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Use the Present for your essay conclusion

September 7, 2016 by Sara Nolan

Library books with the sun present

Where does the present fit in to your college essay? During the application process, you need to think and talk about your past-- where you came from, how you got this way-- and the future-- where you're headed, what you hope for.  It's never bad to take stock like this, even if, in four years, your thinking is completely different. But the present has a very important role to play in your essay content, so read on. Good storytelling (which you should definitely practice in your essay) allows for flexible or fluid interpretation.  No one will chase you down with your college essay when you are 25 and doing something completely different from what you predicted and say, "BUT YOU SAID IT WAS LIKE THIS?! YOU SAID YOU WANTED/CARED ABOUT THIS!" Don't worry about reducing your future to one personal quality or goal.  Instead, stay present. What does that mean?  It's kinda simple. You can't just write about that important thing that happened to you and call the essay done. Tune into yourself, and use the last third of your essay to show your reader what you're like, now.  How that important event or story relates to your current self--your actions, engagements, and mindset. Make Your Past Relevant to the Present Your entire past led up to this moment, this person, this character-- you. You picked just a slice of it to share with your readers, and in a well-told story you highlighted something about yourself, some personal characteristic you made real for us, worthy of our attention. But how is that trait an important part of your life, right this very minute? For example: were you a picky kid, who didn't like to wear socks in the winter, or who wanted notebooks of only a certain color?  Well, maybe the present you has a high tolerance for adverse weather, or loves things other people find challenging, or has a fine sense of design, or maybe you advise those other kids who never seem to know what to buy (that was me, thank you!), and that's your  Continue Reading …

Filed Under: Practice, Solutions, Uncategorized, Wisdom, Writing Tips Tagged With: character trait, college essay writing, conclusion, Present, story-telling

Free-writing for your college essay content? Yes!

May 18, 2016 by Sara Nolan

pencil shavings from free-writing

I'm a big believer in guided free-writing for students: Just when you think you have nothing to write about for your college essay (or generally!), BOOM, a subject appears from the back of your mind. It's like magic: awesome, repeatable and yours if you want it. Free-writing helps young writers produce freely I watched this magic happen again this weekend in Chicago, at JPMorgan Chase The Fellowship Initiative. We convened on the 56th floor of the company skyscraper, where I offered my intro to the college essay workshop (a sizzling title!) meant to fire up the Fellows' creative circuits. The offices sported a dizzying, commanding view of miniaturized downtown, Big Ole Lake Michigan, and a huge sky. The view itself said, "We own this!"  Exactly how I hope the students come to feel about their college essays. Exactly where the productive power of free-writing can get you.  Continue Reading …

Filed Under: Practice, Questions, State of Mind, Uncategorized, Writing Tips Tagged With: college essay writing, Creativity, Free-writing, free-writing prompts, prompts, start your college essay, stress

Free-writing prompts to find your college essay topic

May 12, 2016 by Sara Nolan

Hand free-writing essay in notebook

Non-stop exploratory free-writing for your best college essay material You know something good is happening in a college admissions essay-writing workshop when 29 teenage boys have their hands tight to the paper, free-writing with a fervor usually reserved for Mortal Kombat. (They may not know writing actually is a form of Mortal Kombat!) This is exactly what went down last weekend at JP Morgan Chase The Fellowship Initiative, where I was lucky enough to share free-writing exercises for my newest cohort of students. These fellows are selected for the Fellowship based on the strength of their dreams and the qualities of their character to help change the professional landscape for young men of color.  What better way to amplify this mission, this visibility, than with their words? We started like I always start: with the freedom and exploration of free-writing.  I'm sharing the free-writing prompts to help you dig for your college essay material. If you haven't done this before, first read the rules below, then respond to the writing prompts that follow.  What you write just might lead you to a rich, authentic topic for your application essay. Note! These are just two of the prompts we used at the workshop.  We have many, many, many more upon request. Parents and teachers-- you can try these exercises too. Rules for free-writing: Write automatically and non-stop for a set period of time. Set a timer.  Follow wherever your mind goes without censoring or policing and write it all down, even if it seems unrelated, random or unexpected. Do like you would on the ball court and don’t stop moving (your hand on the page). Only reread or make changes once you are done (when the timer goes off!). Free-writing Prompt 1   (3-4 min) "I am an invisible man...I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids—and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me." ---Ralph  Continue Reading …

Filed Under: Feedback, Practice, Questions, Uncategorized, Writing Tips Tagged With: anecdote, Free-writing, workshop, writing prompts

Your college essay and more in 10 minutes

March 29, 2016 by Sara Nolan

Is this yet another "improve my life in 10-minutes" BS pitch? No.  We don't play with your minutes here. But we want you to get the most out of your time. So-- do you have 10 minutes to spare? (If you're reading this, you probably have 10 minutes. Admit it.  Stop checking your Facebook Feed.) (Everyone has 10 minutes.) But the problem is: what's the most important thing to do-- right now? How should you spend those precious minutes? Here's our recommendations. Determine what you need, first. Need to open up and calm down? Check out this guided meditation from Tara Brach. (It's 10 minutes-ish. Thanks for your generous meditations, Tara Brach!) Need to work out on the sly? Check out this "Quiet Workout." (It's 10 minutes-ish. Modify as needed. Thanks for these original quickies, pop sugar!) Need to say something about something? We recommend-- assess your energy level, consider options 1 and 2 above, hydrate, and then... Freewrite Get your writing instrument/implement of choice: Sit your butt down or stand your butt up. (Don't have a standing desk? DIY with a crate placed on top of a table, or by working on a kitchen counter). Set a timer for 10 minutes. (See? We're precise!) And write about what makes you mad. Without stopping. (Thank you, writing guru Don Murray). Or try this writing prompt, from Ted Ed: A genie grants you three tiny wishes. What are they? (Thank you, TED.  You are so full of useful randomness. Want more prompts?) Help, I really don't have 10-minutes! The multi-taskers version. Even though multi-tasking has been proven as neurological BS (You're uni-tasking, in quick succession, and with crappy outcomes), sometimes we need to layer up.  Especially if we really only have 10 minutes. In that case we suggest: Do the Tara Brach meditation while you are on the toilet or taking a shower. Do the workout while returning a phone call to someone who will understand if you are out of  Continue Reading …

Filed Under: Exercise, Practice, Questions, Solutions, State of Mind, Uncategorized Tagged With: 10-minutes, college essay, desire, Don Murray, emotion, freewriting, home workout, mediation, multi-tasking, Pop Sugar, Tara Brach, Ted Ed, writing prompts

Powerful People Pause

March 14, 2016 by Sara Nolan

The "fail" pause and the perfect pause I start almost every essay support session asking students to read-aloud their college essay drafts, and for most it's like asking them to read the omens in my baby's dirty diapers. I can't count the number of times my students lower their eyes and barrel through the read-aloud, with nary a pause. Well, that's not true: they take one pause at the beginning, the "fail" pause, and the last and only time they'll inhale for the duration of their read. A puree of words, no connection to the audience (me), no pacing to measure impact or resonance. I can hardly hear them, and they can hardly hear themselves. They zoom through the read, like the Dalai Lama will condemn them to Samsara, or Obama exile them from the US, if they take too long or stumble on a sentence. (That's why DL and BO are sitting up there in the photo looking so compassionate, right guys?). Lose me or hold me? By contrast, my Whole Heart Connection teacher, Thea Elijah, can hold a whole room with her pause. Nobody snickers, squirms, or gets nervous.  No one checks their phone or doubts her credibility. The silence is not awkward.  It is very very very full. Everyone just waits for her to begin speaking again. How come? Two kinds of pauses Thea describes it this way: there are two kinds of pauses.  There is the pause where the speaker disconnects from the room (the audience), goes inside, and gets lost in their own stuff.  They have "lost touch with the field" (i.e. the rest of us. Hellooooooooo, come back!). But then there is the very different kind of pause where the speaker stays connected to the room (the audience) but stops speaking long enough to check-in inside. Like an energetic, mighty octopus, the speaker is still completely aware and part of  "the needs and the nature of field" (i.e. the rest of us). The first kind of pause is the lost cause.  You can make a come-back from it, but basically you've given your audience a  Continue Reading …

Filed Under: Exercise, Integrity, Practice, State of Mind, Uncategorized, Wisdom Tagged With: audience, college essay, communication, Dalai Lama, Obama, Pause, read aloud, Reading, Speaker, Thea Elijah, Whole Heart Connection

Crappy Moods, Comedians, and the Writer’s Cure

February 18, 2016 by Sara Nolan

Crappy moods: they happen. (Reader, are you straight-jacket-ed by a particularly crappy mood currently? Cut right to this Louis CK cure. Road-test the comedians' corrective. And come back to read the rest of this later.) Crappy moods are like reverse rainbows, showing up when weather conditions are darkly unfavorable in inner or outer environment or both. At their best, crappy moods facilitate discharge of the nastier emotions. and move on. You know the drill: kick your drawer shut, and break your own toe in the process.  Slam household items around.  Be snappy at those you love. Mope and mull. It's not usually a pretty picture. But Crappy Moods sometimes settle in like shower mildew, and can put a serious cramp in your creativity. Comedians: they help. Your Crappy Mood is an orchard ripe for picking for comedians, who can find the humor in anything-- the less seemingly funny it is, the better. Your irrational or irritable behavior is already slightly ridiculous to anyone who's not you. A comedian laughs not just with you, but at you. And you'll want them to. Because then you'll have to laugh at yourself, and this is the healthiest way to return to creativity, sanity, and general equilibrium. Let Joan Rivers explain Joan Rivers told Larry King, "I purposely go into areas that people are still very sensitive about and smarting about, because if you can laugh at it, you can deal with it. That's how I've lived my whole life. I swear to you - and I'm Jewish - that if I were in Auschwitz, I would have been doing jokes just to make it OK for us." But to deal with it, you have to know that it's there in the first place. Crap Under the Radar Crappy moods happen more frequently and more fiercely when something is bugging us just under the radar of our awareness. Some unaddressed stressor, or maybe a small mountain of them. Some factor out of our control, like whether or not-- emphasis on not-- our writing is universally loved. Or, more to the point  Continue Reading …

Filed Under: Practice, Solutions, State of Mind, Uncategorized, Wisdom Tagged With: Bad Mood, college essay, Comedian, Crappy Mood, Happiness, Joan Rivers, Laughing at Yourself, Laughter, Louis CK, Positive Health Benefits, Psychology Today, stress, Writing

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