Workshop5

Today’s workshop began with 20 minutes of writing on the prompt, Write about an experience that changed you. Jay worked with Karen while Eddie and I worked together. Christopher worked independently. Before we wrote, I explained the difference between a story’s protagonist and its narrator. The protagonist is the character involved in the story’s drama or conflict whereas the narrator is the older, wiser person looking back and giving the reader the big picture. “It’s like the movie Stand By Me,” I explained. “There’s the little boy on his way to see the dead body. And then there’s the adult voice over, who’s telling the story.” Everyone shared their work, starting with Olen (Karen read his piece). It was about how he got involved with gangs. Christopher said the story was relatable. We talked about the narrative reflection, and the meaning the adult narrator is able to make of the situation that the nine year old protagonist could not. Christopher read a story about his dealings with HRA and Medicaid. He described the bureaucracy and showed how frustrating it is to deal with the system. In the end, he reflected on “the big picture” and what he is able to do in situations like this, which are frustrating. Eddie wrote a story about wanting respect as a child, getting caught up in the street and playing the game. “The game doesn't end until you end it,” he concluded. We talked about how every story is a journey towards a conclusion. “Every story has a protagonist. That’s you. The protagonist is on a journey. You have goals, you encounter conflict.” We talked about how conflicts are external and internal. Explaining how the protagonist accomplishes his or her goals given the conflict is what we call the major dramatic question. It’s the narrator’s job to answer this question, to make meaning and find resolution. Participants applied these concepts to the stories they had written, and others journeys they’d experienced in their lifetimes.

Growing up in a gang
By Olen

I was a member of the [REDACTED] in Chicago. I was 9 when I was jumped in. My cousins Unique, Byron and Nathan were members, and they were older. My parents had sent me out to Chicago to spend the summer with my great aunt, and I would stay with her. They lived with her too. She was raising them. I stayed out there until I was 15. I didn't know about their ways.

My great aunt, Eula Mae, sent me to the store by myself for the first time. She told me, “It's time you learn your way around here, being that you're going to be living out here for a while.” She wanted me to get milk, flour and vegetables. She gave me a note to take to the store with the money. On my way to the store, I ran into my cousins. They were sitting in a car, and they called me over. They were smoking cigarettes and weed.
“How you like it out here?” Byron said.
“It's alright,” I said. It was hard for me to understand what they said, because they talked different. They had an accent.

“Since you're gonna be out here for a while, do you want to be a part of what we're doing?” Byron said.

I said yes, not knowing what I was getting myself into. So he put a gun in my hand, a .22, and told me to go to a car parked across the street. There was a man sitting in there with his son, and his son got out to go to the store. Byron told me to go over there and shoot the man in his head. Being that I was young, and I didn't know about street life, Unique told me that if I didn't do it, they would kill my aunt. I was naïve and scared, so I went over there and I did it. I didn't know if they would or wouldn't hurt my aunt.

The man didn't see me. He didn't pay me no mind. He was looking toward the store. He was a big, heavyset man. I shot him in the back of the head. I didn't look. I ran back to the car, and we drove off. When I jumped in the car, they gave me five, patted me on the back.

“You did good,” Unique said.

I felt like a big guy. I felt grown up. I was shaken up, and I hid out for a couple of days. I didn't go outside. There was word on the street that it had happened. When things had cooled down a little bit, they took me to the clubhouse where everybody else was. I met the head leaders, the army, from the captain to the soldiers. They initiated me. They beat me up. Everyone took turns hitting me, and then they all jumped me.

I felt like a little punk, afraid for my life. I wanted out, but there was no way out.

From then on, I ran with them for a couple of years. As time went on, I realized that they were using me because I didn't have a clue as to what was going on. They took advantage of me. I hurt people through stickups. I did a lot of things that I wouldn't normally do.

If I would have known what I knew as time went by and I got older, I would have never been a part of it. I wouldn't have gone through the things I went through. I'm lucky to be alive, and I think that's through God. I still have nightmares, but I know that a lot of that was out of my control.Olen: Growing up in a gang.

Workshop 4

Today's workshop had five participants. We wrote on the prompt, "Write about a first love." I instructed participants to not write about a person. Participants wrote for a little over fifteen minutes. One participant gave his story orally to Karen. After we had written I talked a little about the difference between concrete and abstract language. Concrete words are the words you experience with your senses— the stuff you can see, smell, taste, etc. Abstract words, on the other hand, are words we experience only in your mind. Like Freedom. "What does freedom smell like?" I asked. "Freedom smells like potpourri." He said. "Exactly!" We use concrete words, like potpourri, to explain or show abstract concepts, like freedom. Participants read their stories. We gave each other positive feedback.

First Love
By Nancy

My first true passion when I was 14 years old was gymnastics. My father encouraged me tremendously—private lessons. Then my love of horses—my father bought me a mare and encouraged me with private lessons. He wanted to steer me away from things that would not be positive and tried everything he could think of.

Unfortunately, it took me til when I lost him to know how hard he tried and truly loved me. I never can forgive myself but I know we forgive each other. My father was a police officer—a narcotics detective. He saw what happened to others and tried to protect me with a broken heart.

Valentine's Day Special!

In honor of Valentine's Day, we had a special Sex Writing Workshop for individuals interested in writing about experiences related to our bodies, with an emphasis on sexual experiences. We started with an icebreaker, make a list of "sexy" words. As we made our lists, we had some discussion of what it meant to say a word was "sexy." People read their lists, and we continued to notice how how some words are sexy in some contexts, and not sexy in others. "Today we're rewriting about experiences related to our bodies- good, bad and everything in-between." I said that in a bit we'd be writing our own memoir, and that great memoir relied on using sensory details to create an emotional experience for the reader. After this, three workshop participants read three different mentor texts, each by a different author and portraying a different sexual experience. Afterwards, we reacted to the texts and to the process of reading other people's memoir. Then we spent 10-15 minutes writing our own. Afterwards, participants read their work.

The Box
By Synn

I remember I kept seeing that metal box thing in the women's bathroom and it always had a pile of paper bags on top. Finally I asked my mother what they were for. They were in the bathroom of some restaurant on the highway— a road trip somewhere. My grandparents maybe. When I asked, all the other women in the bathroom stopped what they were doing to listen, so I knew it was important. Or that I had made a mistake, like the time at dinner I'd asked if my tongue went all through my body because I could see it on both ends and my brother laughed milk out his nose. My mother explains about the blood for a baby and how if you don't get a baby you lose it so you can have new blood next month. Because I'd asked about the paper bag (I had no idea what was actually inside the machine), I spent several years after that knowing— in the way that only children do— that that was why women wore skirts. That all grown women walked around with paper bags between their legs and wore skirts so no one could see.

Workshop 3

Today's workshop was quiet. We wrote on the prompt, "Tell a story that involves a phone call." First, we talked about recreating scenes— moments from our experience that are full of sensory details and description. One participant wrote about a call he had just made to his sister. After we had finished we told the writer what more details we were curious to hear. Another participant told a series of stories from his days stealing cars. Karen wrote as he talked.

Whatever
By Twin

I don't feel like writing no type of story right now. My mind is racing, 100 miles a minute. I'm full of malicious thoughts. Thoughts that I know are not detrimental to my behavior. While I'm feeling this way I have to realize how I'm going to handle the pressure. Positive thinking brings positive results. Negative thinking will lead me back to upstate prison, which I don't ever want to revisit. So for every action is a reaction.

Workshop 2

Today’s workshop began with the prompt: “Write about a time you took a risk.” We wrote silently for 15 minutes. Then, we read our work aloud. A new participant at CORNER Project, didn’t want to read out loud, but preferred that I read his piece out loud for him. His story was about the first time he used heroin. Participants liked the way he showed the experience as both positive and negative. Another participant wrote about the time he nearly cheated on his wife but decided not to, only to find out years later that the woman he almost slept with was HIV+. A third participant wrote about the time she took a risk by leaving a bad relationship to check herself into an extended stay rehab. Karen, my assistant, read a story about a time she was out drinking and had no money to get home, and so she clung on to the back of a New York Times delivery truck. After we all had all read and discussed our work, we had the option to stay and write more. 

Before and after the workshop, I hang out in the drop-in center, collecting stories from people who can’t or don’t want to come to the workshop. Today, a participant recited a poem that he had written and memorized. He tells me he has hundreds more, on all different subjects. 

Full of Rage 

By Johnny

Fighting a feeling thats consuming my soul 

Unaware that this sentence would incur such a toll

Lighting constantly courses through my veins 

Livid at being shackled, and spending years in chains.

Oppressed my a system I entered through my own accord

Fury allows me to pay a price so few can afford 

Resentment and anger unleash a primal desire 

Armageddon couldn’t compare to my internal Hellfire

Gluttony awaiting to be released from this cage 

Eager to show the world I’m no longer full of rage. 

ROUND III

Welcome back!

WHCP participants' pens are scratching the pads so hard they are making fire keeping us warm in this winter season. Check out the new posts!!

Week 1: What is memoir? 

A participant read our mentor text, an excerpt from Nick Flynn’s memoir, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City. I introduced it as a memoir. Another participant said he could relate. This is one of the things people like about this genre, memoir. What is memoir? If you’ve taken this workshop before you might know. What do I ask you to do in my classes? We tell our true stories, a participant offered. Yes, and we tell them artfully. Memoirs are the facts, what happened, told creatively. We want details, to show— not just tell what happened but show the emotional experience. All of our stories are, in some ways, similar. When someone tells a story of what happened to them, we can relate or “identify,” as a participant said. And, in other ways, all of our stories are unique, with their specific situations and details. 

Participants were asked to make a list of firsts. Like traumatic things? Someone asked. Maybe, I said. It’s true, oftentimes negative firsts stick with us, but these firsts can be about anything. One participant worked independently. Another worked with Karen, my new assistant.  Two others worked with me. We read our lists out loud, participants told some details of their favorite stories. We talked more about how we could relate, and also about how our stories varied. 

Some of our firsts:

First relationship
First fight
First funeral
First Car 
First time I was in jail
First car
First time I witnessed a murder
First time I was discriminated against  
First time I flew pigeons 
First hustle 
First trip 
First time someone paid me to not steal cars 
First steak 
First time I was traumatized
First time I had a pet 
First time I had a girlfriend

Workshop 6

Prompt: "I am from." Write a story that begins with this phrase. Return to it as often as necessary. Today's writing class had two participants. We wrote and shared our work, and talked about the cold.


Numbers
By James

I am from a small town in New Jersey. Teaneck, NJ. When I look back on life and ask myself— All I've been through, I'm still alive. I'm from the 60s. I come from a middle class family. At times I often wonder where I'm going. Where I'm from, the neighborhood is nice. I'm 48 years old. All I've been through, I'm still alive. There are people that never make it to see 48. 48 is a good number for me because I'm alive.

I worked in a cemetery, Potter's Field. My job was to put the bodies in the ground, and to dig them up if someone claimed them. We get bodies from all the hospitals— unclaimed bodies, from accidents or whatever. They stay in hospital for 30, 60 days. When no one claims them, the medical examiner picks them up, puts them in a truck. It goes to City Island. We take the truck and put it on a boat that goes to Hearts Island, that's what it's called. The bodies are in wooden boxes, heavy, wrapped in a plastic bag with a string. It's an awful smell, an awful smell you cannot get out of your clothes. I cannot tell you what it smells like. We put a hundred, hundred fifty fifty bodies in the ground at once. Once we get a thousand bodies in a grave, we close that grave up and we open another one.

Some bodies is unknown some are known. The only way you can find your loved ones is by numbers. The graves are marked with a pole, and each pole has a number, one to one hundred. If you find your loved one is in Potters Field, we will go and dig up that grave. We will put the hearse on a boat and go there with a tractor, and we dig up the grave. Sometimes the bodies have fallen out of the boxes. We put the body in a coffin, and we put it in the hearse. We bury babies on fridays. They go in separate graves from where we bury the adults. Babies, we stack it ten high in a grave. We bury people of all ages.

It was not a job that affected me; it was just a job. The sad part about it, though, your being identified by number.

Workshop 5

Today’s prompt: The Fall. Maybe you want to tell a story that takes place in Autumn. Or you could interpret “the fall” to mean something else. Wrote for 15 minutes. Let people continue writing if they wanted to. Those that were finished shared their work and we responded to it.

Most people read, gave each other positive feedback. Then, we wrote for a second round. Participants could choose from two prompts: Who’s afraid of the dark, and trick or treat?

Before we read the second round, we discussed the mentor text, an excerpt from Piri Thomas’ memoir, Down these Mean Streets. Joe commented that he didn’t like the text, others agreed that it lacked realism. We talked about writing for different audiences.  Sometimes when you write for a reader that doesn’t know, I explained, you sacrifice some of the realism. We talked about the difference between the protagonist and the narrator- the character you were then, versus the character you are today. Sometimes, and sometimes as a result of our writing, we become a completely different character— older and wiser.

We might feel like completely different people at times— and in some ways we are; but in some ways we’re still the same.


What Happened to Belinda in the Fall
By Belinda

Like two years ago, I'm pretty sure it happened in the month of October. I was walking up and down through the hoe stroll and I see this guy but I really don't pay much attention to him. All I know is that he is looking at me and asks me what I'm doing. I say, "Nothing, just trying to make some money."
"How much money you trying to make?"
I say, "Well, like forty or fifty dollars."
Real quick, but really quick he said, "Ok, that sound good. Would a blow job work?"
I said, "Hell yeah."
So anyway we walk to the park, and I do notice that he had a limp. As we got deep in the park, I notice that he no longer had a limp.
All I know is that he was trying to choke me and I'm losing my air and thank God that I have a scraper. I take the scraper and I try to stab him whoever, just so I can stop him from hurting me.
It happened in the fall.

The Fall
By Christopher Vonderlieth

I remember counting the loot we just got from the robbery. About $160 give or take. But being dope sick and broke, it was more like $160,000. Straight to East NY to get high. About three months later, big ole scene with the cops. I felt like I was Gotti, the cops kept high giving and patting each other on the back, saying "good work." To make a short story shorter, my offer went from 11 flat to 9 flat to 7 flat to 5. I jumped on the five. I took the fall.

Workshop 4

Today’s class continued last week’s discussion of setting. We discussed how the setting is the story’s location and also the time when the story takes place. We talked about how, to create an atmosphere, a writer can use sensory details: sight, smell, feel/touch, feel/mood. A new group wrote on last week’s prompt: Describe a place you once lived.  Then, participants read their work. We wrote for another 15 minutes on another place we lived that was different than the first.

116 Sartoga Avenue and Halen Hays
By Jamal R.

In 1982 I was 12 years old. We moved to Yonkers, an Italian block. The majority of it was teenagers— my sister and I made lots of friends. I started hanging out with them and their friends. We used to make believe we were in school; instead we would cut school, go to the park and do things I was not allowed to do. I started getting into trouble. I was in the seventh grade.

In 1986, when I was 16 years old, I had a stroke and I became paralyzed. I couldn't feel my whole left side. They transferred me to a special hospital called Halen Hays Hospital. It is a rehabilitation for people who have had a stroke. I learned how to walk and eat right. I had to learn everything all over again. I was a lefty and I became a righty. They (the staff) made it fun for us. They had a school for sick kids, I met the New York Giants, went to Yankee games, they had barbecues— rain or shine. I was on the first floor for the kids only but I started hanging out with the grown ups on the second floor. I started smoking again.

Workshop 3

What is setting? Participant1: “Where the story takes place.” Exactly. The setting is the story’s location. It’s also the time when the story takes place. Time could be the time of day or year— the season— or the era. We used Times Square as an example of a setting. The location is the same, but the atmosphere is different depending on the time. Six p.m. On a Saturday night versus Six a.m. On a Sunday morning. Or, Times Square in the eighties versus Times Square now. To create an atmosphere, we discussed using sensory details: sight, smell, feel/touch, feel/mood. We wrote on the first prompt: Describe a place you once lived.  Participants read. Then, Participant2 read the mentor text: Puerto Rican Paradise. We discussed the two settings in the piece, Harlem in the 1940s, and Puerto Rico. We wrote for another 15 minutes on another place we lived that was different than the first.

Prompt: Describe a place you once lived.

"Growing Up at Home in London, England"
By Keith

I grew up in a valley outside of London. I recall the joy I had as a young child, playing on my family's property. I thought the whole world was full of tall trees and everywhere I looked it was green. I made my own make-believe forest with my friends, and it was like we owned the world in our minds. We would turn our playing into an adventure. I still think about it today, the wonderful times I shared with my friends growing up in a make-believe castle. I would not trade those memories for anything.

I spent a few months in Brooklyn some years ago, which was in the city, where I did not see a lot of trees. Mostly there was a lot of buildings cramped together, rats running around at night outside. Gunshots can be heard nightly as I tried to sleep, police sirens can be heard in the distance almost always. Now this was no doubt a grown-up world. There was no room for my imagination to be present at this time. Things were just so real from when I woke until I slept.

Workshop 2

Class started with an exercise, Write about a character that goes against the grain. After five minutes, I introduced the day's topic, character. We discussed the ways a writer can show character. Physically - how they dress, what they look like. Personality, Background - what happened to them in the past, Speech. We discussed how a writer can speculate as to what motivates the character to behave the way they do. What do they love and hope for? What do they hate or fear? We read excerpt from Jamaica Kincaid’s book, My Brother. The section we looked at profiled the author’s mother. What do we learn about this character from the excerpt? Participant1: “Overbearing!” How did the author show that, without using the word? Discussed concrete versus abstract words. Concrete words are the words you experience with your senses. Abstract words are conceptual- words you experience only in the mind. “Abstract words are adjectives” Participant1 offered. And concrete words? “Nouns.” Kincaid shows us her mother is overbearing with concrete examples- chewing the food for her children, sucking the snot out of their noses when the child has a cold, but acting harsh and unsympathetic when the child in grown. “We think she’s caring and kind at first,” Participant2 said, “but then we get a bigger picture.” Participant3, too, commented on how more and more is revealed. Ultimately, the piece is about motherhood, and love- not just Jamaica Kincaid’s mom but mothers in general. How was the character revealed? We went back to our notes, and all the ways a character can be revealed. Discussed the mother’s speech. Some speculated that the character might be less educated because she used slang, “yam up yo food” but Participant3 recognized the expression as West Indian.

Following this, participants wrote on a second prompt: Tell a story about a character that was not who they said they were. Before writing, there was some discussion of what this means. The easy examples are a con artist or hustler. “Someone who was fronting,” Participant1 offered. Exactly. After we wrote for 20 minutes, most shared their work. Discussed how it is not uncommon for a character to present themselves as one thing, but be something else. Everybody’s got a back story, lots of people have something they’d rather hide.

The Kingfisher
By Kurt S.

Margie and I were working in New Jersey, backwoods assisting in building condos for the Gene Movahill Golf Course. The project manager and his lovely wife (she was really a bitch) hired one of the painters to assist in the opening of a restaurant (a total failure). Sam, as we knew him, was 5'10," white, educated, a crackhead (as we came to find out later) and a painter.

Sam was a good painter. He worked his way into the project manager's graces until Sam was driving his white Chevy truck.

One day they sent Sam to Paterson to pick up furniture with $1500 cash and he never returned. The lovely wife of the PM called the NJ State troopers and came to find out that Sam was wanted for kidnapping. He had abducted a woman, stolen her car, put her in the trunk and drove her around using her money card for almost two days. While attempting a stop he tried to run over a NJ Trooper in trying to escape.

Two weeks later Margie and I saw Sam on Americas Most Wanted. He was later arrested in NYC while trying to shoplift mayo and tuna.

Sam was not who we thought he was.

Workshop 1

Round II of Becoming Writers at the Washington Heights CORNER Project began with a writing exercise: Write about a first time that changed you. After we had written, all participants read their work. Discussed the elements of memoir as people shared what they had written. Discussed how memoirists utilize the elements of fiction to tell a true story. Pointed out examples that we saw in the writers’ work, such as the construction of scenes with dialogue and sensory details. We talked about reflection and the reflective voice, which is quintessential to memoir, and how our lives situations tell a larger story; it is one of our jobs as memoirists to underscore the larger ideas or themes the moments of our life illuminate.

“Do you find that people open up in their writing?”  One participants asked. Yes! I teach writers of all stripes and from all walks of life— everybody’s got a story, and sometimes our writing is the place we go “deep.” Discussed how writing can be therapeutic— “but it’s not therapy,” I said. Our task is to not just change the way we feel but to produce writing that emotionally connects to a reader, that communicates our experience and our ideas, that can potentially change people’s minds and make them see the world in a different way. I pointed out how memoir is not a person’s whole life story; rather, it is one story. One story— even a couple sentences can tell a lot.

Class went on, as we made a list of “first” — situations in our lives that told a larger story, that held a greater significance. We read our lists aloud and then chose one situation from our lists for a second round of writing. When we’d finished, I read the first couple pages of Piri Thomas’ memoir, Down these Mean Streets, which was a scene describing the first time he ran away from home.  Then, participants read what they had written.

Prompt: Write about a "first" that changed you. 

The First Time I Smoked Crack

By Patty 

The first time I smoked crack I was with a group of guys that I used to hang and drink with in the local neighborhood bar. We were all at my friend Jeff's studio apartment. It was Jimmy, Matt, Tiffie, Jeff and myself, sitting around the table listening to music, drinking and doing some lines. Next thing you know Jimmy passes me a pipe and I take a hit. I thought it was weed but I quickly realized it was far from it. 

I remember telling them guys to adjust the radio because I'm hearing static but soon found out it was the effects of crack cocaine. I can remember feeling euphoric and more sociable. I liked the feeling so much that it soon sent me off to the races. That was my first experience with crack and it sent me on a thirty year search trying to capture that feeling again. Needless to say I never did. Ultimately, it destroyed two-thirds of my life. 

My First Publication

By Blueyz

The first story I wrote was for my second grade class. The best three stories were going to be published in a short story book. I remember being really excited and knew I had to come up with something great. 

I decided to write about something close to me in my life, my dog! I wrote a fictional story about my dog saving my life from a pack of wolves in the forest of Pennsylvania. I gave as much detail as I could for an eight year old writing a short story. When the day came for class to find out the winners, I didn't really think I would be one of them. When they said my name for the second plea winner I was shocked and happy.  

I received a certificate for a young authors award and a place in a book. I don't know the name of the book nor did I ever see my story again. They kept all of the copies of the book and I never got the book. 

Today I received a book of short stories and I'm in it. I feel good about it and can't wait to show my family.   

Blueyz first story appeared in our first anthology, CORNER Stories: Writings by the Washington Heights CORNER Project Community BUY CORNER STORIES HERE [http://www.cornerproject.org/donate/store/]