Analysis Of We Could Have Been Happy Here By Keith Lesmeister

The nonfiction piece, On Writing, by Stephen King, that is often told in a form that

Stephen King’s “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” is a marvelous and unusual text. Within the first part of his book, also called C.V., he explains his life experience up to the day he finishes the book. King expresses his life with multiple literary elements that assist the readers on imagining his life of adventures, catastrophes, fears, and loves. Following are three of my favorite passages that caught my attention.

During the course of a person’s life, a decision is made as to which direction their life should follow. Most people are encouraged by their loved ones to make this choice for themselves. When Kelly Cherry was twelve, she announced to her musically devoted, string quartet violinist parents that she was going to quit piano lessons and become a writer, in response, “[her] mother said that she would rather kill [her] than have [her] turn out like [her] big brother, a beatnik. She ran to the kitchen to get [a] butcher knife” (“Kelly Cherry”). Needless to say, she was not supported in this career path. Throughout the course of her early writing career, she would hear that she “had no talent for writing” (“Kelly Cherry”). Still, she continued to write, occasionally quitting again and again, like a smoker, only to pick it up again (“Kelly Cherry”). Continually she told herself, “You are not a writer” until one day she revised this to, “If you don’t write your books, no one else will” (“Kelly Cherry”).

“To write to be a writer, I have to trust and believe in myself as a speaker, as a voice for the images. I have to believe that can communicate with images and words that I can do it well. A lack of belief in my creative self is a lack of belief in my total self and vice versa- I cannot separate my writing from any part of my life. It is all one” (95).

"To write to be a writer, I have to trust and believe in myself as a speaker, as a voice for the images. I have to believe that can communicate with images and words that I can do it well. A lack of belief in my creative self is a lack of belief in my total self and vice versa- I cannot separate my writing from any part of my life. It is all one" (95).

Vogler, Christopher. The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers. 3rd ed. Studio City, Ca: Michael Wiese Productions, 2007.

In Mary Pipher’s “Writing to Connect”, Karen Cangialosi’s “Healing Through the Written Word”, and Sam Dillon’s “What Corporate America Can’t Build: A Sentence” each writer talks about the unlimited importance of writing. Each writer has a different but extremely valid piece to their work.

Most individuals, no matter their age, struggle with writing with proper mechanics and content. In the book “On Writing,” author Steven King gives his personal perspective and advice on the craft of writing. King also shares his story about how he has become the successful writer he is today. In his novel, King wants to reveal to his readers that it is essential to read a lot and write a lot to become a great writer. He begins by talking about how there are no bad dogs and relates it to human beings.

In the essay, “The Storyteller,” Sandra Cisneros discusses how she didn’t let her family's’ traditions interfere with her passion to become a writer. Despite the fact that her father loathed the idea of her moving out without being married, her desire for independance lead her to leave. She finally got her silent home to “listen to the voices inside herself” while becoming inspired by all of her trinkets. Every decision she makes revolves around her writing; it influences every aspect of her life. Cisneros emphasizes the role that family has on your dreams and her ambition to pursue them no matter what.

Mr. Bill Ezzard has never had a moment where he could say “Writing isn't my thing.” He has always been a huge fan of writing. Ever since he was a kid, writing was something he enjoyed. That is why he became a writing teacher. Ezzard went to college knowing he wanted to do something with his writing skill, but was lost with an idea of what. He was visiting his school counselor one day, and she asked him what he wanted to do in life. He thought for about a minute, and then it clicked: he wanted to be a writing

I’d always enjoyed writing but I’d never been so vocal about it. For me, it happened quietly. My notebooks lie scattered over my bedroom floor; they had no place at the lunch table. And my writing survived on my acknowledgments alone, I couldn’t even imagine letting some else read it. This was due in part to my own self-doubt: I was embarrassed of my poems that never rhymed and my short action stories that never seemed to have any plot. But I

In a letter to anyone, Lois Lowry recalls her childhood belief that “writers were creatures with mythical status: unavailable, inaccessible, perhaps dead” and her journey to discovering that writers are none of these things. Lowry explains that it had never occurred to her to see them as real people. Her letter was written to explain that authors and writers are just normal people. Lowry herself sat “chewing on a strand of hair” as she wrote the letter, with a stack of other letters addressed to her sitting on the desk. In order to illustrate her point that writers are just regular people, Lowry sets a tone of nostalgia, gives examples of her own experiences, and uses repetitive phrases.

In “Why I Write” by Terry Tempest Williams, she deliberates the development and affect of writing from the mind. Through the internal destruction of emotions, the reconstructing of the words, and the influence writing has in this world, Terry Williams causes us to reevaluate the meaning of writing and how people write for different reasons. In the introduction of the story, we are given an image of the setting, and an indication of where the story will lead. “It is just after 4:00 a.m. I was dreaming about Moab, Brooke and I walking around the block just before dawn.

The articles for the week, Shermer’s “Why Money Can’t Buy Happiness” and Hustvedt’s “My Mother,” offer perspectives on happiness informed by theories of evolutionary psychology. Shermer and Hustvedt examine what it means to be happy and how our brains can fool us into believing we enjoy something when we actually don’t. These readings come at a crucial pinnacle in the semester for me when introspection is often ignored. While other classes seem to be on the downward slope to finals, I feel I haven’t quite summited this writing course. There is obviously a purpose to the flood of open ended reflections and fast paced deadlines between articles. If the goal has to been to break a writer down, then it has undoubtedly been achieved. Instead of the demands of the class sharpening my pen and fine tuning my words, I’m starting to see my words as a jumbled mess of incoherent thoughts. My papers have become an alphabet soup I try to arrange to convey my thoughts and link the themes I see. But the more I write, the less letters there are to choose from. I’ve desperately wanted to learn how to improve my writing, but the more I learn the more I realize the affliction I have with the process entirely. The two chapters this week have revealed less about the process of good writing for me, but more on my own affliction with writing and its affects on my aspirational career as a social scientist.

John Holt is an English teacher for elementary students. Most of students struggled with writing and reading. One day he went into class and told them they had to write whatever they wanted on their paper and whoever has the most words wins a prize “they were to start writing something. It could be anything they wanted” “it was a success in many ways and for many reasons”