Short Essay #2: Brainstorming
- I was thinking about something along the lines of the theme of determination. But I'm not entirely sure how to go about it. My initial thought was to write about when I was 14 and convinced my parents to go to a meeting a history teacher was having about a trip to Europe in 2002. Ultimately my determination convinced them to let me go (and to pay for it!) But I don't really know where I would go with that. Then I thought about how right before the summer after my freshman year of college I pushed and pushed my now ex-fiancé to be my boyfriend. And maybe that determination can go both ways, it can end positively and negatively depending on whether or not you are thinking rationally. I have no idea if that makes any sense at all.
- Going along with a similar idea, I was thinking about that trip to Europe and a family road trip to Colorado and how now, as an adult, I live for travel of any kind. I think I might be able write little snippets of memories from each trip that were memorable and that maybe tie in together somehow to define who I am now. Maybe?
- A third idea, and I really have no idea where this is even coming from (I'm just writing as I think at this point), would be to write about my clarinet. I started playing when I was 9 and played from the 4th to 12th grade. When I graduated high school, I guess I got too busy or just didn't have a purpose to playing it anymore, so I stopped. It sat in my closet from 2005 until maybe about a month ago when I started cleaning things out, throwing out things from my recently ended relationship, cleansing the soul if you will? I took it our of it's case, and was amazed that it actually looked as if it aged. The metal keys were a little rusty, the pads underneath were worn and it just didn't look the same as it used to. I found a brand new reed in the case and decided to try to play it. SQUEAK-CITY. I was absolutely out of practice and now that I think about it, out of touch with the person who had played this instrument for all of her memorable adolescence. With everything that had been going on, moving back home after college, reconnecting with someone from middle school, finding this old instrument in my closet. It all feels sort of like a digging up of the past and trying to figure out who I am by comparing the person sitting here writing this blog, with the 17yr old who last touched this clarinet, ten years younger and much more naïve.
Publications to check out:
1st Choice: https://www.creativenonfiction.org/submissions
2nd Choice: http://brooklyner.org/
3rd Choice: http://thebaconreview.com/
4th Choice: http://www.applevalleyreview.com/
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