Saturday, October 8, 2011

A Much Forgotten History

I am working on a big project for my creative non-fictional class. I decided to write about my girlfriend's house because there was a claim that it used to be a gas station/store in an old town that does not exist now.

It is curious how easily history can be forgotten. How the passing of time can just wash away whole and the peoples who lived long ago. It is even more curious how we back and see glimpses of what was once there but can never gasp the full meaning and understanding, no matter how hard we try.

It is interesting to analyze how the human race seems to exist outside of time, yet is ultimately doomed by it.

Anyone can become a detective to the great mysteries of the past. All you need is a subject. An small idea about something important to you. It must be an important matter, you must force yourself to stick with it, until the end. No matter where the end takes you.

Then you search for the "paper trail". Once you find the first "bread crumb" that piece of evidence that proves something was there, that a history was created, you must lose yourself a time not your own. Take what you know of the present and leave it there for a bit. Focus on what you can learn from the past. Image yourself as part of that lost world.

Once you emerge, recreate your findings so that the rest of the world can make sense of the past. History is all around. We just need to look closely at what is not there to find what was...



My biggest problem with this project is that I am limited on the opportunities of interviewing the expires on the subject of coal mining and a town called Rosemantown.

A good writer would go to the source life in these places and try and find what remains. Unfortunately, for me that all lies 2 and half hours away. And since gas is so expensive, I must settle for phone interviews and less on actually first hand experience...

What makes an idea worth while?

The day started out with a bowl of raisin bran and an hour and half devoted to a show called "Anyone But Me". It was while watching this show that a quote from Oscar Wilde caught my attention.
"An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all".

This got me thinking. What makes an idea dangerous?

The notion of being risky in today's world calls for the need to raise the bar farther than it has ever been raised and then jump over it. What hasn't been done before? What new story can be told?

Once you have discovered something new, you then must test its ability to surpass the everyday. What will make it stand out above all others. What will make people want to read it?

This is were the dangerous part comes in. The "Catcher" that will force audiences to marvel at your work. The "thing" that no one else thought of doing or were not brave enough to do.

If you want to become a great writer, be courageous! Do something new and be bold. Experiment!

This brings to mind another of my favorite quotes.

"If you haven't surprised yourself, you haven't been writing!" --- Eudora Welty.