| Home |
 |
Web Icons |
|
A provocative statement So I'm sitting here with my scholarship application, trying to come up with an appropriate piece of writing and cursing my career choice. I mean, sure, you occasionally find a "writer" who, by trade, cranks out these personal essays with considerable success: Didion and Dillard come immediately to mind, with a few others trailing behind. But some of the most successful essayists are not writers by trade. They are, instead, people with other jobs, skills, and careers, who happen also to be able to write. Come to think of it, in a contest between a writer who can write and, say, a scientist who can write just as well, I'll bet on the scientist every time. Chances are that, since the scientist knows how to write, she's also read extensively, which is the basis not only for good writing skills but also for material to write about. After all, a writerly scientist can always write about her own experiences, or what’s going on in her field, or any number of other things. But a writer's only "field" is writing, and writing about writing is about as deadly as spoiled mushrooms. —Doug Downs, "Funny Careers," unpublished student essay | ||
A quotation Heard melodies are sweet,
but those unheard I'm becoming resigned to my fate. All my life, it seems, there's been a song playing in my head. I'd describe it to you if I could, but if I could, then I'd be able to write it as well, and earn contentment. Oh, I could play you parts of it; maybe I could even recite some of the words. But since I only hear it best when I'm failing particularly badly at playing it, I can't exactly capture it on a tape recorder. And so Keats's soft pipes do indeed play on, but of course only I can hear them. —Doug Downs, "Harmonies of the Mind," unpublished student essay | ||
A startling fact The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor killed about 3,000 Americans. On the day before the anniversary, the Institute of Medicine released a report that states doctors and hospitals kill 44,000 to 88,000 Americans per year by mistake. —Charley Reese, The Orlando
Sentinel, 7 Dec., 1999, A12 | ||
A detailed description The creek that runs behind our old, brick farmhouse roars with raging waters during a hard rain and trickles slowly on a calm day. Today, as I set foot into the cool, murky water, it is a picture perfect scene. I have to catch myself as the slimy algae oozing through my toes causes me to slip. Rocks tickle the bottoms of my feet and I begin to feel fish biting at my ankles. Looking down, I see hundreds of little fish rushing by, trying to figure out what is interrupting their race downstream. Bugs zoom around on top of the water like miniature ski boats. As I continue my journey upstream, I begin to remember the good times the creek has provided. If the creek could talk, it would have many stories to tell of lazy afternoons spent with my sisters. —Cynthia Wiles, "Mystical
World," Journey 1996, Southeast | ||
A detailed description/ problem/ provocative statement Two more swipes of the rag, a pull at the drain plug, and I step away from the sink, the dishes done for another night. On the way back to the computer for another hands-in-hair, teeth-on-lips session with my master's thesis, I pause in the cramped passage that counts as our apartment’s hallway. A picture hangs there. The youth in it looks a lot like me-long face, plain brown hair, chicken-pox scar beside the left eye, tall and skinny. I’m always surprised how much that person still looks like me, not just because nearly seven years have passed since it was taken (a pretty large chunk of a 25-year-old life), but because I never quite know whether or not I am that person anymore. — Doug Downs, "Who I Am," unpublished student essay | ||
A personal anecdote A few years ago, I was trampling the rugged back country with my faithful 4X4, The Beast. Actually, the adventure didn't start out that way. When it started, I was on a nice dirt road. But then this pair of tracks shot off to the right. I'm not going to brandish any Frost, because I honestly didn't think of anything about roads not taken, though I immediately assumed this one was less traveled by because it was passable only in a vehicle with the singular qualities of The Beast. (A challenge. Stupidity often starts that way.) —Doug Downs, "People,
Stupidity, and God," Journey 1996, | ||
An analogy If a pen is mightier than a sword, is a 1.5 Ghz, 256-meg RAM computer with a DSL internal modem more powerful than, say, your average intercontinental ballistic missile? Hummm . . . let us look at the potentials here. . . . —Trae Lockhart, "A
Hack’s Musings, or the Pen and the Sword, | ||
|