i love

Thank you for the compliment, VL.

I feel that since your personal voice is dramatic, then it is best to stick with what feels comfortable to you. I do feel that theatricality adds humor and perhaps puts up a small, unintended barrier between the reader and the meaning of your essay...so to me at least it does make the essay seem a little less serious and personal than it sounds like you intended.

Your experience with your dad reminds me that metaphors often emerge out of a common human experience (skinned knees in childhood), and though it may seem cliche, it is also sweet because it is something we all share (well, those billions of us who have skinned knees as children). Since your essay seems to be trying to describe how you feel using analogies that are unexpected, my vote would be to use a metaphor that seems fresher because it is either less often used or is one you make up. I like the idea of you removing the mask, especially the idea that you had it in place in order to protect your family, since this builds on the theatrical quality you want. Your comment about protecting the family makes me then wonder if the mask was there to protect them from the hurt of seeing your hurt? I usually think of masks as being in place to protect ourselves from others knowing who we really are, because we fear they will not like what they see when we don't wear a mask. The idea of wearing a mask to genuinely protect someone else was interesting to me, because it is not the meaning I usually associate with mask-wearing. Wearing a mask to hide one's true self in order to protect others sounds self-sacrificing (literally?) and heroic!

Let's see..."gird one's loins" is an expression meaning "prepare for action" as knights did when surrounding their loins (genitals and lower abdominal region) with all sorts of protective and fighting equipment...so I think using "girding" would be the theatrical way to describe preparing for journey and action. "Loins" is the word that I feel is perhaps not appropriate, because when I read it (since it means genitals) I always start to giggle a bit! :-)
You could say "gird my heart" (leaving out the word "loins") which could perhaps then mean simultaneously surrounding and protecting your heart while also preparing for action!

Now that I know you want a theatrical effect in your essay, I would say that the theatrical phrases you use in general mesh well with the fictional/metaphorical introduction and conclusion.

You are very welcome, Veggie.

I'm writing an essay on how discrimination is the most exercised American value.

Hey n00b, don't double and triple post. You can fit what you need to say in one post, read the rules.

Good thread idea however.

I love to write. I write poetry, songs, stories and journal articles. I have a very imaginative mind and feel the need to express it often. However I don't adequately channel this need to write. I believe I could write a novel oneday, it's jsut a matter of making time for it I guess.

In the short time I've been alive, I'm coming to discover that writing isn't the same kind of expression as dancing or singing or even drawing or painting. With writing, you are going to sit down and not know where to start, but you have to write anyway, doesn't matter what (no matter how bad it sucks) until you're done. And then the next day you have to do it again. You have to MAKE it flow, it doesn't just go on its own (most of the time). I think a lot of us have the capabilities to write a novel, most of us just don't have the dedication.

With that in mind....Write Write Write!!!! and then post!!!

(and i'll try to take my own advice!)

i'm writing a paper on the use of late existentialist phenomenology as a tool for exploring meaning in the archaic-age native american rock art of the american southwest.

it's pretty cool.

Blogger: User Profile: David Duvall

Here you go, guys. Tell me what you think.

I'm curious and just wanted to ask what the longest thing is anyone here's written is

Check my Batcave journal for the longest stuff, but I've written other things since that were possibly better written but didn't go on for very long.

Wrote several unfinished/unpublished novels; probably in the region of maybe, hmm, 600 pages possibly? Current one hitting 800 at the moment, if I ever get back to it (damn Music Banter! Shoulda stayed away...) Of course if you were to add up all my journal entries, well, game over as they say. ;)