(The) Writer's Mind: The Superstition Lyric
Fictions are useful so long as they are taken as fictions. They are then simply ways of "figuring" the world which we agree to follow so that we can act in cooperation, as we agree about inches and hours, numbers and words, mathematical systems and languages...
(Watts, The Book 88)
While writing the superstition lyric, you are to attempt to compose at least FIVE challenging sentence types using this document.
In your draft, highlight the sentence you attempted, and in a comment, say what sentence type you attempted.
Our way into writing the lyric is to begin with trying to unravel what it means to say that
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In your attempt to write in response to this prompt, unravel the meaning of these contradictory statements for your addressee, who is NOT a member of this class.
That is, write in such way that brings your addressee to inquire after and confront what these statements concerning the nature of superstition might mean. Use examples to "unpack" it (unpack means: unravel its various possible meanings). You are to employ as many new sentence types as you can (at least 5). In your draft, highlight the sentence and add a comment indicating which type you attempted. How to Approach Writing ThisBegin in scene. Have the character-narrator reflect on the meaning of the statement given above by first trying to define "superstition." Use your immediate understanding of the word, with examples, but then move on to use a dictionary (such as the Oxford English Dictionary: OED) to find other suitable definitions of the word. Then examine the meaning of the definition using in scene narrative to explore possibilities, including even other words that might work within the "formula" given above.
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Then inquire after your superstitions, superstitions you have that you don't know you have. Have the character-narrator inquire into the meaning of superstition through unfolding the puzzle: “a superstition is a superstition only when it isn’t.” The character-narrator may or may not arrive at an “answer.” Indeed, she may find numerous contradictory answers, or merely suggest even more provocative questions.
Bring the character narrator to discover that what they consider their strength/quality to be, may be a superstition undistinguished as a superstition.
Note: someone who lives within a superstition--and who doesn't know it--might begin to notice the superstition if it suffers some sort of challenge--something the superstition does not account for, which may disrupt our everyday way of understanding something--that then may trigger a compensatory response. Simply put, a lyric inquiry takes an audience from one state--being right, looking good, and complacently already knowing who they are--to another state--one of uncertainty, risk, and wonder--through questioning what they know to be true and exposing the limits of the self in some way or other. One method to do so is to assume the point of view of someone who herself is undergoing such a challenging inquiry.
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