Sunday, April 3, 2011

Brainstorming...I guess that is what this is today

I hate when I have to write an essay and I don't know what to say. I know what I want to talk about, but it just isn't going in the direction I want it to go. For my teaching writing class, we have to write an essay or a creative non-fiction piece about...anything! That's what I hate. I want more direction.

Anyway, I am writing about the Orphan Train. I thought I would write about this because I feel it is something important in history (and in my life) and no one really knows about it. Basically, in New York, they established this train that took orphaned and neglected children out to the Midwest to new families. My great-grandfather and many of his siblings (he had a lot of siblings...his parents just didn't stop having kids) were put onto the Orphan Train. They were brought out to the Midwest and he was taken in by a family in Maryville. He was 11 when this happened, so the family that took him permanently took him more as a farmhand than as a son. To me, that is really sad, but I guess that was just how it was. He was taken away from his real parents, where even though they were very poor, he probably felt loved and cared for and like a son. Then he gets sent here. He isn't poor any more, but he is treated more as a worker than a son. His new "parents" weren't as loving as real parents are, and he had to grown up with that for the rest of his life.

Anyway, I want to tell this story in a somewhat creative, somewhat informative way, but I don't want it to be boring. I don't want it to be an autobiography of his life. I want it to be more than that. So, I am banging my head up against a wall trying to come up with an idea. (Okay, really, I am checking in on Facebook all of the time and peering out the window wishing I was outside.) I just don't know what to write. I have it started, but am not happy with it. Hopefully venting about it through writing will help.

1 comment:

  1. You should post your papers so I can read them! Yes, that's a good idea!

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