Creative Spark: MIT OCW Notes

Again, the desire to share my responses inspired further thoroughness, then, frustrated at the inability to 'properly' submit an assignment or view the submissions of others, I revisited every nook and cranny of the Creative Spark's site hoping I overlooked a forum, a transcript of lectures, something, anything, to imitate the dialogue the assignments so clearly hope to initiate.

I found nothing, and so my random scattershot shoot-sharing of homework assignments begins here, inflicting casualties indiscriminately, on the eyes of innocents, of readers seeking no artistic spark, and it appears it will continue indefinitely, until I, the wanna-be literary shooter, run out of will or ammunition, and turn the barrel on myself, or am apprehended by the ATF, who for secret reasons I believe may be forcing one or two reluctant agents to continue monitoring these posts.

This nearly non-existent blog is actually already the third method of firing.  First, without invitation or encouragement, I mailed Homework #1 to Dr. Karen Boiko, rather like a madman's first target when he enters the school or mosque, at the first MIT address I saw.  What else could I do with a letter to her? Leave it in my Google Docs? 

I'm quite satisfied with the first firing, it strikes me as well suited to the theme of writing done as selfish action, with practically no consideration of where I mailed it, or what any recipient might choose to do with it, an action for me, focused on the satisfaction of the initial mailing, without hope of response or communication.  

Similar in some ways to this blog, an aimless firing for the sake of letting it out, letting it out of the barrel.  The writer inside.  And maybe it's fitting that a mass shooting metaphor struck my fancy, "an aggressive, even a hostile act," according to Joan Didion, that I will now inflict on you, dear reader.  Proceed if you wish, you will find each homework assignment posted individually, each one aching to create that dialogue its creator intended to provoke. 

Thank you to Dr. Boiko and MIT's OpenCourseWare.

Karen Boiko. 21W.730-2 The Creative Spark. Fall 2004. Massachusetts Institute of Technology: MIT OpenCourseWare, https://ocw.mit.edu. License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA.