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Change with the Change: Writing Advice for trying times

April 27, 2020 by Sara Nolan Leave a Comment

A story about dying is always a familiar story, right? The ultimate change challenge? “They are dying!” I said, like this was a surprise or needed pointing out. The daffodils, poster girls for Spring, now looked like used latex gloves* on stubbornly green stems.  My mother gave us the bunch early in self-isolation, soon after New York City had gone into lockdown. She cut them from the ruthless crop in her yard, as she did every spring when they briefly appeared. When my husband dropped off ice cream and Lysol spray (pandemic essentials), she sent them home for us--my husband, our 22 month old and our 4 year old-- to bring the outside in. The daffodils made me cry because they work. They are the symbol of arrival and transience, and they live and die boldly and quickly. They were also, very simply, from my mother. At that moment, my belly was ribboned with anxiety that she and my father, too, were facing imminent COVID transience. I imagined what so many are experiencing: final separation from us in an overwhelmed and handicapped hospital system.  The fear for my parents, the longing to cling, flared up: is it ridiculous cling to summer’s bounty when autumn has already dusted the trees of their leaves? For how long can you save that last blueberry before it shrivels?  But despite my contrafactual wish otherwise, die the daffodils did. I did not want to look at a dying thing on my table but I equally did not want to throw them out. Problem.  Turn it into Art & Make Your Meaning So I dried them. I turned them upside down, bound their stems with a rubber band, and hung them from a random nail on the wall with a garbage twisty-tie.  Their vibrant yellow faded, their vibrant green went dormant inside an unremarkable brown. But they did not rot, and they became something else beautiful. Something I could keep.  I know, snooze, a story about daffodils drying. But stay with me here.  Days later, my  Continue Reading …

Filed Under: Integrity, Parents, State of Mind, Uncategorized, Wisdom, Writing Tips Tagged With: meaning, parents, reflective writing, stress reduction, writing advice

The college essay that got me into Brown

June 27, 2017 by Sara Nolan

I wanted Brown badly I wanted to go to Brown University because all my favorite people from high school went there, many of them writers; I wanted to go to Brown because I knew there students had autonomy over course selection and I was used to picking for myself.  I wanted to go to Brown because...it felt like a natural fit. And because I drank the elitist cool-aid, sorta. I didn't exactly approach the process with an open mind, more like a targeted mind that was open to me getting what I wanted most... "I can see myself there!" I said.  And so said everyone else.  Sometimes, everyone else's predictions for you feel annoying.  But it's most annoying-- and probably also most accurate-- to imagine that all of that conviction could be irrelevant.  Continue Reading …

Filed Under: Destiny, Parents, Stories, Uncategorized, Writing Tips Tagged With: Brown University, college essay, finding a topic, meaning, my story, writing process

Your topic? Your Triscuit!

December 31, 2016 by Sara Nolan

"Can't Find a Topic" Blues Many young writers panic because you can't "find an essay topic" before the obnoxious January college essay deadlines. I can feel the fireworks in your belly and your rational brain turned to champagne. But the writer has allies in all kinds of places.  The humble greasy Triscuit will be your guide in the story I share below. It starts with reading...someone else's topic  First, reading good writing almost always shakes me out of the topic draught. It will do the same for you, wherever you get your fix. Triscuits don't come running when your mind is tight. A good topic often only comes when you aren't groping madly for something to say. At 5AM this morning, trying not to drop my phone on my sleeping baby in the dark, I read a former Essay Intensive student's engrossing personal essay draft, saturated with childhood memories. If you like knowing pedigree-- She went first to Columbia University, then to Pomona, and now left school again to flex her writing muscles in the free world. Reading her talented, bad-ass work always makes me have that itch to write. She wrote certain flash scenes from her childhood with deft attention to image-- a blanket on her mother's shoulders, a tune they always played in the car, a certain food they shared after arguments passed. And her images gave my mind a shove hard into my own.  What childhood images had stuck for me? Which might have messages for me, decades later? And suddenly the dark Triscuit stood there, insulted it had taken me that long. Triscuit Triggers Before I was afraid of cheese, I loved Triscuit crackers with melted cheddar.  The cheddar was sharp.  The Triscuit was oily and crunchy, the household cabinet equivalent of movie popcorn.  They looked hardy, whole-grain-ish-- to a fool. Triscuit crackers arrived in their glowing yellow box on the snack scene before the Gluten Villain scared all orthorexic people from the grocery store's cracker aisle. And my mom, who was  Continue Reading …

Filed Under: Solutions, Stories, Uncategorized, Writing Tips Tagged With: association, childhood, college essay, food, meaning, memories, personal, topic

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At Essay Intensive, we are listening for the Big Challenging Questions to arise–physically, mentally and emotionally. We jump, word-ninja style, at the chance to be stimulated and engage in a true conversation.

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