Monthly Archives: March 2013

My Favorite Stories (in order) are:

Act One: Don’t I Know You.

Act Thirteen: More Lies

Act Eight: The Greatest Dog Name in the World.

Act Ten: Two minute play

Shared Qualities

The four stories that I chose either put a smile on my face or made me laugh. I think that’s the key factor that made these stories stick out to me. I especially liked that three of them were original and still had that element of surprise. They’re great examples that prove that humor doesn’t always have to be a performance. The delivery sounded normal and conversational, and I didn’t even have to see the storyteller’s body language or facial expressions. Humor is one thing that I really value in any piece, or any story, because it always draws me in and I enjoy it. It’s like a breath of fresh air for me.

Another quality that I found compelling in these stories was that they were relatable, even though I haven’t actually experienced all of these things directly. However, one thing that I have experienced (several times) was getting into an awkward situation as a guest in someone else’s home. When I was ten, my mom and I were visiting her old friend, Lee. After my mom specifically told me not to touch anything in the house, I wandered off and fiddled with a bobble-head toy that belonged to Lee’s son. I ended up breaking the head off and I panicked, so before anyone could catch me, I laid the broken toy on the carpet to make it look like the toy fell and broke. And a few minutes later, when Lee and my mom asked me about it, I lied and said that the toy somehow fell onto the carpet and broke, even though it was nowhere near the edge of the table… So, an experience like this is pretty similar to act 13, More Lies. I understood the couple’s awkwardness and their quick impulse to lie, even when it was obvious that they weren’t being truthful.

A few things I find hilarious

College Humor: Harshest College Rejection Letters (A collection of fake rejection letters from colleges and universities):

http://www.collegehumor.com/article/6874474/harshest-college-rejections

Here’s a pic of my favorite

John Madden’s Popcorn Popper (One of the best MADTV skits I’ve ever seen. Makes me laugh every single time):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1v52f1TrWg

Louis C.K. Hates Twitter – Conan on TBS:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSSDeesUUsU&list=FLLknhpAdE9uLTQ_Wc0h6wzQ

Essay 2 Cover Letter

Essay 2 Draft

COVER LETTER

Dear Reader,

One thing that I experimented on with this draft was dialogue, because I noticed that with my first essay draft, I tended to show more than tell. I incorporated short exchanges with my mother so that you can see her personality and her mood more vividly. I also wanted the dialogue to make it clear that I was a young child.

My favorite part of this draft is the section where I describe my longing for straight hair while looking in the mirror, which is in the seventh paragraph. For example, part of the paragraph says, “I didn’t want this yucky, brick-hard hair.” I feel like this is something that many girls with natural hair could identify with, and it reminds me of how drastically my mindset has changed, or how I’ve grown out of that state.

One thing that I’d like to work on for the revision is how I’ll end this piece, because it feels a bit rushed and forced. The last few paragraphs were the most difficult for me to write because I had to condense several details of that scene into just a few sentences. I feel like I’ve left out a lot of the pieces, including more of the actual dialogue. If I included every single thing that happened, though, I might have ended up with at least two more pages. I eventually decided that every part wasn’t necessary for this piece. I don’t think that they would add much to the story, but once I start to revise I’ll have the chance to fill in what’s missing and choose which parts are important.

My main concern is, how can I make my scenes clear and vivid without bombarding the reader with too many details? And also, my original intention with this line: “Mom, I wish I was born with straight hair,” was to make it come off as powerful. Did it have that effect? And if not, what can I do to improve the build-up to that point?

 Sincerely,

Nakeisha Campbell

ESSAY DRAFT

Hair Troubles

As I pulled and tugged at the thick mass of dark hair on my head, my comb snapped in two. I lowered my arm in defeat and watched the stem of what remained of my new purple comb. I had only gotten it the day before.

“Mom!” I yelled, “The comb broke again!”

“Which one?”

“The purple one you got yesterday.”

I could hear my mother’s sigh, even from two rooms away. “Take the Vaseline and come here,” she yelled back.

I grabbed the greasy yellow container from my chest of drawers and trudged to my mother’s room. As I stepped inside I could smell the starch from all her ironing, and I could hear Hymns playing in the background. She looked up and saw the state of my coarse, disheveled hair with half a comb stuck in the kinky strands.

She switched off the iron and placed it on the ironing board, billows of steam rising from the flat metal surface. “Take the comb out of your hair.”

I pulled the comb out obediently and waited. “Give me a second,” my mother said as she hung up her ironed clothes in the closet. I nodded and climbed onto her king-sized bed. I sat with my legs folded and caught a glimpse of my reflection in the huge vertical mirror that was attached to my mother’s chest of drawers. I looked up and stared at the little girl sitting in the bed. She sat slouched with a mass of untamable, thick, messy black hair on her head. Two pieces of a broken comb protruded from either side of her small dark hand, while the other hand encased the greasy container of Vaseline.

I hated what I saw.

I desperately wanted my hair to be straight and smooth. I wanted to be able to run my fingers through the strands without feeling tangles and knots. I wanted to let my hair out in public without looking like Mufasa. I wanted the soft curls that gleamed in the sun, blew gracefully with the wind and bounced playfully whenever I moved. I didn’t want this yucky, brick-hard hair.

“Alright,” my mother said, grabbing a small red bench for me to sit on, “Come here, I’m ready.”

She sat on the bed directly in front of the same mirror, and positioned the bench between her feet. She had another comb in hand, but this one was bigger. She also held a bottle of hair-softener, but this gave me no relief. Over a thousand blobs of pink liquid did very little to manage my unruly hair.

As soon as I sat on the bench, my mother squeezed the bottle of hair-softener into my hair. My head jerked awkwardly in random directions as she lathered and rubbed the product into my curly strands.

“Mom, I wish I was born with straight hair.”

At these words, my mother froze. It wasn’t the reaction I was expecting, but I sat there anxiously and I waited. I could hear the soft harmonious voices of the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir on my mother’s stereo. A handful of my hair was pulled upward in her still hand, damp with softener.

She spoke softly, “Do you know how many young girls are out there now, wishing that they had hair like yours?”

I wasn’t sure how to respond, but I imagined that no girl in her right mind would want hair that was untamable enough to break a comb. I simply shrugged.

“Listen, God gave you a head of healthy, beautiful thick hair. And you should be thankful for it,” she said. “So many kids out there would be more than grateful for even half of the hair you’ve got.”

“But mom… I can’t even comb it properly, it’s so tough and messy…”

Finally releasing my hair, I heard her pat the bed space next to her. “Come sit on the bed.”

I got up, climbed onto the bed once again and sat next to her. I felt a lump forming in my throat, and my eyes began to water.

“Natural hair is nothing to be ashamed of,” my mother said as she looked at me. “Even if it’s thick or hard to manage, it doesn’t make your hair any less beautiful.”

I swallowed and stared at my mother. I had to admit, this little speech made me feel a whole lot better. Deep down, I always thought that my natural hair made me less pretty. In fact, I was beginning to think that this was the real reason why I often had to get it straightened at the salon. At this thought, I asked, “Then why do I always have to go to the salon to make it look different?”

My mother sighed. “Managing your hair takes a lot of time, and since I’m so busy with work, sometimes I don’t have a choice. I don’t do it to hurt you or because you have bad hair. It’s just that I don’t have the time.”

Without a word, I looked from my mother to my reflection once again, trying to see the beauty that she saw in my clunky mess of damp hair. I still couldn’t see it. But my mother’s confidence in its beauty was enough to sustain me in that moment.

“Here, sit on the bench so I can braid it.”

I got down from the bed and returned to the bench. I winced and gritted my teeth and she combed through the strands. I could feel the tooth of her comb glide along my scalp to separate my hair, and I could feel the cool blobs of castor oil on her index finger as she applied it. I sat there for about half an hour as she combed, parted, greased and braided.

“Look in the mirror and tell me what you think,” my mother said after the last braid. I got up quickly, impatient to see what style she created. I sat on the bed and stared at my reflection once more. My untidy afro was replaced with a head of fancy plaits that hung down to my shoulders.

I swayed my head from side to side, watching how the braids moved, and I smirked despite myself. “I really like it!”

My mom smiled. “I do, too. And I bet it wouldn’t look as nice if you had straight hair. Don’t you agree?”

I looked from my reflection to my mom, and I smiled. “I couldn’t agree more.”

Excerpt:

After fifty minutes of spacing out and worrying about this paper, the bell rang and I practically ran straight to my teacher. I wanted to understand why he didn’t like my essay. This one grade was already beginning to make me doubt my talent as a writer. In fact, I was heart-broken.

I was worried that maybe I wasn’t as good a writer as I always thought.

Was I only fooling myself?

***

We sat down to talk after class, and I was relieved to see that his human side was still there. The chalkboard was crammed with notes from that day’s class, and on his desk sat a battered copy of The Fountainhead, his sheet of notes and a messy pile of extra handouts. He gestured for me to hand him my paper and I relaxed a little, but I was still worried. He made space on his desk and then browsed through my essay as if to re-familiarize himself with it. These were his first words: “I could that tell you worked really hard on this. It’s definitely well-written, no punctuation or spelling errors, and that’s great. But, my concern is, when you’re describing humans, you’re not digging deep enough.”

I nodded and allowed him to continue, expecting this to be a one-way conversation. But to my surprise, he said: “Forget about this paper for a minute and tell me, in your own words, what you think it means to be a human being.”

In this example I actually included a section break and three paragraph breaks. The portion above the asterisks were originally one paragraph, and the portion beneath was also one long paragraph. But after playing around with paragraph and section breaks, I think I found something that works. The breaks are definitely effective because I feel like it changes the rhythm of the piece and how it’s read. I went for a section break between the end of my class and the meeting with my teacher, because it would tell the reader that I’m going into a new phase or a new direction.

The one line paragraphs that I made places a lot more emphasis on those simple sentences, and it reads better in my opinion. Readers now have a brief moment to ponder how I’m feeling before they get to the next event. And after I quoted my teacher at the beginning of the meeting, I made another paragraph break for a clear transition to my reaction. I think readers would be less inclined to rush through the paragraph if it’s structured this way.