writing camp 7/14 defamiliarizing a banana

Friday, July 14th, 2006 up earlier than usual (ouch) because we'd all agreed to meet at 9:30 instead of 10 in order to workshop 3 manuscripts today so we could all go to brunch tomorrow...my note taking vastly deteriorated by this point & there's little for me to refer to although we did have some great "stimulating" conversation during workshop and ran well into the lunch hour...I'd also resorted to eating PB&J by this point since the meal service truly sucked...ouch...today's notes: 2:00 pm DEFAMILIARIZATION: Ugly Word, Beautiful Idea - Seminar with Anthony Doerr This seminar explores how a writer uses sentences and narrative (and art itself) to make the familiar unfamiliar, to renew our senses of perception. Here we will get to the nitty-gritty of why cliches aren’t doing our work any favors." [schedule description]...this seminar started out with a writing exercise (all together now, roll those eyes) but while my writing was appallingly bad [go ahead...YOU try to describe a banana w/out using the words yellow, fruit, eat or banana & tell me how poetic your description turns out)...in any case, some good writing was done but not by me. The discussion launched then into the concept of defamiliarization & there were handouts..."take an everyday object & make it new again - defamiliarized banana"..."we're desperate to make meaning - Nick Flynn"..."habitualize - good art is about fracturing that"..."Henry James' 'weak specification'" as evidenced in the DaVinci Code..."close the gap as much as you can - the more precise your language the closer you'll get"...this seminar featured the best moment of levity at a s**tty writer's expense - namely, deconstructing the opening paragraph of The DaVinci Code which, of course, is rife with cliche and imprecise language...after which, I cut class again - my brain not quite being up to an hour of DA Powell's brilliance - 3:00 pm MISADVENTURES IN POETRY: When a Poem’s Success Lives in its Mistakes...not sure what I did instead but I'm sure it was really important...8 p.m. Reading with Matthea Harvey, Anthony Doerr, Jim Shepard...Matthea Harvey's poetry was wonderful (more Robot Boy!!), Jim Shepard read from his new one - replete with graphic descriptions of executions during Revolutionary France (gak)...I still haven't forgiven him for that story about the megaladon that gave me nightmares 3 nights running...And though Anthony Doerr's seminar was really stellar, his reading was less so & I drifted off...another late night & up early again even though we had no workshop on Saturday...