What Are ‘Personal Essays’? | Week 2 Creative Non-Fiction Class
I recently joined a 6-week “Creative Non-Fiction” class with Gotham Writers in NYC. I love learning and I‘ve wanted to get back into writing. This class seems like the best of both worlds and a chance to find my voice outside of Academia again.
The first week of six was dedicated to Memoir. You can find my post here. This week was dedicated to Personal Essay. Below is simply a compilation of the exercises we did live in class plus the amount of time given for each. Besides the last one — the “homework” — I have not edited these outside of the timer. Feel free to try the same prompts!
Below:
- Best of Worst Part of Your Day (3 min exercise)
- Create a quick list of pet peeves, pick one, and write on why it bothers you (10 min exercise)
- Choose another or the same pet peeve from #2 and write about how it connects to a bigger issue. (10min)
- Play with voice by writing about that same pet peeve, but as if you’re telling it to a friend. (10min)
- HOMEWORK: A personal essay about something in your life that’s changed due to the pandemic (500 words)
1. Best of Worst Part of Your Day (3 min exercise)
The best part of my day was a feeling I’ve had many times before. It’s so specific that I’ve written it down with every detail. I attended a great conference today at a hotel near Times Square. After the cocktail hour, and a couple of glasses of wine, I walked home. Feeling good about myself and my work, walking through NYC, playing the right soundtrack, and a small buzz is one of the best feelings.
2. Create a quick list of pet peeves, pick one, and write on why it bothers you (10 min exercise)
- Chewing with open mouth sound
- Cars revving
- Horking/spitting sound
- People texting or talking in a movie
I hate when people rev their loud cars unnecessarily. I hate it to the point where I feel like I lose control of all my rational senses and I’m filled with instant rage. I cannot think of one other thing that causes me these same physical experiences. My System 2 thinking wants to say, “maybe they love their car” or “maybe it was a hand-me-down”, but my System 2 goes out the window and my System 1 emotions hate the driver. I live in a city, so where are you driving? Are you revving to move forward 4 feet?! Why do you need this attention?! Why can’t I live in peace?
When I think about it, the other pet peeves on my list are loud open-mouth chewing, horking, yelling, people making video calls in public, playing music in public, and people talking in movies. Apparently, I hate when people auditorily assault my ears unexpectedly. Huh.
3. Choose another or the same pet peeve from #2 and write about how it connects to a bigger issue. (10min)
[Cont’d from above]
Why do so many of my pet peeves have to do with sound? I suppose sound has been an important sense for me, for good and bad. I’m an auditory learner, which is great. I went to a performing arts high school for vocal music. I speak for a living. Hearing and creating sound is a part of my life in this respect. But too much of it unexpectedly, and I’m in rage mode.
I guess some might say it comes from childhood. For the first half of my childhood, my Mom was in a terrible relationship with a crappy Stepfather and they were ALWAYS yelling. I now shut down when people yell. Biologically speaking, loud noises are shown to bother the amygdala and release cortisol in people instantly.
But I think what really bothers me about people’s unexpected and loud unnecessary sounds is that we can’t turn off our ears. When someone auditorily assaults my ears by revving their stupid car or playing their music out loud in public, they take away my choice, and everyone else’s choice to have silence. Maybe in the end, it’s about choice, and not sound. Huh.
[Could be continued on the theme of choice]
4. Play with voice by writing about that same pet peeve, but as if you’re telling it to a friend. (10min)
I need to calm down. This MAN — I’m sorry but it’s always a MAN — is revving his stupid loud puke-green car so loud and he’s sent me into rage mode. Like, where are you speeding away to, Rick? You are in the middle of Toronto traffic, Rick. Who did not love you enough to make you need this attention from us mere pedestrians? I will love you, Rick, but can you pipe down now?
Okay, I’m good now. Sorry for being so mean, Rick, whoever you are… Haha.
5. A personal essay about something in your life that’s changed due to the pandemic (500 words)
“Duct-Taped Curtains”
I had a large black curtain that was from an old photography kit I owned. This would be the backdrop. But the stand that typically held up the curtain was too big for my bedroom, so I had to tape it to my wall. I tried packing tape first, but it wasn’t sticky enough and my curtain fell mid-session! Thank goodness it was out-of-frame and I could fix it while my students were in breakout rooms. So, duct tape it was! The duct tape took a bit of paint off of my white walls when I used it, but these were dire times! We could repaint after the pandemic.
My computer sat on top of a box that was on top of a kitchen counter stool. The camera was a Logitech webcam. While it wasn’t the best they had to offer, I’m glad I was keen enough to buy one before they sold out pretty quickly. My microphone was trickier. The Blue Snowball microphone was either placed on top of a pillow in my lap or stood on the laptop in such a way as to not press any keys and be just slightly out-of-frame, of course. This was my first pandemic virtual speaking setup.
I own a soft skills development company called SkillsCamp and before the pandemic, much of our program delivery took place in person. But when the pandemic hit, SkillsCamp’s upcoming workshops and my personal public speaking went from 100 to 0 in the span of a week. While we had always offered virtual programming options, they just weren’t asked for as much before. For the first 4–5 months of the pandemic, or what I call the “fear months”, clients were still concerned about being able to pay people, period. But by about August 2020, our programming was back in full swing, only this time, entirely virtual.
Inside the frame (what you can see through the camera lens), everything looked perfect, but outside of the frame, DIY chaos. This is, as we say, the magic of the movies. I know this because I actually started my career, and my Bachelor’s, was in film and television. More specifically, I worked in live, non-scripted television such as news broadcasting. This became very convenient when the pandemic hit. While mentors of mine were reminiscing about speaking in front of real people in the classroom or on stage, I was unpacking skills I didn’t know I’d need again in such a serious way. The 3-point lighting. The 3x3 framing of the shot. The audio setup. The exposure settings. And the “making it all work together” in a live production via Zoom or some other software. Knowing this language of film enabled me to broadcast great quality non-scripted content, which in my case just so happened to be soft skills learning. In fact, perhaps “Language of Film in Professional Communication” should be the next program I offer since most professional communication is heading to the screen anyways.
In the end, the tools may have changed for us to meet our mission, but we are still helping people develop the skills they need for personal and professional success. The tools will likely change forever, but if our “why” is strong enough, the tools will adapt, whether it’s the full virtual home studio setup my husband and I have now, or simply a curtain taped to a wall with duct tape.
