Author: Nicholas Albanese

My experience with writing dialogue writing has been mixed. I say that it has been mixed because I feel that I neither liked nor disliked it. I enjoyed this experience because it forced me to step outside of my comfort zone of writing and write something I was unfamiliar with. Writing a dialogue piece forced me to create a scene without using a first or third person narrating device. Instead, I needed to approach writing a dialogue piece like how a screenwriter would approach writing a script for a play or movie. I had to establish things like the character’s emotions and little actions through supplementary text that doesn’t appear when the characters are actually speaking. It was enjoyable to write something wildly different from what I’m used to. However, I felt that it was somewhat cumbersome to have to rewrite the names of the characters over and over again in order to establish who was speaking in the moment. I also believed I could have done better in my own dialogue piece. I feel like I took too many liberties when revising the dialogue. Instead of making the dialogue take place over text messages, I made it take place in a particular setting. I’m not sure if this worked to hurt or enhance the dialogue piece.

My experience with poetry writing this year has been so-so. I believe that when I was writing poetry for this class, I became so enveloped in using dark themes from a source that I admire that I feel like that ruined my creative potential. I fear that when I did my poetry assignment, I strayed away from originality. However, I am somewhat proud of what I wrote. In my recent collection of poems, I had actually reused and restructured a poem from an assignment I did last year for my Type and Media class. I found this really enjoyable as with that assignment, the options on what I could create was hindered due to the limiting nature of the assignment. Without those limiting factors in the way, I felt as though I could slightly expand on the poem and use different writing tactics in order to enhance the mood.

Two poems that I really enjoy are A Work of Artifice by Marge Piercy and I’ll Be Your Beach by Team Salvato. The first poem is special because I remember being assigned to read and analyze it during an English class in City Tech. I enjoy the poem because it tackles a disturbing and unfortunate subject matter which in this poem’s case is the limitations that a society puts on a woman. I really enjoyed the use of this poem’s language in order to establish its theme and message. In this poem, women are represented through a bonsai tree and the author states how “the bonsai tree…could have grown tall on the side of a mountain…but a gardner carefully pruned it…it is nine inches high.” The poem uses symbolism to great effect and I enjoy it because of that.  The end of the poem also contains language and talks about specific methods that were used in ancient China in order to make women look more “appealing” and “sexy” like foot binding. The second poem is special to me because it comes from a video game that I greatly enjoy, Doki Doki Literature Club. The game itself is a psychological horror game that disguises itself as a cutesy visual novel. Each character within the game presents the player with poems that they can read. These poems are really telling of the characters personalities and some of their personal struggles. This poem acts almost as a message from one of the characters to another character who struggles with self harm. The language in the poem reads almost like a letter from someone who is offering a helping hand to someone struggling with mental health issues.

“Let’s bury your heavy thoughts in a pile of sand
Bathe in sunbeams and hold my hand
Wash your insecurities in the salty sea
And let me see you shine.”

This poem is special to me because it’s about reaching out to someone who is suffering some self harm and telling them that they are willing to shoulder their burdens together. It is about sharing pain with a friend and helping them on learning how to love themselves again.

The poem that I enjoyed the most from Staceyann Chin’s “Crossfire” was September in New York. This poem discusses the impact that 9/11 had on New York citizens and the rest of the world. This poem really resonates with me because of my origin and identity as a New Yorker. Even though I was still a baby when 9/11 happened, as I grew up and was forced to take a moment of silence or learn about it in history class, I started to learn the impact that it had on Americans. Reading this poem, I also realize just how negatively it effected not just New York and America but the rest of the world. When I read this poem, I feel like I am being put into Staceyann’s shoes and I can understand what living through 9/11 was like from the perspective of an adult living in New York at that time. After reading this poem, I start to remember what my life was like, growing up in a post 9/11 world. I remember how I needed to(and still need to) remove my shoes, backpacks and jackets every time I wanted to catch a plane going somewhere. I can’t remember a time before the “war on terror” because I had always grown up hearing about it. Now that I read this poem, I can’t help but feel a little angry and disappointed over  how politicians turned into snake oil salesman, trying to sell the American people on why a war with Iraq was needed. I am angry over how casual the president was to send over boys who had just become adults to fight and die overseas in a war that doesn’t seem to have an end in sight. I feel like I shouldn’t be angry but I am. And the only thing I can do is to “never forget”.

So far, I’ve enjoyed my experience with short story writing. I believe that writing short stories has greatly helped me before and during this coronavirus quarantine. The opportunity to write short stories means that I am forced to seek out inspiration for my writing and create something entirely new. I really enjoy the process of writing a short story, getting critiques from my cohorts and then adjusting it so that it becomes more fully realized. My experiences with writing fiction when compared to writing memoirs are vastly different. When I am writing fiction, the main things that inspire me are from things I enjoy. For example, when I was writing my second short story “The House of the Eggberts”, I drew heavy inspiration from the video game, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp. Being a huge fan of the Animal Crossing games made me want to write a story about humanoid animals that had a message/theme/moral that you would likely see in a fable or a folk tale. When I choose to write fiction, I feel puzzled on what to write because writing fiction allows me to write about vastly anything. However, I feel like I limit myself to only a few unrealized ideas. Meanwhile, when I write memoirs, I feel as though my ideas become more fully realized. When I chose to write about receiving my grandfather’s wallet for the first time or about the toxic relationship I had with a former friend, I felt like I knew what I wanted to talk about. When I wrote, it felt like I already knew what to say and it felt as though everything I wrote just came naturally to me. Listening to critiques from my cohorts also helped me a lot as I knew what I needed to expand upon when I wrote these memoirs. With these critiques, I felt as though I was able to enhance my memoir writing to a level that I was really satisfied with. Out of the two, I prefer writing memoir pieces as I feel that it really forces me to dig down into memories that I wouldn’t normally talk about with other people. When I write them, I feel as though I am reliving those memories through my writing. I remember the good memories I shared with my grandpa up until his passing and I remember the falling outs I had with my former friend and the pain that came from our relationship. Writing memoirs feels more raw and emotional and I really get into writing about some of the painful memories I had throughout my life and how I learned to heal from them.

Journal Assignment 6: What is your current home setting like? Is it noisy and crowded, or silent and empty, or something in between? What’s the context? Describe it!

Currently, my home situation is very quiet and my life right now is very uneventful.  Because of the coronavirus running rampant, I am spending a lot of my time indoors, trying to catch up on my lectures and finishing my homework. Both me and my sister are doing our best to stay on top of our work, stepping out every now and then to go out for coffee or buy groceries for our family. During my free time, I am trying to do more things besides catching up on school work and doing chores. I want to try and work on drawing new things, do some exercises at home and even step out every now and then(with proper gear of course).  Wish me luck!

Let me throw my two cents into the ring about the coronavirus. I honestly think that right now, the media is making us more fearful of it then we should be. It seems like everyday since it first sprung up, the media has been on top of reporting it and bringing up “the tragedy of the coronavirus”. You literally can’t go one second now without hearing about it or thinking about it. And the fear is what’s leading to so many people stocking up on toilet paper like a pack of hyenas rushing to get a bite of meat from its latest kill. As of right now, me and my family are doing okay and we’re doing whatever we can do to stay clean and keep the virus at bay. None of us have the virus yet and we’re all okay. We also make sure to always wash our hands, spray things we bought and used with Lysol spray and generally just keep ourselves and our objects sanitized. We’re all mentally fine as well but I feel the need to step outside every now and then because for me, spending all day inside is not something I want to do everyday.

Right now, it’s surprising that some people are still making the choice to not wear masks especially with the growing number of infected people in NYC. Yesterday, when I was stepping outside to stock up on some groceries for my family, I made sure to wear gloves and a mask. While my mask wasn’t an N95 respirator mask, I still wore it to stay safe. As I was making my way to the supermarket, reusable bag in hand, I passed a guy who muttered under his breath. “Yeah, like that’s gonna work.” Maybe he thought I wouldn’t hear him but I was so tempted to flip the bird at him as I was walking forward. The mocking tone in his voice really annoyed me and it made me a little upset knowing that he was fine with mocking me for trying to stay safe.

 

With the virus hitting hard, I’ve had to start taking more precautions and I’ve had to give up certain things. Thanks to the virus, I am making sure to wash my hands and keep my electronics and food stuffs sanitized whenever I can. However, that’s about the only upside I can think of that the virus has brought on me. Because the virus is spreading really fast in NYC, I have to give up a lot of things that I would normally do. For school, I’ve had to give up face to face classes (which I’ve grown to enjoy) and hanging out with my college friends. I’ve also had to give up Friday movie nights with one of my best friends from high school because I am worried about the virus. Other things like eating out, going to the gym and attending big events like Comic Con are also out of the equation because of the fear of the virus causing people to shut all those things down. I’ve also had to give up looking for work because my mother is worried about me working somewhere that’s open to the public in fear that I might get sick. I feel upset that I need to give up these things that I enjoy but if it’s only for the next 12-18 months (hopefully a vaccine is developed by that time), then I guess I can deal with it. I’ll just have to keep telling myself and everyone else that “everything will be alright”.

One of the most embarrassing moments from my childhood that I can remember is the moment when I confessed to my grade school crush. I remember that on that day, I made a little drawing in my school planner saying “I love you”. The time I chose to show her the drawing couldn’t have been at a worse time too because when I did show it to her, she was already sitting with her group of friends. When she finally saw the drawing, she and her group of friends laughed at me. In a fit of anger and sadness, I threw a miniature tantrum, ruining the drawing in permanent pen and crumpling up the piece of paper that had the drawing on it. It was a embarrassing moment that I sometimes look back on.

Here are 4 short story ideas that I have going forward.

1. Once upon a time, a young boy kept drawings of his imaginary friends in a small folder. Years after he’s outgrown them, he rediscovers the folder that was stowed away in a desk. He dismisses it until he suddenly starts hearing voices coming from the folder. Is he going crazy or is the folder talking to him?

2) Ginger is a witch with dreams of running her own small cafe one day. The only problem…she’s fresh out of college and has NO MONEY. When she finds her late dad’s magical relics, Ginger comes to a puzzling decision. Will she sell the artifacts and make money to open up her dream business or will she leave them be?

3) A story from the perspective of a wife who comes home to see her husband in bed with another woman.

4) You’re driving home after a late day of work. As you continue driving, your GPS keeps rerouting you not toward your destination but towards something else.

My experience with memoir writing has been good. Memoir writing has allowed me to write pieces about events that greatly changed my life. Writing about things like my grandpa’s wallet and my rocky friendship honestly helped me to talk about things that might seem insignificant in a regular conversation. Writing memoir pieces has also allowed me to connect with the other people in my group. After we read each of our pieces, we start to discuss about it and I realized that by reading our memoir pieces, we start to understand a little about each other. While we lead very different lives, we can still relate on problems that we have such as our insecurities. Writing about the memories opened up old wounds while sharing them helped us heal.