To: English 246 students and Professor Broad

From: [name of student]

Date: April 5, 2007

RE: Writers Memo, CNF 3

This creative non-fiction is a fulfillment of the CNF [creative nonfiction] 3 assignment, as well as a continuation of my CNF 1. While it is not necessary to read CNF 1 to understand CNF 3 (my apologies—neither have titles yet), I invite you to read CNF 1 if you are interested, or if you have the time. Both follow myself from the year 1992 on to present day, chronicling the successes and failures of learning to play the French Horn.

The essay (I’m not sure what to call it…piece? Work? Writing?) is in a series of vignettes, the goal of which is to fit into writing I’ve already done for CNF 1. As I said, I don’t feel that it is necessary to read CNF 1 to understand CNF 3, because I am writing isolated incidents that can be read independently as (extremely) short essays, or as a whole to reveal the struggle of learning to play an instrument. I really like the idea that the vignettes can be taken independently or as a whole, and I don’t want to make understanding one contingent on reading them all. I’d love to know if you get that feeling, or if you feel they are too dependent on the others. Or if you prefer that they be more inter-connected.

Right now I like that I’ve stayed very true to my voice and to my experiences—which is a struggle, and has required mass amounts of rereading and rewriting, and calling my mom to make sure I have details correct. I also really like writing in these isolated entries…it makes adding and taking away pretty painless and fairly enjoyable.

I still have a lot more to write—the entire thing (CNF 1 and 3) is turning into a beast, but I’m really enjoying writing it, if only for my own benefit.

There are a couple things I’m playing with, and I’d love some feedback:

· For [the section titles in] CNF 1, I only included dates. For this one, I [also] included a one-word title for each passage, because I am really interested in the idea that each passage could be taken individually. Do the titles engage you, or do you feel that they take you out of the reading?

· The musical passages—each one (there are only two right now) is the actual music I am talking about in that passage, if you read music. Is it interesting? Distracting? (Please ignore the quality of the first…it’s the best I could do on short notice.)

· Finally, I don’t really like writing dialogue, and the italics are my way around it. Do they work, or would you like to see actual conversation, rather than isolated words?

Thanks for taking the time to read and respond…I’m finding myself really invested in this writing for some reason, and your feedback will be highly valued.

Please respond in a written memo.

Thanks again.