omg help....i suffering writers block and i have to e-mail this

[ElsewheresDaughter]

essay to prof tomorrow morning :scared: PLEASE get me started?
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE???

I"M BLOCKED even though i watch the film twice i can't get started ...DAMN DAMN DAMN...please HELP? get me started here

essay on Going Upriver: How this was a reflection of all Americans at that time - the war-... what changed his opinion on the war and his views"

[Mojambo]

1. Relax

Tension does NOT remove Writer's block.

I find that I get going better if I walk around the room while I'm looking for my start.

Start by listing as many different types of people that were involved in that whole time.

Young college kids, WW2 and Korean Vets, Housewives, the poor, the affluent etc...

Then write short paragraphs describing what their point of view might have been during the conflict (and what events might have changed this opinion) and try and integrate Kerry into it.

That's how I'd look to start...

[maine_raptor]

2. Idea

"How this was a reflection of all Americans at that time - the war-... what changed his opinion on the war and his views"

One name and easy to research:

Walter Cronkite

For a lot of middle americans, he was a trustworthy source of news and opinion. When he changed his mind, LBJ is said to have remarked that he had lost the home front.

Tet Offensive in early 1968 (approx time of film (not sure, haven't seen it yet), was what did it for him.

Hey, it's an idea, just follow his changes.

Good luck

[MercutioATC]

3. It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.

I just made that up. Feel free to use it.

:evilgrin:

Seriously, just do something completely different for a half hour or so. Take a shower. Go for a walk. Listen to really loud music. That's what always worked for me.

[henslee]

8. Has a nice ring. Can I use that?

[seventhson]

4. Going Upriver: How the Kerry experience reflected America's changing

views on the Vietnam War.

At the beginning of the Vietnam War America was told that this was a necessary police action to protect the Vietnamese people from Communism, to help them establish or preserve a democracy and to prevent the domino theory from playing out.

As it turned out, the war was a mistake, the excuses were a lie and the war was an unwinnable proposition which left 58,000 Americans and more than a miullioin Vietnamese dead.

Kerry started out (at Yale) with the idea that the war may be a mistake, but he nobly went to do his duty to try to accomplish the goals as he was told they were.

He discovered, as America did, that the war was poorly conducted, was tragically wasting human lives, was a brutal exercise in futility , and was a war which required opposition on the homefront.

What America believed at the beginning (that it was a noble and just cause) became overwhelmed by the actual experience of the war: the death and destruction and immorality and war crimes (Mylai, for example), the death toll, the amputees, the civilian deaths and atrocities, demonstrated that the REAL war for justice and right and democracy was HERE in America.

Feel free to use whatever you want and go from there...

[shraby]

5. The drug culture figured prominently

in Vietnam. Many young men were introduced to drugs then. In small town America drugs weren't a problem until the mid 1970s or so.

[seventhson]

6. That has nothing to do with the subject

and I disagree as to the time frame. Drugs were prevalent in small towns in the 60's.

It is not even a factor in the issue of the war. Not at all.

[DrZeeLit]

7. Do you have art supplies or different color markers?

I find that if I get a big piece of butcher paper and some different color felt markers, I can get out of any block.

Color seems to free up the mind. Start writing words or shapes all over the page. Link them, box them, circle them. Whatever you feel like doing. Draw little figures. Whatever.

The key is to turn off the little voice inside that judges everything. Give it a rest. Tell it to take a break. Put anything on the paper at all. It doesn't matter.

Doodle and wander. Close your eyes. Write any image that you remember from the film. Write any words that you heard in the film. Write any feelings you had when you watched the film. Doesn't matter what they were. Just flow for a while. And have fun with it. Fill up the page, switch colors, play.

When you feel "done" then go take a break. Leave the page out of your sight. Take a shower. Or walk around the block, around the house, whatever gives you a breather.

Then come back and look at what you composed. Start analyzing your words, boxes, lines. Make connections. See patterns.

Then begin to type. Type a draft without JUDGMENT. Again, you have to turn off that little voice inside that bugs you. Just ask it to leave for an hour. Type (or if you write by hand) without worrying about grammar, punctuation, spelling, paragraphs -- worry about nothing. Just write.

Then, take another break. Shower. Walk. You know the drill.

Print the page. Mark it up like you are slashing prices at Walmart. Use a red pen or some color that will be vivid. Circles, arrows, additions, move, shift, delete. Add stuff by writing on the back.

Then type again. This time pay more attention, and follow your marked up draft.

Lather, rinse, repeat. You'll get real good at those walks. Or your hair will be realllly clean from the showers.

Sometime down the line you'll have a reasonable draft. Then, and only then, do you work on grammar and that lot.

I promise this will work.
I'm an English professor.
I do this for a living.
If you need more help, I'm an email away.

Kerry On!

[Nevernose]

9. Capitalize your pronouns

But that's just me. I'm an asshole, so what do I know?

[qnr]

10. Ask the freepers, then answer exactly the opposite? j/k n/t

[seventhson]

11. So How did it go

did we help???

[ElsewheresDaughter]

12. i'm just finishing up and i will post what i wrote on Going Upriver as

soon as i e-mail it to my prof...you guys were a tremendous help...:loveya: cyn

[ElsewheresDaughter]

14. okay done with is my essay on Going Upriver..thanks for the tips on

getting rid of my "writers block"


Let me start out by saying that I am 52 years old, and although I have always voted in the past I have never been what some would call “politically active,” this is until now. The events of the last four years have awakened me, just as it has awakened many others of my generation. We can no longer just absent mindedly cast our ballots and go about our merry ways, letting those we have voted for declare wanton wars and kill in our names.

The film Going Upriver opens with a recount of the early childhood of Senator John Kerry and his college years spent at Yale. The documentary then turns to his enlistment into the U.S. Navy, and his career as the commander of a swift boat during the Vietnam War. His shipmates give their accounts of the events that they saw in Vietnam. One man named Rassmann tells how after being blown over board from a blast, a wounded John Kerry saved his life by turning the speeding swift boat around and pulling him from the river while under heavy fire. Two other crewmen recall how John Kerry beached the boat, pursuits on foot, and kills a Vietnamese sniper who was armed with a rocket propelled grenade launcher. These two events earned John Kerry two metals, a Silver Star and a Purple Heart. Another shipmate states that swift boats had an average casualty rate of 75% and that on some portions of the river it was as high as 90%.

John Kerry came to see the ugliness and the horrible injustices of “free fire zones” which meant that all persons remaining within them - civilians, old people, women and children – were considered the enemy and killed at will. During the “search and destroy” missions all males of military age were killed, the huts and fields in the villages were burned, and the livestock was destroyed. These types of military actions did not fit into Kerry’s code of moral decency.

The Tet Offensive was the pivotal point of the Vietnam War making Kerry realize that he and the American people had been misled by the government, misled into fighting in a war that achieved very little at too great a cost - 8,000 wounded and 1,500 U.S. soldiers dead.

On his return back home, John Kerry found himself in the middle of a deeply divided America. There were anti-war protests in the streets of most major cities. The counter culture was in full swing; demonstrations were taking place on hundreds of college campuses across America. It was apparent that the American people were ready for change. John Kerry saw that he was not alone in his misgivings of the injustice of the war. He joined the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), and after earning the respect of these veterans he soon became their spokesman. Listening to the accounts of these men and what they had experienced – the atrocities committed in Vietnam, Kerry was determined to bring their issues to the attention of the nation’s lawmakers on Capital Hill and the White House itself. Eventually Kerry was invited to appear before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations where spoke for 2 hours and asked the questions, “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?” This speech was instrumental in convincing lawmakers that ending this pointless war was a necessity. While this speech endeared him to many of the people in the anti-war movement, it also created enemies for Kerry both on Capital Hill and within the Nixon White House.

I found that Going Upriver has many chilling parallels to the times we live in today - Iraq. I am of the opinion that if given the chance on November 2nd John Kerry will once again be instrumental in putting America on the right path.

[da_chimperor]

13. Write a good outline first

I always do that. Make it fairly detailed. It will take some time, but you'll most likely save time at the end having all your thoughts and points organized before you even start writing. Good luck!