melissa's journal entry feb. 29-mar. 1
well, I am back writing this entry, after a great birthday weekend. I got lots of card and presents, visited with family and friends, and did a lot of fun things. We went out to dinner at Capital Grille for my birthday dinner, then my sister and I went to see Scream 3. Then on Sunday, my sister, my mom, and I saw Fantasia 2000 on IMAX, which was really neat. To top it all off, I had BBQ for dinner and then I watched X-files, which was an excellent episode to watch on my birthday. One bad thing about this weekend was the fact that my internet connection has been really flaky, so I haven't been able to do much updating, even though I had my entries all ready to upload. I hope this is only a temporary thing, or I will have to look at making some changes.

Another bad thing is the fact that I am sick! Lindy came home and got sick, and then she gave it to me. So I have been sleeping a lot trying to get well before classes start again.

today I had my first class at rice continuing studies called "Writing your Memoirs." This is a nice break from my academic workload, and looks to be very interesting. certainly a focus on memories will add to my journal entries. I noticed that most of the students are older, and 16 out of 18 are female. However, there was a cute Noah Wyle looking course attendent who told me he is a freshman philosophy major at Rice. Yum, young ERness. Anyway, here are a few tips the prof gave (I liked her immediately when she referred to Aristotle's Poetics):

Goal of main character: move from one emotional state to another by end.
Ask yourself, who's telling the story? You now, you at an earlier age?
Don't try to writer everything all at once. Need to be selective.
Consider the issue of chronology and timeline--do you want it to be
linear?
Tip: Begin with an action, not a history. Events draw you in more.
The more you leave out, the richer it is.
Shorter is better: around 150 pages.
Ask yourself, what is point, emotional reaction, and how do you convey
this?
Don't imitate life: never let the facts get in the way of a good story.
Do a narrative check: is the action balanced by description?
3 narrative traps: choosing wrong size for story, mistaking a character
for a story, mistaking history for a plot.
Important: show causality in story, and avoid episodic events.

Anyway, my first assignment is to write about the farthest ancestory you know anything concrete about, and in my case that is Edward Winslow, the first governor of Massachusets, who also came over on the Mayflower, and had the first Thanksgiving here with the Indians. Supposedly we have a crib that was owned by the Winslows and came over on the Mayflower with them. Anyway, I think that will be an interesting enough assignment.

So, this entry will probably be late being uploaded-again. Agh, the internet. I loved you as a baby, but you had to grow up.

Melissa

03/02/00 12:07:57 AM