Writing Process

This blog will be in regards to my literary journalism piece about Bound Brook and Hurricane Floyd..

I found my focus by going back into my past and finding something that seemed worthy to report on. Clustering helped me a lot with this.

I had written several pieces in a journal, which helped me to organize. In reality, I just used some snippets as sketches. But I really found my starting point when I actually visited the new Dunkin Donuts.

From here I just wrote using various sources to compile my piece. I reflected on certain parts of the visit I made one week after the storm to help a friend's relative.

I new what evidence I wanted to use but didn't know where to go with it. I finally found a the point after I read through my first draft. I had to read and edit before I knew what I wanted to say.

Publication Analysis

Ecotone seems to be a good fit and has the highest chance of publication for me, I think.

I still have yet to receive the magazine as there was no mail delivery on Saturday. Hopefully, today it will come. Otherwise, I'll use a back up, Weatherwise.

As for as the submission policies go, they are as follows:
The journal Ecotone emphasizes the deep importance of place in contemporary writing. We hope to break across genres, and across disciplines, to discover writing that is new, dangerous, and refuses to stay safely in a single place. Our goal is an ambitious one: to reclaim landscapes, to remap and reimagine place in writing that is vital, thorny, and alive.

Ecotone is published by the Creative Writing Department at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. We publish high- quality works of creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry, as well as interviews with new and established authors about the idea of place in literature.

Ecotone welcomes unsolicited works of creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry with a specific focus on the idea of place.


I have yet to find the percentage of freelance work. They read between Aug. 15 to April 30.

...more later.

Reconstructing Floyd

Here's an excerpt from the Lit. Journalism piece.


“I’d like a coffee with cream and two sugars.”

That sounds odd to me, not that I’m ordering coffee. It’s odd that I’m ordering coffee here in the new Dunkin Donuts in the town of Bound Brook, New Jersey. A year ago, the ground had not been broken for building. Instead dreams were broken six years prior by Hurricane Floyd.

This particular spot had a cinderblock skeleton and some rubble next it after the floodwaters receded. During the flood, this area had upwards of 20 feet of water surrounding the structures. Yet that was only the beginning. A short time after a fire broke out and left only that skeleton.

Now, I’m ordering coffee at this same spot. Has the town resurged? Councilman Carey Pilato believes the answer is a resounding yes. “The significance here is a national chain is willing to invest in Bound Brook,” she says. I leave Dunkin Donuts and walk east on Main St.

I can still spot the watermark on certain buildings, over fifteen feet high in some cases. It is hard to imagine but this area resembled an Americanized Venice, Italy seven years ago. St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Chuch roughly equated to St. Marks Basilica. Police rescue boats acted as gondolas transporting people through the sunken town. For nearly a week the borough slumbered beneath flood waters.

The storm hit businesses the hardest in Bound Brook. According to the Bound Brook Business Improvement District, the flood waters contributed to an estimated nine million dollars of damage to local merchats. Government aid trickled in at a pace much slower than the flood waters. The Federal Emergency Management Agency granted thirteen million dollars in aid to households affected by Hurricane Floyd; businesses had to apply for loans through the Small Business Adminstration.

Pyllis Pournaras , former chair of the Bound Brook Business Improvement District, shared concerns over the lack of financial assistance provided to local businesses. “This town really took it on the chin,” Pournaras said about the flood of lack of funding six years ago. Yet the town has changed drasticaly since she made these remarks.

The parking lot for the NJ Transit rail station is on my right, almost directly across from the Dunkin Donuts. In this commuter lot, the borough has redevelopment plans. In the future this lot will house condominiums and a parking garage.

Nurturing Nature

I don't think I'll have a problem writing a nature essay as most of mine ideas have been about nature in some aspect. But the topic of choice seems to be a problem. I have plenty of ideas to write about but have not really settled on one.

There's a resevior down Rte. 22 in Hunterdon County that would be an interesting topic. I remember my grandfather used to take my cousin and me to it. This resevior is said to be a flooded valley, and houses rest at the bottom of it. I wonder if this is true and what the circumstances around it were at the time. Though, this would be more of an exploratory than about nature, I think.

I could cope out and write about something up by the lake house. The gorge is always full of wonder. Various waterfalls are up here too. Hmm?

I could write about a park near my house that I've explored almost inside and out.

There's some trails that lead to the little league field. I'm surprised that this hasn't been bulldozed and turned into townhouses or something.

I can talk about canoeing down the Delaware-Raritan Canal.

Floods always happen around my area after periods of heavy rains. Are we getting too close to the waterfronts? Have the flood plains been over-developed?

I'm not really sold on anything yet. Maybe I should go hiking and just write what I see and form my essay off of that.

Or maybe I should focus on the season fall as it currently absorbs us.

Grr...