A06: Artistic Interactivity

Hm. In writing this post, I find myself at a bit of a cross-road. Do I talk about my interactions with the blogs from this class? Should I talk about the search for outsider literary blogs and what I have uncovered? Or should I post about a literary website that I have linked but not talked about? There's a lot of ground to cover on the net-scape; though I am only one person, there are distinct virtues to be had in any of these discussions. I suppose, then, that I should discuss all three! Now, the order: I will get to the real meat and bones talk later in the post, starting backwards from my aforementioned topics and ending up at the blogs from 332:60.

Even though the month has already started, I can't resist the urge to talk about Nanowrimo. It's a literary website in which you can actually write and publish your novel online. The catch? You only have one month to complete it. For some writers, this pressure helps in the writing process; those authors who sit on a book for months because they know there isn't a deadline and allow their characters and the emotional attachment they have to the plotline to get dusty, the authors who painfully labor over each word above and beyond what would be logical even for someone like Joyce, etc etc. For newer authors especially, the time constraint can help to bypass angst on things like form, allowing them to do the hardest part: get the idea down on a page. There are also lots of tasty little additives on the site such as actually getting to meet up with other authors! How cool is that? Imagine, a website dedicated to the sorts of things you can get out of a class, workshopping and literary discorse. How utterly awesome.

Continuing in that thread, I suppose that is what makes or breaks outsider literary blogs for me - accessibility and what the reader can actually get out of the experience. Is is interactive, in a sense? Does it make the reader truly think?? It could just be "This is my poem/story/etc. Have fun." That, to me, isn't exactly what I want to hear. I could just buy a book for that. What I yearn for is literary discussion, to talk about the things that people write and why they write them. I also love to hear about the dissection of everyday literature, the things that most people take advantage of or just don't even notice. I love the forgotten themes of life. One blog that I stumbled across while clicking the "Next Blog" option on the banner at the top of my blog's page was Cheri Block Sabraw's Notes From Around the Block. (Interestingly enough, she was also chosen for the Blog of Note distinction, which I guess is why it came up within the first 20 of my "New Blog" clicks.) She writes about things that she, as a teacher, sometimes comes across as well as general literature-related issues. I suppose I will link to her most recent post, as it pretty well illustrates my prior points anyway (Prof. Quinlan, you might like this, if you haven't seen it already.): it's titled Cliches are a Dime a Dozen. Neuroscience, the bloody task of grading papers, and small children spearing a teacher with a good point: what's not to love?! Oh, a PS if you actually read that post (which I sincerely hope you do) - we Southerners are just fine and dandy, thank you very much; no mutated DNA here!

Speaking of spearing people with good points, on to the blogs of 332-60! [If you are not from this class, please see the blog list on the rightmost side of this page.] I can't say enough how great it is to be able to read about the thoughts of my classmates on their writing and the writing of others, to see how these literary ideas take shape and livable, breathable form for my classmates. I have had a few really good back-and-forths with classmates on their blogs as well as on my own. I would probably advocate for all classes to require this if I didn't think it would involve my assassination somewhere down the line or at the very least my being ostracized. Anyway, I also like being able to see how different personalities and priority sets affects the writing process as well as what things in the world we choose to pick out. As a future teacher, I suppose one of my biggest likes for this whole blogging thing, in terms of reading all of yours, would be that I am able to understand why some students might not like an assignment or a certain genre. I think it might actually help me a lot later on down the line. With that, I hope this was read with the knowledge that I actually and to the bone appreciate being able to see what everyone else in the class thinks about the process of writing as well as some of the finished product.