Paper 3 and 4

Allie Ladage

10-30-2011

COMM 317

Paper 3 and 4

Analysis

            While reading Murray’s definitions on art and craft, there were similar, yet different answers. An art is something expressive and creative. Usually it is thought up as in an image that comes to life while the artist is establishing it with his or her hands. A craft is a skill and is generally hands on. For example, a welder puts together a wooden chair and using not only his hands, but a machine to help carve the wood. Writing is definitely practical and inventive. The writer comes up with the characters, summary, plot, climax, and much more. He or she outlines what will happen and sometimes the story will come naturally! It’s also best to see what or how other authors write. You can learn a lot about styles and moods from different writers and it can help advance your writing.

            When I wrote my first book, “Haunted Hayesville: The Haunting in the Hayesville High School”, I immediately started jotting down things that came into my mind. The characters’ names and attitudes came to life and then the rest of the story fell into place. It literally took me a month to write it. I was on my mom’s laptop every day and every night.  I have to say that this was a fun experience and when I finished, I was relieved. And when I was finished with the story, I sent it off to a publishing company called Publish America. They turned my story into a book and so far I’ve sold a few copies!

The feeling of having a book out there in the media is exciting and it makes me feel proud and accomplished. This also makes me want to continue on with my writing. I also get my writing inspirations from two people: my mom and R.L. Stine. My mom introduced me to the freelance writing world when I was a teenager. I knew I wanted to be a writer at the age of eleven, however, I didn’t know if I could make a lot of money off it. So she told me about journalism and that’s when I wanted to go into that field. I went to Lincoln Land Community College my first three years after high school and learned a lot. My professor was Brenda Protz and she taught me the basics of becoming a good writer and how to write journalistically.

Over the months, my writing has advanced. I am now a published freelance writer and have gotten my name submitted in the public relations realm. This is something I want to do with the rest of my life. I do not have one job set in my mind, I have many! I would like to try it all; editor, technical writer, newspaper or magazine writer, own my own science fiction magazine or newspaper, and a fiction novelist. I want to get as much experience as I can and test if all to see what I am capable of. I believe it’s important to try everything and see what is out there. Life is too short and in my future, I see a numerous opportunities opening up for my writing career. So far, it has advanced greatly! I am writing articles for the State Journal Register, one my dream papers! I also have two more that are coming out in two different issues and I’m very excited to see what the future holds for me!

In this paper, I will be analyzing Michael Lewis’s book called “Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World” and its importance to our modern day society. Lewis’s book is based upon a sequence of interconnected financial conflicts that started in 2008 in the United States. It expanded in Europe and is believed to be coming back to us once again. According to the Mackerel Wrapper, the Vanity Fair articles about “Boomerang” took place in Iceland, Greece, Ireland, Germany, and California. Lewis calls this chain of visitations the “financial disaster tour.”

Lewis’s style of writing is crafted and well researched. He uses his experiences and knowledge of finances that he learned while touring other countries. Lewis examined what was going on and discussed Europe’s debt crisis and the dangers it was facing in his book. And in his second book, “The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine”, he wrote about the monetary issues that Greece, Iceland, and Ireland suffered after having a tsunami attack in 2008. He even unearthed other people using cheap credit in the beginning of the adversity. This book has been an educational piece discussing the economic matters and had a broad outline for viewers to understand. It’s not about seeking a big understanding of the book’s concept, but to give at least a brief summary of what the crisis is based on.

Included in “The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine”, Lewis explains why the world is concerned about Greece’s failure to pay. He quoted that “If Greece walks away from $400 billion in debt, then the European banks that lent the money will go down, and other countries now flirting with bankruptcy.”  This means that a lot of countries in Europe could suffer from a financial crisis like the United States. It’s not only happening to us, but it’s happening overseas and this is a big problem. Lewis continues on with reasons why taxpayers in Germany, which is the euro’s main market, are unwilling to help contribute the money for the budget. They do not feel that they should have to wiggle their way out of other countries’ deliberation of irresponsible decisions.

Lewis’s first book “Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World”, are both artistic and crafted. From the artistic point of view, he is very descriptive and organized. For example, the part about Greece being the center focus of the budget crisis is an important factor of the story. As of right now, it is all up to Greece whether they want to give out the money or not. And if they don’t, then other European countries can suffer. Therefore, the democracy has a lot of thinking to do! If I was ever stuck in a situation like Greece and I had the money and president, I would give it to the government or agency in charge! In addition to this segment, Lewis’s book is well crafted. He is very methodical and uses careful word choices with the experiences he encountered in Greece, Ireland, Ireland, Germany, and California. A good example would be from that I used previously, the tsunami disaster along the coasts of Europe. They endured a lot of financial problems and damages to their homes and cities and villages. I think that this issue is related to other catastrophes such as the earthquakes in Haiti and Japan and Hurricane Katrina in the United States. Each nation lost a massive number of people, homes, businesses, jobs, and currency. It was hard to get everything back on track and situated once again. I recall hearing over the news that Louisiana was still in ruins a year later because of the destructions that it faced from the hurricane. I cannot even fathom the feelings of going through something like that.

According to Murray, the relationship between craft and art is how well the author establishes his or her story. It all depends on how it is pieced together and how organized it is. As I mentioned from the beginning, every story has a set of characters, dialogue, information, plots, settings, climaxes, moods, and styles. You cannot have a real story if you can’t use any of these elements. And Lewis does a fine job putting together all of these components. He uses very descriptive phrases and significant facts about economic conflicts that the world faces currently and in the future. I believe that Murray would think of Lewis as a well educated reporter. His facts are straight and to the point. He uses his research and applies it to his articles and books. Furthermore, as an artist, I believe that Murray would compliment Lewis on his sense of creativity and organization. He would recognize him as an educated man who knows his facts. And to conclude this bit, Lewis’s books are very important. They teach viewers all around the importance of finances and the economy. We are undergoing a recession and businesses are failing fast. If we cannot figure out ways to conserve money or to come up with strategies on how our economy can improve, then we’re going to be doomed for a very long time; maybe until the end of time.

I think that Lewis did a very good job on describing the economic crises that we are facing. It will help us to wake up and be alert on what is going on around us. Hopefully, the entire world will be able to improve their financial situations. It is a difficult time that we are going through. We most certainly do not want to go through a depression like America did back in 1929. That would be a lot worse!