someone please explain to me...

Why, when I take my formatted word document and format it correctly into the body of new post, when I preview it I seem to have lost all the formatting? Am I missing something?

Emily

www.emilykendy.com

 

very short story

If anybody wants to review this , it would be greatly appreciated. First thing I've written, so any feedback would be really useful, as I don't know what the hell I'm doing. Cheers

A SHORT POEM-- PLEASE READ

Since nobody except for me has posted anything to be reviewed, I'm putting up another piece.  PLEASE PLEASE comment on it.  EVEN if you don't know much about poetry, or don't know quite what to say.  Your opinion matters!  If you like it, say so.  If you don't really like it, but can't figure out why, do your best to explain (do you feel like there is not enough there?).

 

JKabol, if you want ot put something up I'd be happy to review it for y ou since you're the only one that's gave this thing a shot so far.

This one is about people I know, with a projection into the future.

 

Oedipal Perversion

 

Mark was hooked on junk, and his girlfriend, who he called his wife,

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