Joan D. Cooper Writing
  • Home
  • Borrowing Trouble Blog
  • Other Projects
    • Haunting Genevieve's Reach
    • Baltimore Stories

Borrowing Trouble Blog

Neither a lender nor a borrower be--from Hamlet by William Shakespeare
The best advice from the foolish Polonius

Attending to Details

6/10/2014

0 Comments

 

Using the exercises for setting on Saturday pricked up my attention to detail while editing a late night collection from the last few weeks of school. The intrusion of technology inspired this science fiction fantasy--a theme and character woven into Genevieve's Reach. The interior setting of the large, gray-toned laboratory that is more like a warehouse has rattled around in my brain for over half my life. Where did this huge room with low lights and a threatening atmosphere exist in my past? I hope I've described it with some clarity.

The other exercise with this story concerned humor. In the original story, a research facility plays a dangerous game with technology. The time spent establishing the nature of the business has never felt as natural as this one.  I have taken the research facility and plopped down in a chicken processing plant. Interesting turn of ironic coupling--poor birds!

Submitted to the Rabbit Gnaw Writers for the June 18th meeting.

celias_audience_with_the_king.docx
File Size: 32 kb
File Type: docx
Download File

0 Comments

His Favorite Rescue

6/10/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
Working on the novel with the working title His Favorite Rescue. One of the main characters is a sixteen-year-old boy who has nearly died using cocaine and is "rescued" by his aunt who he thinks has no experience dealing with drug abuse. The novel is based on the true experiences of a number of homeless or nearly homeless teen drug abusers I've known. They are often taken in by naive, well-meaning relatives and the parents of friends. I'm collecting experiences with treatment programs and the differences between recovery from different substances.

0 Comments

Setting thoughts

6/1/2014

1 Comment

 

Working on exercises for the workshop at Evergreen in Easton, I want usefulness to balance theory. Setting is often used as an afterthought in creative writing lessons. Experts blather on about all the other narrative elements, but setting is delegated to a role of time, place, temperature, degree of light and weather. Of course it can be that--Pride and Prejudice can be transported from the English countryside to California's trendy suburbia, but the settings that knit with chararacter and conflict deliver the reader to a different place.

Picture
OC by Tim
1 Comment

    J Drescher Cooper

    Writer and Reviewer

    Archives

    April 2023
    February 2021
    November 2020
    July 2019
    May 2019
    February 2019
    October 2018
    February 2018
    March 2017
    October 2016
    September 2016
    November 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    February 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014

    Categories

    All
    Baltimore Book Fest
    Drug Abuse
    ESWA
    Fiction
    Inspiration
    Lilac Hill
    Novel
    Setting
    Story Ideas
    Teens
    Treatment Programs
    Writing

    RSS Feed

The Greyhound Indie Bookstore and Fine Art Gallery
​of Berlin, Maryland
Maryland
Writers
Association
The Eastern
Shore Writers
Association
Grammar &
Usage
Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • Borrowing Trouble Blog
  • Other Projects
    • Haunting Genevieve's Reach
    • Baltimore Stories