I didn't take issue with writing in any particular genre. The only thing I really hate to write is research papers, but I've sucked it up the times that they needed to be done. Other than that, I like playing around with different formats of texts and different tones when writing.

I wasn't too fond of using Twitter at first (and I'm still not its biggest fan) but I've found that it's kind of a helpful way of organzing my thoughts, or at least getting them down somewhere. I'm forever carrying around a notebook for such thoughts, and forever not using it. I like writing (pen and paper writing) just as much as any other form of technology, but because I'm always on the go, using more up to date technologies makes more sense. In this way, Twitter was helpful. It also made me realize that I complain a LOT about snow and cold weather. This is why my found poem was about my wanting to get out of this weather.

I enjoyed the readings because they were different from each other. It's nice to lose the monotony of ten page reading after ten page reading of academic work. It was also inspiring to see that even though we might write in different lengths, forms and tones, each work can still be powerful in its own way.

I thought it was much easier to take a line from Anzaldua's work and our tweets and use them as inspiration for micro fiction than to use our micro fiction and tweets as texts for haikus and poems. I guess I like the standard pyramid better - starting with a little information and broadening from there. I feel like my creativity is stifled when I can only use so many words to create something new. Don't get me wrong; I enjoy the challenge. Maybe if my tweets had been about more concrete things, I would have had an easier time with my found poem. The common theme among the tweets, however, did make it easy to find a subject for the poem.

I think my favorite reading and writing was the micro fiction. It's not because I hate to write or read long stories. It's more that I feel micro fiction can have such a huge impact on a reader. Because there are so few words, there is more responsibility on the reader's part to piece together the meaning of it. I like texts that make you think. I like texts that stay with you long after you've put them down. Micro fiction to me is a carefully planned snippet of time that's just floating out there, waiting for you to grab it and make it your own. This can be said about any text, of course. There's just something about wanting to be involved in the simplicity of a moment that draws my attention to micro fiction.

This micro fiction is inspired by and uses a phrase from Gloria Anzaldua's "Borderlands/La Frontera." The phrase is "car flowing down a lava of highway."

"We"

Car flowing down a lava of highway, we can feel the bridge between us and the Atlantic swell, stretch, and finally crumble beneath the weight of the distance. We rolled the windows down, our laughter fueled by the sandy wind that turned our hair into dancing flames. At the Grand Canyon, we tossed our phones into the deep cracks of the earth. The lights of Vegas called out to us, and under a gazebo lit with twinkling lights, we tied the knot on a whim.  In the city of angels we placed our hands in hardened cement, jumping and shouting when we found a familiar name. Tourists stared at us but we just got back into the car and turned west. The beach, this moment, arrived quicker than we had thought, but we had no regrets. We tossed the keys to a bum leaning against A Starry Night sky. We stripped ourselves of our shoes and jewelry, leaving a trail of the contents of this life behind us as we ran towards the ocean. There was no pause, only a moment to grasp our hands together before we plunged into the Pacific.



This micro fiction was inspired by a tweet I made where I said: "Only Shakespeare can get away with phrases like 'sluttish time.' " 

(Untitled)

Time is a whore, a slut. She gives herself away to everyone at any time she pleases. She lends herself to extended deadlines for term papers, to Daylight Savings in the spring time, to children who are beg for just one more episode of Spongebob Squarepants. She is no stranger to weekend getaways, to naps on rainy days, to New Year’s Eve. She will give herself to children, students, business executives, mechanics, musicians, teachers and secretaries. It’s all the same to her.

But ask her for a favor and she’ll turn an icy shoulder to you. Time works for herself, on her own schedule, and can’t be bothered by prayers and requests. This is why she won’t come to hospitals. She glares at them when she floats by and huffs, giving off an air of superiority. She wants everyone to know that she owes no soul a single damn thing…but really I think she feels shame for the only time in her existence, when she is near the sick and suffering and dying people, because she knows she couldn’t do a thing about it even if she tried.