Writing for the Grave

As you all know the best selling author, Michel Crichton passed away last year. The famous writer wrote such books as “Jurassic Park” and also won various awards for his work on the concluded series “ER”, but for all you fans out there two more novels well be released posthumously by the author.

One of the books was writted before he passes away and the other will be completed with the help of his notes. The HarperCollins publishers stated that the completed novel (called "Pirate Latitudes") will be published this November.

“The second book, to be published in late 2010, is a technological thriller ‘which explores the outer edges of new science and technology,’ HarperCollins said in a statement…The book will be based on extensive notes and files that Crichton compiled before his death and will be completed by an author yet to be determined [and] the title has not yet been decided.”

The Adventures of A Writer

For all you writer’s out there, you should check out this blog: http://lynnmcc.blogspot.com/

It is a wonderful site about a writer who loves to write and hopefully can be published one day. She wrote a great article today, that was kind of reminiscent of Stephen King’s On Writing,, but it had me thinking about character development for stories and how people go about expressing there stories thorough there characters. Here is an excerpt of today’s entry called “Living, Breathing Fake People”:

“Any writer who goes about things through her characters is well familiar with the notion that fictional characters become almost real to those of us who conceive them and spend inordinate amounts of time thinking about them and then writing about them. These people who are nothing more than figments of our imagination become as real to us as people we know who actually move and breathe, even if we keep this little fact to ourselves. We can hear voices, imagine what a character will do in a given situation, even attribute a runaway plot to a character who isn't doing what we expected him or her to do.

But in the interest of creating three-dimensional characters who are able to engage a reader and draw them into the story, I have to wonder when a writer has gone too far. When the character becomes a little too real.

I'm sure each writer has his or her own particular line.

I have an entire village worth of characters who populate my brain, each person as unique and familiar to me as my own family members. And I've done some crazy things in my efforts to get to know the ins and outs of these folks.

I've interviewed my characters. Inserted myself into a scene, asked questions like a reporter and responded to the answers I was given, just as if I were as fictional as my character. I find this is a great way to fine-tune my character's voice. It also helps me dig deep, to follow threads that reveal motivation and deep seated feelings I'd never before considered. I have a lot of fun with this, and often it threatens to take over the actual writing of the story…” (Read More Here)

After reading this blog entry and a few others, I though about the question that was brought up. I think it can be hard to do a response for these blog because I think many of us are torn to do our academic duty and respond because its part of our grade. However, it seems that many of us are familiar with how blogging works and feel the ease of being able to express ourselves differenly. Since, we don’t have such a specific subject we have to keep addressing. Many of us have went as far as submitting our own work or bringing up Publishing News. All of this helps us get a sense of what this class is suppose to be about. I don’t think any of us have crossed the line in making anything too personal. It has all been opinion which is health for discussion and commmeting. In my own opinion, I think that we all have done a great job finding out own blog voice. I try to do the responses in away where it is something that I will enjoy reading as well as sharing. My last few responses have personally strayed away from our readings, just because I think many people tend to response on the readings and it has just been away to bring a sort of diversity to our blog. But I love reading comments about Lukeman, King and others because it gives an insight on what people think of the same textbook that is being read. It’s hard to find a blog voice for an academic class, but I think for this experimental case we succed.

Question of the Week: How do you manage your blog voice?

First I want to thank George for suggesting that I prompt students with a question each week. This seems like a great idea. Thinking about my distractedness in class yesterday brings to mind a general principle of life:

We are always on view.

It's tempting to think that we can just be ourselves in social, professional, and academic settings, but it's just not so. We are always on stage, always on display, always potentially being scrutinized. (Facebook candor provides an endless set of lessons on this issue.) By its presence and accessibility, this blog is a public document. We all, students and instructor, continue to build public presences through our postings and comments. Potential employers and professional references might very well chance on this blog.

This leads to my question of the week:

How do you manage your blog voice?

I don't want this question to limit topics: feel free to avoid it. But if you're stuck, this might be a place to start.

On the whole, the blog posts have had the feel of "weekly responses," resembling the kind of informal responses that might be submitted individually in a traditional class. Here's a reading; here's my response. Here's another reading; here's another response. As such, a number of them have the informality (one might say carelessness) of private writings, with little attention to formatting or style. There's nothing necessarily wrong with this approach: it's one way to proceed. And I'm not going to urge you to be more dialogical again -- you know where I stand. What I'd like this question to generate, rather, is a conversation about blogging versus "private" forms such as diaries. Informality can be a kind of voice, including inattention to error. However, if such informality is not deliberate, it runs the risk of mistaking a blog for a private forum.

Respond, or not, as you wish.