The last couple of weeks feel like they’ve lasted years. After going to the archive with you all I was very close to abandoning my novel for a more personal research project that would involve me diving deep into a research-based project where I record my journey in attempting to locate a person that… isn’t aware they’re being looked for. I think it will be a rewarding journey when I decide to go on it as it is something I will do regardless. Still, I’m not confident in my ability to locate this person and do not have confidence that the journey will have the ending I want over the next year. At the Last is the project, and will (un)fortunately remain so. Bittersweet.

I know I’m supposed to research what has already been done when examining stories with time as a central theme. It’s safe to say I’m in a good place as far as this goes. Books with this theme Time Traveler’s Wife, Benjamin Button, For One More Day, 11/22/63, The Dark Tower series. Movies related to time (not counting movies of the previously mentioned novels) include but are certainly not limited to The Lakehouse, The Age of Adaline, 2:22, Midnight in Paris, About Time, Back to the Future, and to an extent K-Pax. These time-oriented stories share similarities in how there is a focus on the passing of time or the movement of a character through it. Where my novel differs is that my character cannot change the past, nor can he jump into the future at any quicker speed than the rest of us. All of us are time travelers going at a rate of 1 second per second. My character can influence the future, but he can’t guarantee a specific outcome any more than we can. All he can do that we cannot is stay in a moment for far longer than the rest of us and determine what that moment should mean or how that moment should be processed. He can impact only as much as the limitations of the world would allow.

My book also has several allusions to religious or spiritual works. The moments my character reflects on in his journal are a series of crises of faith. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry plays a major role in a central character’s life, and there are more than a few biblical references as my character is in a way on his own Road to Damascus.

The amount of research I’ve done for this book… is unlike anything I’ve ever done. I’m praying this novel has the effect I want it to. I think I’ll know if it does only when I cave and share some of it with others. If my readers aren’t feeling emotionally drained; if they don’t feel like they’ve just read Salvador Dali’s painting The Persistence of Memory, The Northern Lights in the sky above Norway, and Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks painting; if they don’t question what’s real than I’ve done something wrong. Question everything.

Over the past week I have changed the title from “Storyteller’s Innovative Expansion” to “Transmedia Storyteller’s Cross Culture Collection”. I have spent the last seven days thinking about the title since the last class meeting. The previous title initially sounded good to me, but I wanted to zero in on an appropriate title for my thesis project. As of right now, I have confirmed that my project will analyze the way real world social and political events affect the way we interact with fiction, the way fiction informs us of how we reflect on our real world plights, and how these properly connect. The problems have so far are finding a way to expand on these thoughts. Because the more I thought about that idea, the more dissatisfied I was with my progress.

Before the semester began, I started a document for my thesis titled “Pre-Semester Thesis Project Manuscript”. I started it back at the end of April, with the intent of getting a head start on my thesis. Although, I wasn’t at the writing retreat this summer, I still wanted to start coming up with ideas for my thesis and to map out an outline for it. The issue is that I never got around to it. For the past four months, I thought about what it would be like to write about fiction and reality. I wanted to gain a better understanding of how fiction doesn’t exist in a vacuum and, while fiction is not reality, it isn’t immune to affecting the way people think and act in their real lives. But I never wrote more than two sentences because I fell back into my longtime habit of procrastination.

However, I went back to exploring this idea this month, and made a list of fictional media that I could use as examples of reality and fiction affecting each other. I thought about the video games I’ve played, the television shows and movies I watch, and the books I’ve read, and how I interacted with those stories and how I perceived and got invested in the characters in these fictional worlds.

For this thesis project, I want to research other studies that examine the political and social themes and narratives in fiction. My project is definitely not the first one where someone analyzed the social and political messages of fiction works. Some YouTube essayists that I follow such as Princess Weekes, Khadija Mbowe, and harriyanna hook, delve into these kinds of topics all the time. From talking about racism and antiblackness, to examining and arguing against the subtle offensive themes of fatphobia, misogyny, misogynoir, and xenophobia, these are video essayists who have built a platform on analyzing the ways that fiction media relates to the real world prejudices and bigotry that plague society. I think it’s also important to point out that these three people are black video essayists, as Princess Weeks and harriyanna hook are both black women, Princess Weekes being bisexual as well, and Khadija Mbowe is a black nonbinary queer person. These parts of their identities explicitly affect the way they move through their lives and how they think about and express their ideas in their videos.

With my thesis, I aim to do similar things. I am a bisexual black man, who lives in a world and absorbs media where people like me are very rarely in the forefront of people’s minds. So I desire to examine how people’s personal experiences influence how they relate to these fictional stories, and how these pieces of media further manipulate their own perceptions of themselves and everyone else.

After last week’s class I was compelled to change my topic. I`m kind of at a crossroads here because I like my previous topic involving representation in the classroom. However, I do feel really passionate about telling a story about a traumatic time in my life. The minute I started thinking about my thesis I just knew I was not going to write a novel. It seemed super overwhelming to even think about… but here I am. I think I was to write a children’s/young adult novel telling that story. I want it to be geared towards middle school aged children.

When considering this idea there are a lot of negatives that I have thought about since last class.

1. I’m not sure how to make my story into something that could be presented as a thesis. I`m not sure how I can make what happened to me matter enough.

2. The event itself is something I have never spoken about. It’s hard for me to remember some details because I have acted like it never happened for so many years. I would have to ask my family members to remind me of certain events and how they occured. I started talking about it with my mom over the weekend and she told me I wrote a personal narrative about it in 7th grade. I had no clue. I literally don’t remember talking about it, but apparently my ELA teacher noticed it and I won an award for “Best Personal Narrative”, which was later used as a piece of EVIDENCE in court.

3. I am a very private person and I feel a little exposed already mentioning the topic

4. The idea of writing a novel scares me in general. It just sounds like work that I would not be able to do in the time given.

5. My other topic was so developed and I actually have first hand experience being a student and now a teacher in both diverse and predominantly white schools. It would make me kind of sad to abandon a topic that impactful .

With all these negatives in mind I still feel compelled to write the novel about my mom being sick. It definitely depicts such a loss of innocence and a questioning of identity that I do want to tell. Not only would it be healing for me, but it could actually be a good novel.

As for the details of my possible novel, I have decided on a few things this past week.

1. I want to develop an actual character. I could NEVER write a memoir. It might be my way of hiding but I just feel more comfortable having a made up character wear the story
2. It will give “Jane the Virgin” vibes. As far as the dynamic between the mother, daughter,grandmother and little sister. There will be little to no males.
3. There are legal aspects that I would have to make sure I can even say because there are NDAs involved (sounds scary but its not I promise).
4. I also spoke with my mom and was able to get a copy of the personal narrative I wrote in 7th grade and we made a timeline just to make things more clear for me and hopefully jog my memory. I am hoping I will remember more as I write .

Okay that’s all I have for now folks. I would really like opinions PLEASE. Someone tell me what to do. #stressed.com

I’ve done a lot of reflecting since our last class. I truly enjoyed going over everyone’s thesis and get a clearer picture of where in the process everyone is. I have been a little under the whether since Monday, so I apologize for this late blog post. Since our last meeting together, I was encouraged by Dr. Zamora and you guys as well on how I can steer my thesis possibility. It seemed that some of you were interested in the topic, and you also have significant feedback. I know I must narrow down exactly what I was to accomplish with this thesis and how will my work affect others. In short, I have always had question about why mothers and daughter have such a rocky relationship, and why is this not talked about that often? I agree, yes there are some arguments with mothers and daughters but why are some relationships horrible. Why are there mothers who cause so much damage that their daughter incapable of forming human connections in the future. Why are daughters subjected to such insecurities and trust issues in their adulthood. I know I am. I also know a couple of women who have similar experiences with their mother. I am not talk about teenagers who rebel and then end up having ups and downs with their mother. I am talking about the mothers who act like they truly despise their daughter. What is the reason? Why is this not spoken about? So here is my potential thesis I have working on:

The Paradox of Maternal Emotional Abuse: Mothers who cause emotional abuse on their daughters often do so as reflection of their own unresolved issues. Ultimately, causing a decline in mental health and insecurities within their daughters and then they are unable to maintain health relationships during adulthood. However, daughter continue to seek their mother’s validation despite the abuse.

What do you guys think? This is what I was able to come up with, but I still want to confirm with everyone if this a good direction for my thesis. I want to know despite this abuse, why do daughters continue to seek validation? Why are the unable to distance themselves from this situation to better themselves from trauma? I believe I can find articles that first discuss the statistics of mother daughter trauma and how often it is overlooked because “It is just a teenage phase”. As well as try to find articles about why is it always mother daughter relationships? What about this bond, untimely ends in arguments and resentment? Why are some mothers so cold to their daughters? Why are daughters always going back to their mothers? How can we as a society address this situation and attempt to prevent generational trauma from occurring?

This past week, I thought about our class discussion about writing spaces and decided to drag my 10 pound typewriter to my backyard patio and write in the morning sun.

It’s been some time since I’ve had the time and energy to move anywhere besides my bed on a Saturday morning but, when I did, my fingertips felt like they were being electrocuted by each press of each letter on that monstrous machine. It was invigorating and exactly what I needed to really get my focus back on track. I typed and ripped and scribbled over and over again. Everyone loves the aesthetic of a typewriter, until they find out there is no real backspace. 

Anyway, I decided to start with my author’s note. it felt solidified enough to be permanently typed up. Still, try to ignore my obvious typos which I haven’t edited out

I also typed up some parts of the narrative but, they felt disjointed and that’s been my worry so far. I have a lot of the pieces I want to include, but they currently that remain unedited for now. I worry about trying to put them on a STRUCTURED plot timeline that flows well and recreates the sense of discovery I felt. Because of this, I decided that i’d create a potential outline.

This upcoming week, I’m going to finalize that and start the actual work: writing the missing pieces of the puzzle.

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Free Writing

Well, the wheels are spinning around and around again. However, I encouraged myself when I refocused on my Thesis and what actually matters to me. No worries, Val. You can do this. You got this, I repeated more than twice.

There are no questions; I choose to do my best to think outside the box by going back to the drawing board. More importantly, because I wholeheartedly believe that I am an overcomer and victorious of intergenerational trauma, I begin to rethink and allow a large portion of my Memior to stand alone outside this incredible course. 

So, I sat down and took a l-o-n-g d-e-e-p breath during a quiet moment to reflect on our last class session. Thus, I noticed each wonderful classmate had a specific area of interest, which I absolutely commend.I also remember when I had the opportunity to edit a beloved friend, Anthony T’s Thesis (who has since passed on). I recall his theme focused on some aspects of Music as he was employed as a Kean Music Instructor. Then, I thought about areas relating to the aspect of writing stories. Once more, not what we may imagine. But more so, ASPECTS OF A FROZEN STORY-TELLER. 

I’m also currently reading Between The Listening and The Telling: How Stories Can Save Us by Mark Yaconelli. According to Yaconelli, “Sharing stories helps us make a home within ourselves and one another.” Immediately after reading those amazing words, I had a quick light bulb revelation regarding adults I have come in contact with who are skeptical of sharing their stories out loud. Soon, it dawned on me that while my Memoir is indeed a nonfiction story and I came to terms with writing about it freely, some others are fearful and most are unsure as to make a home within themselves and others. Therefore, seeing things from a different perspective, my focus has shifted into more of an academic direction:

My Thesis now eludes elements that frozen storytellers feel, such as anxiety, guilt, mistrust, shame, and so on (causes for being frozen/stuck/paralyzed from sharing and writing about it), and how to gently press through and write with ease [if this makes any kind of sense]. If so, I adhere to an autoethnography and qualitative mix method to include interviews, surveys, and descriptive vignettes pertaining to emotions and feelings behind them. Too, I’ll extract pieces of my story as examples to inspire readers to feel comfortable writing about theirs.

Unlocking the frozen voice inside teaches the reader, “It’s okay to let it out and flow.” No longer frozen inside. But rather utilized tools provided as a pathway to freedom as a freedom writer. In other words, what lies behind a frozen story-teller? What is a clear pathway to becoming a freedom writer? Where does the reader begin to tap into their inner self with confidence? In the future, I’ll write a book relating to my other passion, “misguided and unconscious choices,” aligned with childhood trauma/generational abuse connecting with my Memoir.

Mind Mapping

Reading and Resources

I’m in the process of completing Between the Listening and the Telling: How Stories Can Save Us by Mark Yaconelli and scouting out additonal research on the topic, like works from:

• Freedom Writers Film: a 2007 American biographical drama film written and directed by Richard LaGravenese and starring Hilary Swank, Scott Glenn, Imelda Staunton, Patrick Dempsey and Mario. It is based on the 1999 book The Freedom Writers Diary by teacher Erin Gruwell and students who compiled the book out of real diary entries about their lives that they wrote in their English class at Woodrow Wilson Classical High School in Long Beach, California.
• Lesson Plans The Freedom Writers Diary by BookRags: The lessons and activities will help students (adults) gain an intimate understanding of the text, while the tests and quizzes will help you evaluate how well the students (adults) have grasped the material.
• The Freedom Writers Diary (Movie Tie-in Edition): How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them by Erin Gruwell (Author, Contributor), The Freedom Writers (Author): An unforgettable story of how hard work, courage, and determination changed the lives of a teacher and her students. 
• Chimamanda Adichie: The Danger of a Single Story: Considers the power of stories to influence identity, shape stereotypes, and build paths to empathy. 
• Biography Of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Story Behind The Pen Of A Literary Icon: Sources of her inspiration, the difficulties she overcame, and the significant influence of her words on equality and culture. 
• Other resources to follow.

Feedback

Feedback and suggestions from our peer group are always warranted. So, please, class, take a moment to read and leave helpful comments.

“I don’t have a plan. Phoebe, do you have a plan?”
“I don’t even have a pla.” – Friends

Outline Progress

I knew what I wanted to get done this week, solely because it has been a source of massive anxiety whenever I so much as thought of my thesis. I had a general storyboard and I had some scenes mapped out and along with a pretty good idea for the beginning and the end. Unfortunately, very few of those things make it easy to sit down and know what to write in a chapter. I had no outline and it made looking at my work difficult because I couldn’t fathom how the jumble of stuff in my head and ramblings spread across four different Google Docs was going to turn into anything resembling a book. I got some momentum in the beginning of the week, and I was able to plan out Chapter 4-9, but I still was lacking that sense of direction. Theresa came to the rescue with a resource she had found. It is a Google Sheets template along with an explanation video for a 3 Act, 9 Block, 27 Chapter story. I watched the video and got to work. While I am still missing 2 blocks and need to flesh out another, I finally feel like what I have could one day actually end up as a completed and coherent novel.

Thesis Presentation Progress

Since I am presenting on October 9th, I knew I needed to start taking a look at what I was going to need to include in my thesis presentation. The one big thing that jumped out to me was the following: How does your thesis work produce new knowledge to the field of Writing Studies? Translate that out of research and into creative writing and I’ve got to prove what is different about my novel. What am I providing that doesn’t already exist out in the world. If you were to do some research on novels that deal with grief you would notice a couple of things right away.

1. You are going to be drowning in books from the realistic fiction genre.

2. When you do manage to claw your way out of realistic fiction, you are going to run into a disturbing amount of romance.

• I hate books like this! I’m sure people love them and I’m sure a bunch are very well written but it irks me in the extreme to see a book use grief as a means to have two characters get together. I know for the sake of research and knowing what’s out there I should probably read at least one, but I haven’t been able to bring myself to do it yet, it just makes me so mad.
  

3. When you start looking at the synopses, it is clear that these stories use grief as a means of character growth, an in depth look into relationships between characters, or a plot point needed to draw two characters together.

All of these happen to be great news for me, because Memento Mori is a fantasy book, there is no romance (you see Melia dancing with a werewolf boy at a wedding, but his presence is more about representing the things a typical 18 year old would be concerned with rather than the start of a romance), and while I don’t deny the book is character driven, grief isn’t just a plot point, its the purpose of the plot. With a lot of the other books I have found, you could substitute the role grief plays with another tragedy and the story won’t change much. Memento Mori cannot exist without grief. The closest thing I have found to what I envision for my book is The Alchemy of Sorrow: A Fantasy & Sci-Fi Anthology of Grief & Hope. My copy is arriving Thursday and I cannot wait!!! While I still have a lot more research to do (and a lot of novels to read) I feel more confident that I can defend my novel as bringing something new to the table. Memento Mori is a book about grief that uses the fantasy genre (and the idea of a more soul based version of necromancy) to not just look at characters who are grieving and follow their journey but to look at grief itself and the way it interacts with and is talked about in modern society.

Books Being Read for My Lit Review

This week I found the following books (outside of the realistic fiction genre) that I will be reading that deal with grief as a theme to get more experience with just what is out there.

• Early Departures by Justin A Reynolds – What if you could bring your best friend back to life—but only for a short time? Jamal’s best friend, Q, doesn’t know that he died, and that he’s about to die . . . again. He doesn’t know that Jamal tried to save him. And that the reason they haven’t been friends for two years is because Jamal blames Q for the accident that killed his parents. But what if Jamal could have a second chance? A new technology allows Q to be reanimated for a few weeks before he dies . . . permanently. And Q’s mom is not about to let anyone ruin this miracle by telling Q about his impending death. So how can Jamal fix everything if he can’t tell Q the truth? [Science Fiction]
  
• The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan – Leigh Chen Sanders is absolutely certain about one thing: When her mother died by suicide, she turned into a bird. Leigh, who is half Asian and half white, travels to Taiwan to meet her maternal grandparents for the first time. There, she is determined to find her mother, the bird. In her search, she winds up chasing after ghosts, uncovering family secrets, and forging a new relationship with her grandparents. And as she grieves, she must try to reconcile the fact that on the same day she kissed her best friend and longtime secret crush, Axel, her mother was taking her own life. [Paranormal Fiction]
  
• The Memory Eater by Rebecca Mahoney – For generations, a monster called the Memory Eater has lived in the caves of Whistler Beach, Maine, surviving off the unhappy memories of those who want to forget. And for generations, the Harlows have been in charge of keeping her locked up—and keeping her fed. After her grandmother dies, seventeen-year-old Alana Harlow inherits the family business. But there’s something Alana doesn’t know: the strange gaps in her memory aren’t from an accident. Her memories have been taken—eaten. And with them, she’s lost the knowledge of how to keep the monster contained. Now the Memory Eater is loose. Alana’s mistake could cost Whistler Beach everything—unless she can figure out how to retrieve her memories and recapture the monster. But as Alana delves deeper into her family’s magic and the history of her town, she discovers a shocking secret at the center of the Harlow family business and learns that tampering with memories always comes at a price. [Fantasy]

I hope everyone had a great week! See you Wednesday!