As I thought about my response to this week’s Discussion prompt, I struggled through my typical drawn out laborious and painful process when it comes to writing. Though I have never lacked for imagination, I have often lacked an effective process to put what I have imagined into words. I run through the entire spectrum of emotions when writing: from imagining my words will string themselves together and form the greatest piece of prose I have ever written earning the praise of my professor and all my peers, to the doldrums of the undertaking where I read through what I have written and think, “Oh my God this is terrible and I really just need to throw this out and start over.” As I finished Marquez’s story, I was struck by the similarity of the village peoples own imaginative process when projecting possible existences onto Esteban. This led me to think, “Maybe this is exactly what Professor Conway was looking for us to draw upon after reading this essay?” That we should embrace the imaginative process of writing and like Esteban for the villagers, let our prose becomes exactly what our imaginations design. That our writing like Esteban is our blank slate and we can imagine it to be whatever we want or need it to be.
One thought on “Christopher Frerichs Week 1 Discussion”
Christopher, I love your description of your thought process. I think this story is about the power of stories to change and lives and perspectives. This, of course, as you note, is completely tied in with imagination.