1-Annie Lamott’s Short Assignments and Shitty First
Drafts http://hhh.gavilan.edu/ecrook/1A.fall.2005/Lamott.htm are
short chapters from her longer book on writing, Bird by Bird.
In Short Assignments, Lamott cautions writers to
start small (a one inch frame) and not let the BIG PROJECT (in this case your
longer profile paper) paralyze you from beginning at all.
So your first short assignment is to gather and record
observations about the person, group, place/event that you plan on profiling in
the longer profile paper due at the end of week 4.
From there you move on to the first draft and In Shitty
First DraftsLamott assures writers that we all write less than stellar
first drafts, and worrying about it by procrastinating does not change that
fact.
Post here any other specific recommendations or insights
YOU’VE gained from either/both of these two pieces.
2-New Yorker Profiles: Remnick
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The weekly New Yorker is often credited with creating the
modern profile piece. David Remnick is the current editor of the New
Yorker and is interviewed here: http://storyboard.tumblr.com/post/27833267196/the-art-of-the-profile-with-david-remnick-of-the
What one piece of advice on insight on profile writing
did you find most helpful?
Mine? “If you’re self satisfied all of the
time you’re probably a bad writer” (context–revision and writing go hand
in hand, and to a writer, you could always have done better).
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3-NYT–lives lived
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Select any one profile from the most recent year’s NYT Lives
Lived series http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/12/25/magazine/2014-the-lives-they-lived.html
and comment upon something or someTHINGS that you learned of interest
about the person.
Here you might choose someone who you EITHER thought you
knew well but learned something different OR you could pick someone about whom
you knew little and now wished you had followed them more closely while alive.
Some of the “profiles” in this series only
give headlines with very little text; however, if you type in the same names of
these people and add NYT Obituary, you will get a fuller profile,complete
with audio or video files, etc. For example:
Here is the NYT obit for:
Maya Angelou http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/29/arts/maya-angelou-lyrical-witness-of-the-jim-crow-south-dies-at-86.html?_r=0
Phillip Seymour Hoffman http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/03/movies/philip-seymour-hoffman-actor-dies-at-46.html
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