I attended the Writing Fiction Class Readings from 11:15-12:05 today. I really enjoyed everyone’s readings/micros. Both Kim and Cara were involved in the readings and their stories were great as well.

I had a little trouble relating theory to this section because I wasn’t able to stay (due to classes) nearly as long as I would’ve liked. But after thinking about it all day, I figured the best theorist to relate to all the of the reading’s would be T.S. Eliot. T.S. Eliot said that “Every nation, every race, has not only its own creative, but its own critical turn of mind; and is even more oblivious of the shortcomings and limitations of its critical habits than of those of its creative genius.” I don’t know if I can do this, but I kind of disagree with Eliot because I feel like everyone today went beyond their creative genius. The stories that I heard today were extremely creative and put together so well. I found that all of the fictional stories were very descriptive and the five senses were put into play throughout each reading. I was sitting there thinking, “Wow, this would take me months to write.” Every writer that stood in front of the crowd today went beyond my expectations.. I didn’t really know what to expect going into it, so it was such a nice surprise being able to see everyone’s artistic side. On the other hand, on page 1094, Eliot says “We say: it appears to conform, and is perhaps individual, or it appears individual, and may conform; but we are hardly likely to find that it is one and not the other.” From what I understand, Eliot is saying that even with individuality, a person still needs to conform to another person’s standards. When writing, author isn’t necessarily the only person involved in their book. The book needs to be approved and read by many other people before hitting the shelves. Editors are involved, and because everyone thinks differently and writes differently, things get changed or rearranged in the process.

There was one specific reading that really stuck out. The author, I’m so sorry but I didn’t catch her name, wrote a micro on women and it reminded me a lot of Britney Spears. Her micro was titled “Rock Stars” and she went over the fact that women conform, they “go plastic” and one quote that was funny was “Always lie. Lying can cover your butt later.” Now, that just isn’t true. Lying always catches up to you in the end and only makes matter worse. Another great quote was where she said “Live by the phrase no regrets and smile.” I found all of that really interesting, but how does it relate to theory? I don’t know! But what I did get out of it was that most of her micro reminded me of Rubin. Rubin discusses the sex/gender system and how gender is imposed (“What a women is”). Rubin also talks about women and gift-giving; women as gifts. Her micro reminded me of this because women are conforming to men’s standards. They get plastic surgery to look better for men, they do this and they do that, just searching for approval (not in all cases of course, just an example!). Ahh, does that make any sense? Anyway, there’s always a preconceived notion about people– people are quick to judge.

As far as Althusser goes, I’m going to be honest, I’m in the dark. In the beginning of his reading he discusses wages and truth be told, every person who read their micro today should sell their writings to the newspaper or something! But the Ideological State Apparatus? Help!

So what, you ask? Well I’m sure it wasn’t easy for everyone to get up and read their personal stories in front of a group of strangers. That takes a lot of courage because you never know if people will accept your style of writing, or if they even care enough to pay attention and focus in on every little detail. All the micros today were so descriptive, which makes the story that much more interesting and captivating.