Dear Collegues,
I am changing my thesis to prose to meet the page requirements. I will still be writing non fiction but prose. And to those of you who took your time to critique and encouraged the play. I am not trashing the idea but I need to work it out on my own. So I hope that you will come see it when it is completed. I am also going to try to take one piece of prose and perform at the end of the semester.
As for taking critique. It is so valuable to get feed back. I never get offended unless my whole concept is rejected and luckily that hasn't happened yet. Little stuff. When I am rich I will get an editor. I just remebered talking to a friend yesterday about writing that I stopped writing when I got sick of my dad ragging on me about grammar and dropping letters and paying no attention to the content of my writing. Luckily it didn't stick and I am now a writer. Having a an insane, abusive, english proffesor as a mother didn't help much either. So, I haven't talked to her for about 20 years and she googles my writing and speeches. But I don't have to hear about what she thinks. More importantly her is opinion is not important and her ability to be honest makes her opinion mute.
I value the feedback I get and I think I went more into this topic when taking about revisioning.
But, I have things I am not willing to sacrifice regarless of critiques and there is feedback that is so useful that I am just greatful when people are honest and risk hurting my feelings. The bottom line is any one who takes the time to read my work and make suggestions is showing my craft respect. Critique is a tool to enhance and improve my writing and I want more than anything to get better. In our group last night the word " hot seat" was used I prefer to think of it as the learning chair.
As for rejection to entire concepts I think it is so important to remember people have prefrences to what they read and what they think is good writing. So I want to remind anyone that might have hurt feelings that just because what you are working on might not be someone elses cup of tea does not mean your work doesn't have value to someone else.
Being a writer is so risky. You can't pretend that it did not come out of you and I have mad respect for anyone who is willing to put their heart and work out there.
I have a friend who was slammed in fiction workshops and she is a great writer. But she decieded to go for something else. Hearing about that made me angry and sad.
So I say to myself and to you let fear be excitement and critique be a gift and don't deny the world the opprotunity to recieve the gift of your work.
Suki
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
metaphor
it took a second for me to figure this out. i asked my friends but no one had any suggestions beyond a shark. i mulled it over - discarding it immediately. maybe a platypus at best or i'll go as far as piranha. of course it doesn't have to be just an animal right? maybe i'd be the womb of turtle goddesses. or sparkling reef walkers. the lips of mango kisses under a pearly moon? a basket woven of the sea. shark?
really? a shark? ok i realize i have a cultural connection to them (i'm from the shark clan which means i'm a descendent of people who spoke with sharks) and i do love the sea and eating fish and my first pet was a shark and according to the fem sharks i'm an honorary shark haha but a shark seems just way too
ferocious and
dangerous
to be me.
then again.
really? a shark? ok i realize i have a cultural connection to them (i'm from the shark clan which means i'm a descendent of people who spoke with sharks) and i do love the sea and eating fish and my first pet was a shark and according to the fem sharks i'm an honorary shark haha but a shark seems just way too
ferocious and
dangerous
to be me.
then again.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
my metaphor
I almost forgot it....driving down the road late the other night. Silly me; I had no pen or pad. I could only trust my memory to not lead me astray. It took me a few days to remember it though. In the end it came out a bit rough but go on and read it because I too am a bit rough. Here is my metaphor.
I am the moon.
illuminating at some times
and absent during the others
when you see me half covered in the darkened sky
you imagine me being unveiled
I seem to be slowly molding
looking as if whole
my perfect round circle self
but then
Blink
your own perception is wrong
I'm still a crescent
I light forests
yet darken homes
no one trusts in my power
...so lights are in order;
placed around towns
night lights they're called
-above rooms, in cars,
-lighting your entrances and your exits,
-making late night walks safe and sound
I'm replaced by better
what you find more supportive
you believe them to be
more
long lasting
But I too am loyal
I will not lead you astray
I'm stuck in my position indefinitely
against wishes and good health
I float above you...noticed only when
you're Desperate
and Alone
only when
dark surrounds you
and there are
no
other
stars
in the sky
Metaphor
I am a shattered mirror.
Not in the dreadful, "abyss" sort of way; of course not.
Not in the dreadful, "abyss" sort of way; of course not.
A shattered mirror with tiny reflections of the same person looking back at me, each representative of a different part of my life, a different facet of my personality.
The good-student Me. The club-going Me. The movie-loving Me.
The loyal employee. The financially independent. The failed musician.
The writer. The actor. The Scorpio. The aspiring world traveler. The sex addict.
The smoker. The coffee drinker. The avid reader. The democrat.
The bisexual. The caucasian. The woman. The paegan. The Northern Californian.
Previously anorexic, vegetarian, cutter, self concious,
Unconfident, ashamed, violated,
People-hating, shoplifting,
Child.
Currently:
Self-loving, accomplished,
International Study Peer Counselor, Academic Records student assistant,
Brave, make-up selling, video-game playing, college student, and study abroad returnee.
A shattered mirror, each aspect of my personality reflecting back at me. Every reflection is of the same person. How complicated it is that people are made up of so many different faces that look excatly the same.
Cristina
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Mall Metaphor
Today, I went out with a friend to Japan Town in San Francisco. While I was waiting for her outside of the bathroom a young man walked up to me and asked me what time it was. I looked at my cellphone and told him it was four o' clock. He didn't say thank you, but he said something a lot longer and a lot faster. I apologized and said I didn't understand what he was saying. More clearly and slowly he told me, "My girlfriend is going away to grad school and I don't want her to go, so I'm going to break both of her legs." There I was in the middle of a mall, looking at this man's stained teeth.
I don't say anything to him. I walk away. I scramble away. There's a table next to a crêperie; I crawl under it. I hide and chew at my hands, closing my eyes and I am a mouse, nervous and shaking and stupid. Not wanting to be in cities anymore. Wanting only to have a nice little burrow in the countryside with bits of an old apron for my nest, away from people and loud noises. My eyes wide and unblinking. My whiskers brushing. Quiet. Alone.
I am a mouse. A shaking, defenseless, scared, little mouse.
Soft and Squishy
About two years ago, a dear friend and mentor gave me the following piece of advice: Do not be a jellyfish, but rather, be a teddy bear. Since then, I have tried my very hardest to live like a big ol' teddy bear while keeping my jellyfish-like tendencies at bay as much as possible, but it's been a challenge, and I'm still constantly working to get it right.
What makes this a difficult skill to master at times is that jellyfish and teddy bears have something in common: they're both soft and squishy. But jellyfish are also slimy and oozy and fluid; they don't have solid boundaries to keep them from getting their ooziness all over the place. Not to mention that they sting you if you get too close. Teddy bears, on the other hand, while they are also soft and squishy, are also quite solid. A degree of firmness that keeps them from becoming an undesirable puddle of yuck makes them something that jellyfish are not: cuddly. Huggable. Something that makes you want to be close and hold them tight.
So what does this have to do with me, you may ask? Well, while I am certainly not slimy and oozy like a jellyfish, my feelings and emotions sometimes have the habit of running rampant and sliming people. I've come a long way since two years ago when I was first called out for my jellyfish-ness, but I still slip up once in awhile. I worry a lot, sometimes unneccessarily so, and in many instances I've felt like life would be so much simpler if I didn't care so darn much. Caring too much has, in the past, knocked me out of line in relationships where a degree of professionalism is needed, and with no resilience, I used to get scared, totally freak out and ooze everywhere and people got stung because I was having a hard time taking care of myself and maintaining my boundaries in those situations.
I've gotten a lot better, as time has gone on, at being a teddy bear. I'm still sometimes too soft and squishy, and I still care an awful lot about people and worry more than I should at times (read panic attack over the un-panic attack worthy), but I've built up a resilience. I've learned to bounce back. Unlike a jellyfish, when a teddy bear is dropped or squished, it can usually bounce back, no harm done to it's shape or it's softness. People can get close to a teddy bear, give it all the hugs and love in the world, and it won't ooze all over them and make a mess of a perfectly nice relationship. People like to love teddy bears, because teddy bears will love them back while retaing their own boundaries.
Interestingly enough, though, when it comes to my writing there are still too many boundaries and barriers that keep me from letting my emotions flow freely. I've put up most of those barriers myself, the barriers of thinking too hard, worrying too much, and always having to be good enough and never thinking a piece is just right. I'm actually trying to become more jelly-like when I write, not to the degree that I ooze all over and make a mess, but just enough so that I'm not so firm and hard on myself. Because after all, an overstuffed teddy bear loses all its cuddle and squish, and nobody wants to get close to a hard, un-cuddly teddy bear any more than they want to hug a jellyfish.
So that's my mission in life: to perfect the art of teddy-bear-ness.
What makes this a difficult skill to master at times is that jellyfish and teddy bears have something in common: they're both soft and squishy. But jellyfish are also slimy and oozy and fluid; they don't have solid boundaries to keep them from getting their ooziness all over the place. Not to mention that they sting you if you get too close. Teddy bears, on the other hand, while they are also soft and squishy, are also quite solid. A degree of firmness that keeps them from becoming an undesirable puddle of yuck makes them something that jellyfish are not: cuddly. Huggable. Something that makes you want to be close and hold them tight.
So what does this have to do with me, you may ask? Well, while I am certainly not slimy and oozy like a jellyfish, my feelings and emotions sometimes have the habit of running rampant and sliming people. I've come a long way since two years ago when I was first called out for my jellyfish-ness, but I still slip up once in awhile. I worry a lot, sometimes unneccessarily so, and in many instances I've felt like life would be so much simpler if I didn't care so darn much. Caring too much has, in the past, knocked me out of line in relationships where a degree of professionalism is needed, and with no resilience, I used to get scared, totally freak out and ooze everywhere and people got stung because I was having a hard time taking care of myself and maintaining my boundaries in those situations.
I've gotten a lot better, as time has gone on, at being a teddy bear. I'm still sometimes too soft and squishy, and I still care an awful lot about people and worry more than I should at times (read panic attack over the un-panic attack worthy), but I've built up a resilience. I've learned to bounce back. Unlike a jellyfish, when a teddy bear is dropped or squished, it can usually bounce back, no harm done to it's shape or it's softness. People can get close to a teddy bear, give it all the hugs and love in the world, and it won't ooze all over them and make a mess of a perfectly nice relationship. People like to love teddy bears, because teddy bears will love them back while retaing their own boundaries.
Interestingly enough, though, when it comes to my writing there are still too many boundaries and barriers that keep me from letting my emotions flow freely. I've put up most of those barriers myself, the barriers of thinking too hard, worrying too much, and always having to be good enough and never thinking a piece is just right. I'm actually trying to become more jelly-like when I write, not to the degree that I ooze all over and make a mess, but just enough so that I'm not so firm and hard on myself. Because after all, an overstuffed teddy bear loses all its cuddle and squish, and nobody wants to get close to a hard, un-cuddly teddy bear any more than they want to hug a jellyfish.
So that's my mission in life: to perfect the art of teddy-bear-ness.
my metaphor
I am a tsunami a big Piscean body of water with millions of creatures that live in it. There are earth quakes inside me and I build with tremendous force that causes overwhelming destruction. I am an act of god that makes people question the reason for my existence. I have no control over when the ground beneath me will shake with enough force cause activity. I am unpredictable and I sweep people up. Sometimes this is a wonderful thing. I do take people and move them, I shake them up and when I recede they are there and they choose what to do and where to go. I watch in the aftermath with an incredible sense of guilt and excitement. Despite my destructive nature I do what I do because it what I am. Years of experiences have created me. I am always changing and growing. It's painful. I change people and some run for higher ground. People get angry and I sometimes wish that I did not exist. I want the ground to stop shaking so I can slide up and lick their toes or gently cover up letters writen in the sand. Occasionally it calm and get to and people swim and play in me. But the warning sign is there and if you read it you know that I may be beautiful (on the in side)however enter at your own risk because only the strong will survive.
Sorry about all the typos in this or the other post I am exhausted, as I am sure most everone is.
Sorry about all the typos in this or the other post I am exhausted, as I am sure most everone is.
catching up revision
Revision: to look at with fresh eyes. Ahhhh that is my lifes dilema. I write creative non fiction and it is hard to get those fixed memories out of my head. But it is neccesary in life and in my writing. My writing comes in sunami's and it can be overwhelming to me and those around me. I bottle it up and then it just crashes and ruins towns. But like Noah and the flood ( although I don't really buy that story) once the flood has passed and I have hiden for a while some little dove comes with a blade of grass. That little dove is my collegues, friends, ans proffesors who ask me where did I go? Where is your voice? No, that is to much ! Set the scence. But they also let me know the world has not ended there is still life in the plantet of my work.
It is safe to come out and get to work.
I got lucky with the first piece I ever wrote and got to publish it without having to change much. The suggestions I got were simple and I took them easily. But now I am having to take a look at what a bratty child I am in life and in my writing . I want it done now.I want it accepted now. Sometimes my feelings get hurt when thing are not accepted instantly and it is the prolem that I have. Then I want to trash the whole piece. I am trying to change that in life and in my writing. I have to in order to be good and take a step back to recognize it is a process. I need to learn to maybe put something to bed because it is tried. I don't throw away my child because he has a tantrum. I have to wake up and sometimes force myself to see beyond the tantrum and see the good. I need to wake up and look at him with fresh eyes. I need to do the same with my writing. Wake up, see the good in it, see the truth in it and then revision it.
I like to think of Dr, Suess and " Oh the places you will go" Oh the places my writing might go if I learn to disipline the work with love and isn't that what it takes. Sorry for all the parenting anologies but I think critique is just the firm hand of a parent saying I love you and I want to to be the best you can be. So I will be firm and change form, or grammar. A qritque on grammar is just a mommy saying wash your hands and get ready to eat. Empty belly , clean hands, and a chance to fill the plate with ideas. It doesn't mean I have to throw away the meat it just means that someone might suggest a side dish I hadn't previously considered.
thats my story and I am sticking to it.
It is safe to come out and get to work.
I got lucky with the first piece I ever wrote and got to publish it without having to change much. The suggestions I got were simple and I took them easily. But now I am having to take a look at what a bratty child I am in life and in my writing . I want it done now.I want it accepted now. Sometimes my feelings get hurt when thing are not accepted instantly and it is the prolem that I have. Then I want to trash the whole piece. I am trying to change that in life and in my writing. I have to in order to be good and take a step back to recognize it is a process. I need to learn to maybe put something to bed because it is tried. I don't throw away my child because he has a tantrum. I have to wake up and sometimes force myself to see beyond the tantrum and see the good. I need to wake up and look at him with fresh eyes. I need to do the same with my writing. Wake up, see the good in it, see the truth in it and then revision it.
I like to think of Dr, Suess and " Oh the places you will go" Oh the places my writing might go if I learn to disipline the work with love and isn't that what it takes. Sorry for all the parenting anologies but I think critique is just the firm hand of a parent saying I love you and I want to to be the best you can be. So I will be firm and change form, or grammar. A qritque on grammar is just a mommy saying wash your hands and get ready to eat. Empty belly , clean hands, and a chance to fill the plate with ideas. It doesn't mean I have to throw away the meat it just means that someone might suggest a side dish I hadn't previously considered.
thats my story and I am sticking to it.
Friday, September 25, 2009
my metaphor
I am the mirror.
I want to focus my work around self-conscious moments and what's more self-conscious than the mirror?
I want to focus my work around self-conscious moments and what's more self-conscious than the mirror?
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
What is my metaphor?
Water.
I've been and done contradictory things yet I felt like myself all through it—ice can't contradict hot water.
Water doesn't contradict its own substance, no matter how mutable its form.
It's a tsunami after tectonic shifts, and thin rain coursing down a domestic gutter chain. It's a glacier. It's a flash flood. It's tap water - domestic, wild, channeled, dammed. Salt. Sweet. Polluted. Filtered. Fresh. Brackish...I feel it, I'm in all of that.
I like this metaphor. It's roomy.
I've been and done contradictory things yet I felt like myself all through it—ice can't contradict hot water.
Water doesn't contradict its own substance, no matter how mutable its form.
It's a tsunami after tectonic shifts, and thin rain coursing down a domestic gutter chain. It's a glacier. It's a flash flood. It's tap water - domestic, wild, channeled, dammed. Salt. Sweet. Polluted. Filtered. Fresh. Brackish...I feel it, I'm in all of that.
I like this metaphor. It's roomy.
Monday, September 21, 2009
revision/editing process
So my revision and editing process is somewhat sporadic. Basically, I write out a first draft then I go back a couple times on my own to re edit. Then I'll show it to any of my friends - any of them. I ask them if they like it, what they like about it, if it made sense or was clear, and jot down any notes they might have for me. Luckily I have a lot of friends who are poets so I always have available workshopping.
They're probably really tired of all the poetry I throw at them but they're very supportive.
If I can't seem to figure out what I can do more to a piece, I tend to put it away for a while and revisit it. Like the piece I published here last week was first written in June during VONA. It was four stanzas, with short lines, and had no depth to it. The draft I published on this blog site was actually the 8th draft.
When I actually get down to editing a piece these are the questions I ask myself:
Is the intent behind this piece really clear?
Is there a fresher way I can say this line?
Is there another way I can play with form?
Can this go any deeper?
Does it flow?
Is the rhythm on point?
Will this be a spoken word piece, a page piece, or both?
Is this fitting for the audience I have in mind? (slam audience, open mic audience, marshallese people, my family, poetry class, poetry for the people, my book my chapbook etc)
I think that's about it.
They're probably really tired of all the poetry I throw at them but they're very supportive.
If I can't seem to figure out what I can do more to a piece, I tend to put it away for a while and revisit it. Like the piece I published here last week was first written in June during VONA. It was four stanzas, with short lines, and had no depth to it. The draft I published on this blog site was actually the 8th draft.
When I actually get down to editing a piece these are the questions I ask myself:
Is the intent behind this piece really clear?
Is there a fresher way I can say this line?
Is there another way I can play with form?
Can this go any deeper?
Does it flow?
Is the rhythm on point?
Will this be a spoken word piece, a page piece, or both?
Is this fitting for the audience I have in mind? (slam audience, open mic audience, marshallese people, my family, poetry class, poetry for the people, my book my chapbook etc)
I think that's about it.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Revision
The revision process for my work is as complicated as it's creation process. I usually have to, when caught at a writers' block or feeling my work is complete, take a step away from my work for a week or so. I need this amount of time because usually after writing it I have it memorized and the way that I have written it is glued in my mind as being 'right'. Also I have to, after the week, find all the random sheets of paper with bits and pieces of my work jotted down and insert them where they are needed to be inserted. Sometime I read my work aloud to myself or a friend to see how it sound to me and then have someone read it to themselves.
I have someone read my work for grammatical errors (usually my grandmother and/or my mother because they are both teachers). After alterations I read my work another time to see how I like the order of events I've placed. Sometimes I take breaks during revisions and work on creating one set characters' persona. I take breaks and sing or write poetry so as to act as small steps away from my work so that I don't have to take another few days because I've gotten to attached to its' form to revise it any further. I write and revise within chaos. Even after all is said and done; this doesn't apply to the majority of my work, it's just the one routine that has worked more than 2 times.
My Process of Revision
Revision, for me, can be super complex and frustrating. I'm not very good at rereading what I have just written and then being able to re-work it straight away and revise it. After I write something, I don't want to have to look at it for a while so I set it aside. After that, it usually gets workshopped in a class, or I'll have one of my friends read over it.
That's why I appreciate work shop so much. If It didn't happen, it would make revision for me nigh impossible. I'll first reread the grammatical/technical glitches people have pointed out and then I'll go and look at their other critiques. I'll go section by section and look at everyone's comments on it rather than going by each person's entire edit notes. It's easier when I'm looking at all the different suggestions people have made for once piece than it is to just one critique-er's remarks at a time. That way, I have everyone ideas at hand and can decide from there.
After that, I go through it on my own and add bits or take away bits depending on how I think about it on a hard copy. After scribbling my own notes in the margins I will go back and add it into my story on my laptop. At that point, I'll usually have someone look over it again to make sure I've improved it instead of making it worse.
I like to sit and think about my story for a while before I go back and edit, so I feel like revisions can definitely take a while for me to do, especially if i can't decide between two options. I always read everyone's critiques, but I don't agree with them all the time. I'll use people's suggestions that I feel will work with and enhance what I am trying to say in my story. However, even critiques I don't agree with usually give me an idea or different perspective on a part of my story which can lead to completely new ideas.
That's why I appreciate work shop so much. If It didn't happen, it would make revision for me nigh impossible. I'll first reread the grammatical/technical glitches people have pointed out and then I'll go and look at their other critiques. I'll go section by section and look at everyone's comments on it rather than going by each person's entire edit notes. It's easier when I'm looking at all the different suggestions people have made for once piece than it is to just one critique-er's remarks at a time. That way, I have everyone ideas at hand and can decide from there.
After that, I go through it on my own and add bits or take away bits depending on how I think about it on a hard copy. After scribbling my own notes in the margins I will go back and add it into my story on my laptop. At that point, I'll usually have someone look over it again to make sure I've improved it instead of making it worse.
I like to sit and think about my story for a while before I go back and edit, so I feel like revisions can definitely take a while for me to do, especially if i can't decide between two options. I always read everyone's critiques, but I don't agree with them all the time. I'll use people's suggestions that I feel will work with and enhance what I am trying to say in my story. However, even critiques I don't agree with usually give me an idea or different perspective on a part of my story which can lead to completely new ideas.
Revision Process
After organizing my computer files, I've realized that I already have 30 pages of my thesis written!! It was a process in itself, collecting my files from various folders and labeling them correctly. Naturally, some siginificant revision is involved with some segments I wrote a year ago...but it was a pleasant surprise to find so much already written, nonetheless.
As I described before, my writing process is a bit...random...but my revision process is a bit more structured.
First, after initially writing my piece, I immediately read over what I've just written to catch spelling errors and grammatical mistakes.
Then I leave that piece alone for at least one day, and sometimes even longer than that.... I've spanned a year before looking at something again. But, usually, I wait at least a day, and sometimes a week. Then I reread it again, catching any errors I missed the first time around, and just generally revamping the piece to make it sound better.
And that's usually how it works for shorter pieces. When adding to a longer piece, however, another step is added.
I again leave the writing alone for a day or so. The next time I look at the segment, I have it attached to the larger piece of work. I do not read the segment by itself. I read the whole thing at once, which helps me add transitions and connecting segments to obtain fluidity.
After taking the whole piece of work into consideration and editing in this way, adding where necessary (and possibly deleting, too), I, again, leave my writing alone for a day or so before looking at it again. I continue editing and then ignoring it until I am satisfied with what I have written.
I know for myself that I can think something is an absolutely fantastic piece of work one day, and then the next day realize that it's embarrassingly low quality and incomprehensible. The trick is, for me, to write something that I continue to find satisfying day after day.
I've unintentionally memorized some of my writings before by following this procedure. Ah, well.
Cristina
...And your point is?
The following is an excerpt from what currently exists of my thesis, all six pages of creative non-fiction goodness (In answer to your question yes, I've decided to take the memoir route and see where it leads me). This excerpt is from a very rough draft, but I am not going to pick it to death trying to make it "perfect" before I let you read it. And I have a reason for that.
Catalina Island is primarily a tourist destination and a vacation spot; that is to say, few people actually live, work, and go to school there 365 days a year, but rather come out for a day, a week, perhaps an entire summer, but never a lifetime. Most of Catalina is barren grassland anyway, a floating mass of hills and dry scrubby plant life and plains inhabited by buffalo, so it’s not as though the two tiny inlets of developed civilization could inhabit a very large year-round community anyway. Avalon’s not a very big town, and Two Harbors is even smaller.
Because this is the case, the City of Avalon tries to keep traffic to a minimum – there’s very little place for traffic to go, and even if there was, to cram the tiny town full of noisy cars would totally take away its quiet charm and destroy its sense of peaceful isolation from mainstream society. So instead of traveling by car, anyone who’s not a permanent resident or a taxi driver (which is almost everyone) gets around the island by golf cart. As a result, I was unaware for the longest time that golf carts were actually used primarily in the sport of golf, because for most of my life, Catalina was the only place I’d ever ridden a golf cart, and so it became in my mind a magical vehicle used to transport me around my favorite place on earth.
I got so excited when we were finally settled in and unpacked, and the time came for us to venture out of our condo by way of this amazing golf cart. My brother and I would sprint ahead of our parents in a race to see who could reach it first. (There was always a discrepancy in our judgment of this “sport” – yes, I had, technically, arrived next to the golf cart before Scott had, but he was the first one to touch it. Then I was the first one to sit in it. He was the first to buckle his seat belt. We almost never could agree on who the ‘winner’ really was. )
When we had finished our debate, we would sit buckled into the cart’s rear-facing backseats, watching the road that meandered by and waving to the occupants of the other carts that would occasionally hum past, waiting for mom and dad to gather up cell phones, sunglasses, wallets, purses, condo keys, cart keys, and the scrap of paper on which they’d scribbled the phone numbers of all the aunts’ and uncles’ condos. They always turned going out into such a lengthy process, even when it was only for a quick trip like this one to the grocery store, so my brother and I often found ourselves waiting around while they dawdled.
See, I'm trying this new thing now. I'm trying, really hard, to just let go and write. I'm even trying to limit the amount of time I spend re-reading and nit-picking it at this point. I figure that since my goal in undertaking this project is to tell the story of one of the most important - and most fun - parts of my childhood, then to let my inner critic run wild would be to hinder my thoughts and emotions really getting to flow. When I actually stop and think about it, it makes a lot more sense to just to get everything out of my head and onto the page, and THEN start trying to make it sound good. This may seem like a "no duh!" revelation, but it's something I'm constantly struggling with. So that's my goal now, to give myself more freedom in my process by trying not to be such a control freak over myself.
That said, I think I've also figured out (sorta, almost) what I'm trying to accomplish with this piece. The way I've told it, it sounds simple: there was this fun thing I did every summer growing up, and I want to write about it. But that's only one piece of the puzzle. I've figured out that my real hope for this undertaking is a bit more complex than that. What I really want to do is:
1.) Show the beauty of a place that is so important to me, and show WHY it is important to me.
but more importantly...
2.) Focus on the Family: this is, I think, what this whole thing is really about. I have all these family members - 28 to be exact - that I only see once, maybe twice a year, because they all live 600 miles away at the other end of the state. And most of them live relatively close to each other, so they all see each other a lot more than I ever see any of them. And I've realized I have this whole half a family (this is just my dad's side, I see my mom's people all the time) that I feel like I barely know, who barely get to be a part of my life. And it bums me out a bit, because as I've gotten older, I've come to see just what wonderful people most of them are, and how much I'm missing out on by not getting to invest in my relationships with them as much as I'd like to, as much as everyone else gets to. I suppose I feel left out.
Anyway, I didn't see it like this when I was young, but I can see it now, the way that our annual trips to Catalina Island were what kept our family relationships strong. Even those folks who live near each other get so busy all the time that they don't always see much of each other, and when they do, it can tend to feel rushed. I know when we go to visit, it always feels rushed trying to cram everyone into a few days. That was what was so nice about our Catalina time. There was no rushing. Everybody got to relax and enjoy everyone else's company, to hang out in the pool or the hot-tub together, to chat over drinks, to go snorkeling, shopping, dining, to just love being there and talking and laughing without feeling like we had to fit it all in before the time ran out. And although we don't take these trips anymore, and we're back to those rushed visits (and the occasional wedding now that the cousins are growing up!) I realize that my relationships with my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins were fostered by the time we spent together on that island, and the groundwork was laid for the relationships that are continuing on now into my young adult years. I think THAT is the real core of the story I am trying to tell.
Okay, now I'm sentimentalizing, and you're probably all getting bored with me. But this little blogging session just now has been good for me, because it's helped me to clarify what I'm really aiming for, and re-think what's really important to me.
Now, to try getting all those feelings out on paper... I could really go for a Catalina Island Strawberry Daquiri right now!
Catalina Island is primarily a tourist destination and a vacation spot; that is to say, few people actually live, work, and go to school there 365 days a year, but rather come out for a day, a week, perhaps an entire summer, but never a lifetime. Most of Catalina is barren grassland anyway, a floating mass of hills and dry scrubby plant life and plains inhabited by buffalo, so it’s not as though the two tiny inlets of developed civilization could inhabit a very large year-round community anyway. Avalon’s not a very big town, and Two Harbors is even smaller.
Because this is the case, the City of Avalon tries to keep traffic to a minimum – there’s very little place for traffic to go, and even if there was, to cram the tiny town full of noisy cars would totally take away its quiet charm and destroy its sense of peaceful isolation from mainstream society. So instead of traveling by car, anyone who’s not a permanent resident or a taxi driver (which is almost everyone) gets around the island by golf cart. As a result, I was unaware for the longest time that golf carts were actually used primarily in the sport of golf, because for most of my life, Catalina was the only place I’d ever ridden a golf cart, and so it became in my mind a magical vehicle used to transport me around my favorite place on earth.
I got so excited when we were finally settled in and unpacked, and the time came for us to venture out of our condo by way of this amazing golf cart. My brother and I would sprint ahead of our parents in a race to see who could reach it first. (There was always a discrepancy in our judgment of this “sport” – yes, I had, technically, arrived next to the golf cart before Scott had, but he was the first one to touch it. Then I was the first one to sit in it. He was the first to buckle his seat belt. We almost never could agree on who the ‘winner’ really was. )
When we had finished our debate, we would sit buckled into the cart’s rear-facing backseats, watching the road that meandered by and waving to the occupants of the other carts that would occasionally hum past, waiting for mom and dad to gather up cell phones, sunglasses, wallets, purses, condo keys, cart keys, and the scrap of paper on which they’d scribbled the phone numbers of all the aunts’ and uncles’ condos. They always turned going out into such a lengthy process, even when it was only for a quick trip like this one to the grocery store, so my brother and I often found ourselves waiting around while they dawdled.
See, I'm trying this new thing now. I'm trying, really hard, to just let go and write. I'm even trying to limit the amount of time I spend re-reading and nit-picking it at this point. I figure that since my goal in undertaking this project is to tell the story of one of the most important - and most fun - parts of my childhood, then to let my inner critic run wild would be to hinder my thoughts and emotions really getting to flow. When I actually stop and think about it, it makes a lot more sense to just to get everything out of my head and onto the page, and THEN start trying to make it sound good. This may seem like a "no duh!" revelation, but it's something I'm constantly struggling with. So that's my goal now, to give myself more freedom in my process by trying not to be such a control freak over myself.
That said, I think I've also figured out (sorta, almost) what I'm trying to accomplish with this piece. The way I've told it, it sounds simple: there was this fun thing I did every summer growing up, and I want to write about it. But that's only one piece of the puzzle. I've figured out that my real hope for this undertaking is a bit more complex than that. What I really want to do is:
1.) Show the beauty of a place that is so important to me, and show WHY it is important to me.
but more importantly...
2.) Focus on the Family: this is, I think, what this whole thing is really about. I have all these family members - 28 to be exact - that I only see once, maybe twice a year, because they all live 600 miles away at the other end of the state. And most of them live relatively close to each other, so they all see each other a lot more than I ever see any of them. And I've realized I have this whole half a family (this is just my dad's side, I see my mom's people all the time) that I feel like I barely know, who barely get to be a part of my life. And it bums me out a bit, because as I've gotten older, I've come to see just what wonderful people most of them are, and how much I'm missing out on by not getting to invest in my relationships with them as much as I'd like to, as much as everyone else gets to. I suppose I feel left out.
Anyway, I didn't see it like this when I was young, but I can see it now, the way that our annual trips to Catalina Island were what kept our family relationships strong. Even those folks who live near each other get so busy all the time that they don't always see much of each other, and when they do, it can tend to feel rushed. I know when we go to visit, it always feels rushed trying to cram everyone into a few days. That was what was so nice about our Catalina time. There was no rushing. Everybody got to relax and enjoy everyone else's company, to hang out in the pool or the hot-tub together, to chat over drinks, to go snorkeling, shopping, dining, to just love being there and talking and laughing without feeling like we had to fit it all in before the time ran out. And although we don't take these trips anymore, and we're back to those rushed visits (and the occasional wedding now that the cousins are growing up!) I realize that my relationships with my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins were fostered by the time we spent together on that island, and the groundwork was laid for the relationships that are continuing on now into my young adult years. I think THAT is the real core of the story I am trying to tell.
Okay, now I'm sentimentalizing, and you're probably all getting bored with me. But this little blogging session just now has been good for me, because it's helped me to clarify what I'm really aiming for, and re-think what's really important to me.
Now, to try getting all those feelings out on paper... I could really go for a Catalina Island Strawberry Daquiri right now!
a little mid-day freak out
Two weeks ago, my cluster teacher Michelle said something offhand about a future class in which we'd talk about the difference between editing and revision. My reaction? At least internally: panic. Editing and revision terrify me. There's a difference?? Likely. But what is that difference, exactly? And then how and when and why do I do both those things?
To be completely honest, my most common writing/editing/(revision?) process goes like this:
1. Write, write
2. Whoops! I don't know what I'm doing—plot it out (or outline if I'm working on literature analysis)
3. Write, write, write, write, with the plotting or outline in mind
4. Read it and check it for spelling errors, great leaps in logic, and awkward sentences. I can fairly quickly be satisfied that each paragraph reads smoothly (and maybe a little beautifully) by itself. I have a much more difficult time being sure if a whole page, chapter, essay, story, anything, flows appropriately—or, better, flows the best it can.
5. But it's due tomorrow and it's 2 or 3 a.m., so I print it and go to bed.
6. I'm an intelligent girl and a competent writer, so my teacher usually gives me an A.
But now I'm quickly coming into the real world in which class-inflicted deadlines force me to “finish” something and teacher satisfaction is the only goal. This class is different—my goal for my thesis is to have a second draft of my novel finished. “Second” draft implies I'm editing or revising, doesn't it? I am, I believe that, but after reassessing the first draft, I'm changing so much in the second that it feels like the write, write, write part all over again. I'm pulling apart the first draft for the best ideas and pieces of language, but am I just creating another first draft with them and so much other, new stuff?
Some writers say they do four or five drafts minimum; do they mean entirely new drafts like this one, or are they doing much more delicate work? Some guides say to take out everything that doesn't move the story along—is that giving too much importance to plot? Many great writers clearly do not follow that rule. Faulkner famously said that writers should “kill their little darlings”—but is something ever just good? I don't know.
I feel like a good writer when I'm writing, and a terrible one when I'm editing. Is this natural or a bad sign I don't have what it takes? In the end, it doesn't matter. I couldn't stop writing if I wanted to and, hopefully this thesis class will prove, I can edit and revise for until it's worth reading.
To be completely honest, my most common writing/editing/(revision?) process goes like this:
1. Write, write
2. Whoops! I don't know what I'm doing—plot it out (or outline if I'm working on literature analysis)
3. Write, write, write, write, with the plotting or outline in mind
4. Read it and check it for spelling errors, great leaps in logic, and awkward sentences. I can fairly quickly be satisfied that each paragraph reads smoothly (and maybe a little beautifully) by itself. I have a much more difficult time being sure if a whole page, chapter, essay, story, anything, flows appropriately—or, better, flows the best it can.
5. But it's due tomorrow and it's 2 or 3 a.m., so I print it and go to bed.
6. I'm an intelligent girl and a competent writer, so my teacher usually gives me an A.
But now I'm quickly coming into the real world in which class-inflicted deadlines force me to “finish” something and teacher satisfaction is the only goal. This class is different—my goal for my thesis is to have a second draft of my novel finished. “Second” draft implies I'm editing or revising, doesn't it? I am, I believe that, but after reassessing the first draft, I'm changing so much in the second that it feels like the write, write, write part all over again. I'm pulling apart the first draft for the best ideas and pieces of language, but am I just creating another first draft with them and so much other, new stuff?
Some writers say they do four or five drafts minimum; do they mean entirely new drafts like this one, or are they doing much more delicate work? Some guides say to take out everything that doesn't move the story along—is that giving too much importance to plot? Many great writers clearly do not follow that rule. Faulkner famously said that writers should “kill their little darlings”—but is something ever just good? I don't know.
I feel like a good writer when I'm writing, and a terrible one when I'm editing. Is this natural or a bad sign I don't have what it takes? In the end, it doesn't matter. I couldn't stop writing if I wanted to and, hopefully this thesis class will prove, I can edit and revise for until it's worth reading.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Edit, edit, edit.
Well, I've vomited six times today... so what better time than to write my blog! The assignment? Describe your editing process.
1. Wire the story, edit a little -basic things like spelling, grammar, etc. Nothing fancy.
2. Usually read over the story, typed and printed, and correct it by hand with a pencil.
3. Read it.
4. Type it up.
5. Final revision: Read the typed version, add any corrections, print.
Editing the actual content of the story is a little more complex, obviously. Once I write something, it's harder for me to add things into the story than anything else. This is something I am working on now with two stories I have written -both untitled. I'm determined to make them a couple of kickass stories.
Somehow when I edit I just know what needs to be done. I get into an almost trance like state, very concentrated, and comb through the sucker. I love it when that happens. That's how I know if something is going well or not.
That sums it up. Short and sweet.
Monday, September 14, 2009
blog assignment - write on a piece that made you want to write in a different way
This poem had two influences: Martin Espada and Craig Santos Perez
My friend texted me one day to tell me that she found a poet with a similar style to mine, except better and more developed. Martin Espada. Imagine the Angels of Bread.
I didn't know I had a style until I read this book of poetry, which pretty much made my mind explode just cuz of the fact that THIS is where I want my writing to be. How he uses verbs in the freshest way possible, how he weaves dialects and academia into writing, how he shows but never tells, how he uses a slow steady pace how he unfolds stories for his readers - and they're always stories never rants or some random image or random play on words - there's always a distinct purpose.
This is a piece I really appreciated:
Beloved Spic
Here in the new white neighborhood,
the neighbors kept it pressed
inside the dictionaries and Bibles
like a leaf, chewed it for digestion
after a heavy dinner,
laughed when it hopped
from their mouths like a secret,
whispered it as carefully as the answer
to a test question in school
bellowed it in barrooms
when the alcohol
made them want to sing.
So I saw it
spraypainted on my locker and told no one,
found it scripted in the icing on a cake,
touched it stinging like the tooth slammed
into a faucet, so I kept my mouth closed
pushed it away crusted on the coach's lip
with a spot of dried egg,
watched it spiral into the ear
of a disappointed girl who never sat beside me again,
heard it in my head when I punched a lamp,
mesmerized by the slash oozing
between my knuckles,
and it was beloved
until the day we staked our lawn
with a sign that read: For Sale.
After reading Martin Espada, I began to carefully look at the way I use verbs , trying to figure out how I can use them in the most interesting way. I also paid attention to what kinds of details I isolated - it's not necessarily the amount of specific details you use but WHAT specific details you use, I realized. It was also the metaphors, the personification tools he used in a lot of his writing, the parallels he draws in certain situations. Like this short but incredibly powerful piece:
When the leather is a whip
At night,
with my wife
on the bed,
I turn from her
to unbuckle
my belt
so she won't see
her father
unbuckling
his belt
This piece is incredibly short and concise and yet tells a range of stories in one. At once we see his love for his wife, his wife's history, while also capturing a very small moment, a regular moment of simply taking off his belt, that actually means so much more. The parallels he uses between leather and whip and belt is also genius, in my opinon.
Another writer who really pushed me to think outside of the box was Craig Santos Perez. I just recently met him as a fellow Micronesian poet at a reading about a month ago, where we exchanged poetry. He handed me his book, Unincorporated Territory, and as soon as I flipped it open I had a wave of anxiety: he's a page poet, I thought. He's gonna hate my writing.
In my mind, I've created my own set of definitions of different types of poets - and this is in no way a set definition, it continues to change and evolve as I myself change and evolve. So there's the page world and then there's the spoken word. Page poets in my experience have been mostly academics, those who took the proper poetry classes who play with form and language. Spoken word on the other hand, is rougher around the edges, consists of guerrilla poets and is more about communicating ideas rather than language.
But this is besides the point. Cuz his book contributed in pushing me in a new direction in my writing: playing with the page and form.
His book dissects the history of his islands (Guam) while also exploring the use and power of his language. He uses Chamorru words and plays with the definition while exploring these words in their historical and political context. Total genius. There was so much more than what met the eye, I had to sit down and really think about every line, analyze the lines he drew on the page. On one page he actually maps the travel of a plane throughout micronesia - the same journey many micronesians have taken at some point in their lives. It was so crazy to see this journey on the page, and in a book of poetry at that! It also made me realize that you didn't have to water down your poetry for your readers, and that form and page can totally contribute to the power of your message.
So yes, ladies and gentlemen (or well whatever) I wrote my first page poem! Exciting. I know. That's what that shit is up there. Let me know what you guys think
welcome to my world
For class:
And when wind and winter harden
All the loveless land,
It will whisper of the garden,
You will understand.
It will whisper of the garden,
You will understand.
-To My Wife-With a Copy of My Poem by oscar wilde
I love what he's done with these last four lines. The personification is beautiful as well as this image of the wind and winter hardening. Imagining this is amazing. This idea of weather turning into the stern force that hardens love; the love seems almost metaphorical for not only his relationship with his wife but the world. He paints a lovely picture for his audience. And what's more is how he ends his poem; "you will understand". This hints at a secret only he and his wife know. In the end he turns this message to his wife through it's secrecy and imaginativeness into a love poem.
For group:
Form? Writing? Technique even?
Preposterous.
Free style like when swimming,
Writing has one form and that form is
Everything
at one time creates
nothing
There is no set way to make a piece of
art.
Like snow flakes everyone is
different. It's impossible to create
a line to fit every curve within.
When I write I think everything through. Like a puzzle I map out my ideas as if I were playing Tetris in my head. I write best in the mornings after I've awakened from a great dream and at night once I've returned from a great adventure. It's soothing to write during trips; in the cars, the trains, on the planes. I love creating poems and then looking to see how they tie in with my writing or how they can. I love making a list of words that I love; love to say, love to hear, love how they sound, love how they look after I've written them down in cursive or print. Then I take those words and try to form a poem or a creative thought. Form for me is sketching out my idea (story/poem/line) on lined paper but not in a line. Instead they twine between other ideas that were processed on that lined paper earlier in the day or week. In the end the one sheet is a patchwork of ideas and drafts. Then I take what was written and try to copy it onto a computer with the same pauses that I have painted on the lined paper through the organized mess of the patches and the gaps and how the lines wind around the work that has been laid mark before them. Even in the disruption in organization contains organization in that each small gap or large space made from the older ideas being placed in the way stand as where I decide to break for a pause. I work well with confusion. It makes sense to me.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Blog assignment - post four lines from a poem and critique it the way you want to be critiqued
From What They're Doing by Dan Albergotti
What they’re doing
They’re carrying a cross before them like a scythe.
They’re entering holy cities in armored personnel carriers.
They’re accomplishing missions, declaring victory,
Saying amen, amen, meaning so be it, so be it. And so it is.
Notes:
These four lines make up the end of the poem and are very tight in terms of craft. The first seven lines of the poem are not so tightly formed and can be read as captured moments, things that have happened. This part of the poem builds a lot of momentum before cutting itself short and ending with a line that feels like running headlong into a wall.
The last four lines stood out for me in terms of form because of the repetition in the beginning of each line and the syntactical parallels between the three lines leading to the end. The form draws attention to these lines in particular like a road sign that says: look at this! and feel the weight of the words. Beginning each line with “they’re” indicates to the reader that there is an importance to the things that “they’re” doing.
Furthermore, the last four lines of this poem begin with an action, “they’re” doing something, and the lines are building urgency. First they do this, then they do this, then they do something else, each action builds on the previous, informing the statement before it. “They” carry the cross like a scythe, into holy cities in personnel carriers, accomplishing missions, declaring victory. The image of the scythe is immediately violent because it is a blade used to harvest (obviously), combining this with the image of the cross adds a sort of righteousness to the statement that carries into the following lines. A holy harvest in a holy city, the conquest and victory of the righteous; one line informs the next.
Still, one should also note that tension is created in the second line of the excerpt with the words “personnel carriers” which implies a sense of detachment from the righteous harvest, the culling of the fold as it were. The words “personnel carrier” bring the reader to a place where one considers war and conquest separate from people hurting others, they are not people they are “personnel”. Which lends to the tension in the following line between the very personal religious “mission” and the sense of the word “mission” in a war. This is also example of one line informing the next.
Finally, the last line of the poem cuts the rolling “armored personnel carriers” and the march of war by doing two things: the first is breaking form, and the second is by changing the action (the verb) from a physical collaborative action, to a deeply personal one. The break in the form creates a stop, both visually and when read out loud. However, instead of taking away from the level of importance by switching forms, it adds to it by once again drawing the reader’s attention to it. The verb is not introduced with “they’re,” it is thrust onto the reader as an overarching action that is not sequential but rather constant. This line informs all of the lines before it, the action in the last line permeates the rest of the poem. Not only is the form cut short, but the poem doubles back on itself by having the last line inform the reading of all of the lines before it. I consider this in the same way that I would consider the final couplet in a sonnet. The line brings the poem to a close and puts the rest of the poem into perspective, in this case on a visceral level. I think this is achieved through the word “Amen” which is a personal affirmation in meditation and not necessarily an outward action that affects others; in combination with the words “so it is”. This line juxtaposes the ideas of personal influence with physical force and implies that one informs the other, which, I think, was the point of the poem.
-Lupe
What they’re doing
They’re carrying a cross before them like a scythe.
They’re entering holy cities in armored personnel carriers.
They’re accomplishing missions, declaring victory,
Saying amen, amen, meaning so be it, so be it. And so it is.
Notes:
These four lines make up the end of the poem and are very tight in terms of craft. The first seven lines of the poem are not so tightly formed and can be read as captured moments, things that have happened. This part of the poem builds a lot of momentum before cutting itself short and ending with a line that feels like running headlong into a wall.
The last four lines stood out for me in terms of form because of the repetition in the beginning of each line and the syntactical parallels between the three lines leading to the end. The form draws attention to these lines in particular like a road sign that says: look at this! and feel the weight of the words. Beginning each line with “they’re” indicates to the reader that there is an importance to the things that “they’re” doing.
Furthermore, the last four lines of this poem begin with an action, “they’re” doing something, and the lines are building urgency. First they do this, then they do this, then they do something else, each action builds on the previous, informing the statement before it. “They” carry the cross like a scythe, into holy cities in personnel carriers, accomplishing missions, declaring victory. The image of the scythe is immediately violent because it is a blade used to harvest (obviously), combining this with the image of the cross adds a sort of righteousness to the statement that carries into the following lines. A holy harvest in a holy city, the conquest and victory of the righteous; one line informs the next.
Still, one should also note that tension is created in the second line of the excerpt with the words “personnel carriers” which implies a sense of detachment from the righteous harvest, the culling of the fold as it were. The words “personnel carrier” bring the reader to a place where one considers war and conquest separate from people hurting others, they are not people they are “personnel”. Which lends to the tension in the following line between the very personal religious “mission” and the sense of the word “mission” in a war. This is also example of one line informing the next.
Finally, the last line of the poem cuts the rolling “armored personnel carriers” and the march of war by doing two things: the first is breaking form, and the second is by changing the action (the verb) from a physical collaborative action, to a deeply personal one. The break in the form creates a stop, both visually and when read out loud. However, instead of taking away from the level of importance by switching forms, it adds to it by once again drawing the reader’s attention to it. The verb is not introduced with “they’re,” it is thrust onto the reader as an overarching action that is not sequential but rather constant. This line informs all of the lines before it, the action in the last line permeates the rest of the poem. Not only is the form cut short, but the poem doubles back on itself by having the last line inform the reading of all of the lines before it. I consider this in the same way that I would consider the final couplet in a sonnet. The line brings the poem to a close and puts the rest of the poem into perspective, in this case on a visceral level. I think this is achieved through the word “Amen” which is a personal affirmation in meditation and not necessarily an outward action that affects others; in combination with the words “so it is”. This line juxtaposes the ideas of personal influence with physical force and implies that one informs the other, which, I think, was the point of the poem.
-Lupe
It's all about the feedback (or not)
Okay class, today we are discussing critiques - what makes a good critique, and how do we want our own work to be critiqued when that time inevitably comes? (Dun dun dun!) One of the biggest pitfalls I experience as a writer, especially in the workshop setting, is that I write with the critique in mind; that is to say, I focus much to heavily on what I think my readers will want to read, thus forgetting that the whole point of writing (or at least, the more important point) is that it is meant to be a form of self expression, and NOT a form of people-pleasing! ...which, for someone like me who is a chronic people-pleaser, can be a difficult concept to grasp!!!
Okay, back to the point of this blog post. Consider the following passage from last week's assigned reading selection, Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing:
"Most nights, I don't sleep. Instead I lie in bed and page through my list of dread and regret, starting with my childhood and ending with the polar ice caps. Everything in between I file into something like schoolroom cubbies, marked with labels like Disaster and Desire. When my husband left, he told me he hadn't been happy in years. Happy? I thought. We're supposed to be happy? I was under the impression that no one was truly happy, given the raw materials we have to work with in this life. Since he's been gone, I keep the lamp on all night. I'd rather lie awake in the light and keep an eye on his absence than reach out in the dark, thinking he's there. The fact that I may do this for the rest of my life is unclassifiable, too much to bear. When the list comes to this I get up and sit at the kitchen table and watch the snow, the snow which seems always to be falling."
It's hard to say exactly what I would want people to say to this if it was my work, because I can't find anything to critique (which is probably why it won a pushcart prize). But I will make a few positive comments, ones that I would appreciate hearing had I written the piece:
1.) The use of relatively short, simple sentences and minimal punctuation is quite effective, as it allows the reader to focus primarily on the content of the piece without getting distracted by complicated grammatical structures.
2.) I appreciate the use of the filing metaphor, as if one actually could file their thoughts into schoolroom cubbies - it would make life a lot simpler, and would result in far fewer instances of feeling like one's brain might explode. Would help with time management as well. Point being that I think what the writer does here is express a common human desire, the desire to disentangle webs of confusing thoughts and emotions - in an unconventional, yet indentifiable and reasonable way.
3.) The part of this piece that I find to have the strongest impact is this: "Since he's been gone, I keep the lamp on all night. I'd rather lie awake in the light and keep an eye on his absence than reach out in the dark, thinking he's there." It conveys emotion and longing, and is the true, honest face of human nature, whether we realize it or not.
Aaagh, I can't do this anymore. I'm just not feeling it. I realize as I look back over the comments I just made, that they reflect my tendency to soak up positive feedback like a sponge. I think that's my problem. I want to boost my confidence in my own writing so much that I long to hear people say good things about it. I think that's reflected back in my own habit of critiquing a piece by going, "I like this, I like that, blah, blah, blah," and not going very deep, gettig very analytical or thinking very hard about ways to make a piece better. That's when I have to stop and remind myself that the purpose of a critique is not just to rattle off a list of the things you like about someone's work, because while getting positive feedback is fun, it does not make a productive critique all on its own. There's a reason it's called "critique," and not "happy joy-joy love fest."
So, that said, I think it's time I go finish some Econ homework and then...try to convince myself not be afraid to dive in and write! I keep wanting to write, but I'm always afraid to get started, afraid I won't like what comes out, afraid it won't be good enough when that mystical critique rolls around. Of course, I'd probably just get to the critique and have Elmaz whack me over the head with my own writing, telling me it's not that bad and I need to stop whining, stop apologizing for it.
And she'd be right.
Okay, back to the point of this blog post. Consider the following passage from last week's assigned reading selection, Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing:
"Most nights, I don't sleep. Instead I lie in bed and page through my list of dread and regret, starting with my childhood and ending with the polar ice caps. Everything in between I file into something like schoolroom cubbies, marked with labels like Disaster and Desire. When my husband left, he told me he hadn't been happy in years. Happy? I thought. We're supposed to be happy? I was under the impression that no one was truly happy, given the raw materials we have to work with in this life. Since he's been gone, I keep the lamp on all night. I'd rather lie awake in the light and keep an eye on his absence than reach out in the dark, thinking he's there. The fact that I may do this for the rest of my life is unclassifiable, too much to bear. When the list comes to this I get up and sit at the kitchen table and watch the snow, the snow which seems always to be falling."
It's hard to say exactly what I would want people to say to this if it was my work, because I can't find anything to critique (which is probably why it won a pushcart prize). But I will make a few positive comments, ones that I would appreciate hearing had I written the piece:
1.) The use of relatively short, simple sentences and minimal punctuation is quite effective, as it allows the reader to focus primarily on the content of the piece without getting distracted by complicated grammatical structures.
2.) I appreciate the use of the filing metaphor, as if one actually could file their thoughts into schoolroom cubbies - it would make life a lot simpler, and would result in far fewer instances of feeling like one's brain might explode. Would help with time management as well. Point being that I think what the writer does here is express a common human desire, the desire to disentangle webs of confusing thoughts and emotions - in an unconventional, yet indentifiable and reasonable way.
3.) The part of this piece that I find to have the strongest impact is this: "Since he's been gone, I keep the lamp on all night. I'd rather lie awake in the light and keep an eye on his absence than reach out in the dark, thinking he's there." It conveys emotion and longing, and is the true, honest face of human nature, whether we realize it or not.
Aaagh, I can't do this anymore. I'm just not feeling it. I realize as I look back over the comments I just made, that they reflect my tendency to soak up positive feedback like a sponge. I think that's my problem. I want to boost my confidence in my own writing so much that I long to hear people say good things about it. I think that's reflected back in my own habit of critiquing a piece by going, "I like this, I like that, blah, blah, blah," and not going very deep, gettig very analytical or thinking very hard about ways to make a piece better. That's when I have to stop and remind myself that the purpose of a critique is not just to rattle off a list of the things you like about someone's work, because while getting positive feedback is fun, it does not make a productive critique all on its own. There's a reason it's called "critique," and not "happy joy-joy love fest."
So, that said, I think it's time I go finish some Econ homework and then...try to convince myself not be afraid to dive in and write! I keep wanting to write, but I'm always afraid to get started, afraid I won't like what comes out, afraid it won't be good enough when that mystical critique rolls around. Of course, I'd probably just get to the critique and have Elmaz whack me over the head with my own writing, telling me it's not that bad and I need to stop whining, stop apologizing for it.
And she'd be right.
What to do. What to do.
This assignment is due in fifty-nine minutes and I haven't a damn clue what to write! Well, my unofficial non-blog assignment was to turn off my inner critic and allow myself to write anything even if it's crap. So, I think I'll let myself write a bunch of crap for my blog entry this week.
What's hard about this assignment for me is that I really couldn't find anything that I've never tried in my writing in the stories we read: I've written poems, I usually write in vignettes for my longer pieces, quite often I write about pathetic, disaffected people, etc. So, I guess I'll just try something I know I've tried, but always failed at: writing about myself. It's something I struggle with from time to time. Let's give it a go. Why not?
When I was younger, nothing confused me more than my grandfather. He was a tall, bulbous, Yiddish speaking man, who loved to eat and loved to pull legs. No one could ever overlook Herb Stein. He was big, loud, and he'd tell you all about it whether you wanted to hear it or not. Grandpa did whatever he wanted. He'd dry beef, drive without his seatbelt, and wore rainbow suspenders every day. He owned a small hardware chain and finally earned himself and his family a modest fortune. He took that fortune and designed and built his own house. White with a green roof. He did it all, because he was Herb and he was my Grandpa.
When ever I would not stop crying he'd threaten to hit my Dad. I would just cry even more. I never got his jokes and he never got why I didn't get those jokes.
Every morning he would walk down the stairs, look at me spilling cereal on my pajamas and boom, "Who are you? What are you doing in my house?" I would just stare, afraid. Why couldn't he remember? He just saw me last night when he snuck me bites of his sandwich.
Late at night, long after dinner, he would be downstairs making a snack: a big sandwich, a big bowl of ice cream, a pizza, whatever, anything, as long as it was big and food -it was the perfect midnight snack. I would sneak downstairs to meet him when my crocheting grandmother's eyes were too distracted by Fred Astaire or a murder mystery. He would feed me then and say things I can't remember now.
Sometimes my grandmother and I would throw tea parties with a miniature tea set served on a child-sized table and chair set. The menu always included: hot chocolate and hot dogs cut into finger food sizes. Grandfather would squeeze into one of those little chairs and sip hot chocolate with me, chatting about the weather.
Grandma loved animals. They had everything: dogs, cats, sheep, chickens, turkeys... Everyday you had to gather up the chicken eggs. Grandpa always took me to go get the eggs. While we would walk there he'd sing his song, especially composed for the occasion:
We're going to pick some cackle berries!
somethingsomethingsomething
somethingsomethingsomething
We're going to pick some cackleberries!
I would go into the dark, smelly coop and put all the eggs in the bucket. They were the best eggs in the world. They had the brightest yokes, like suns rising in the morning. Grandma always said that she could never eat store-bought eggs unless blindfolded.
Sometimes when life was good he would take me out in his old, blue pickup with white stripes on the sides. He would stop at a light for a long time, even after it turned green, "I'm waiting for a color I like," he would say. He would always buy me a rainbow sherbet. I never ate any rainbow sherbet that wasn't from my Grandpa. I always had to remind him to put on his seatbelt.
One evening. My parents get a phone call that Grandpa was in a car accident. There's tension, my Dad paces all over the house and my Mom pretends to do things in the kitchen and I pretend I don't notice and play. We get another phone call. He didn't make it. Dad called a hospital and tried to donate his eyes but it didn't work out. I fell asleep and woke up to my dog Chocolate licking my face.
At the funeral I was afraid we'd have to look into the coffin like how they do in the movies, but we're Jewish, so there was just a box. Everyone took turns shoveling dirt in the grave.
Grandma sold the white house with the green roof and moved, and later died, in a luxury, high-rise Los Angeles apartment. The dogs and cats died, the sheep and chickens were given away to nice people who wouldn't eat them.
I still couldn't write about myself. Oh well. At least I wrote something.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Blog assignment - post paragraph from story and critique it the way you want to be critiqued
Paragraph from short story, Reasons For and the Advantages of Breathing, p. 362:
Anticipation
When I knock, the herpetologist flings open his door and beams at me, ushering me in. [1]The tiny room is tropically warm, one wall lined with aquariums that glow with ultraviolet light. This is my office, he says proudly, and these are my anoles[2]. He is wearing battered khakis and sandals with socks, as if he has just come in from a jungle expedition.[3] The anoles[4] give the room a frantic energy. They puff and posture, do push-ups, circle one another warily. Their bodies are sharp and lizard-like, the dulled green and brown of sea glass, and fans of bright colored skin hang from their chins: red, purple, blue. Do you want to hold one? the herpetologist asks excitedly. When I step closer, their faces seem wise and irascible, and as they swivel their eyes I get the sense that they are judging me. But the herpetologist has already pulled the mesh cover off one of the tanks and is watching me expectantly. I reach in and make a half-hearted show of trying to catch one, my hand sending streaks of panic through the tank[5]. I look at him and shrug. Like this, he says, and I see his hand slip in like a stealthy animal. Suddenly an anole is clasped in his fingers, its head between his thumb and forefinger, tongue flickering, as startling as a bright scarf in a magic trick. I gasp and find I’ve been holding my breath. You’ve got to anticipate, he says, grinning.
Notes: This paragraph works so well because the style supports the scene Adjectives are actually pretty sparse; the verbs and adverbs move the action – like they’re supposed to, but still, this is a good example of how that happens. The anoles eyes swivel. “They puff and posture, do push-ups, circle one another warily. “
The herpetologist’s final comment gets a lot of weight at the end of the scene. It seems like it means more than just catching a lizard… the narrator didn’t anticipate getting dumped, the advice seems late…her husband left as fast as an anole.
Appreciate the way writer sets up the scene and lets readers give it any kind of meaning they can draw from it.
I could not think of any way this could be better, so figured best to think about why it works, and say so.
Was the writer alluding to Lolita? See footnote 2. I suspected the herp was a perp, and now wonder if I supplied that because of Lolita, or if writer deliberately imitated the structure of the quote, just to toy with readers, give suspense.
[1] Verbs move reader into the scene: knock, flings, beams, ushering.
[2] “That was my Lo,” she said, “and these are my lilies.” Lolita, Nabokov, Chapter 1, section ten
[3] Clothes reflect occupation, room temperature. “jungle expedition” – humorous – professor lives in his own world.
[4] Anoles – I like the gift of a new word. Looked it up, saw pictures. Great – a herpetologist would call lizards by their science names. Economy. One word reinforces character, makes him credible.
[5] Great picture created with verb: “streaks of panic”. Easy to see.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Process
Our small group meeting went quite well. We (as in Suki, Alana, and I) read an article by Edgar Allen Poe; he discussed the process he used when writing his poems. This article specifically focused on "The Raven", and Mr. Poe went into great depth in describing the structure he used when writing the poem, from determining the feeling he wished to invoke in the reader before even considering the context of his work, to playing with vowels and sounds in order to find the kind of word he wanted repeated throughout his novel.
Although it was certainly interesting to find that he wrote his poems in this way, I absolutely cannot relate to that method of writing at all.
I write a story when a scene comes to mind. If I think too structurally about a scene or a plot or a character, my ability to creatively write wanes. Given an essay or a critique, I can use a "fill in the blanks" pattern quite well, but as for creating stories, the method simply does not work.
I have written scenes at the oddest times--in the middle of writing an essay for a class, in the middle of watching a rented movie at home, at two o'clock in the morning after awaking from a dream.... Occasionally, I do get into moods where I just want to sit down and write. Scenes come to me fluidly, and I can, with ease, express them in writing. However, most of the time--especially when I am working on a lengthy project, such as this thesis--scenes that I can absolutely not live without come to me at random, and though it may be inconvenient for me in the moment to write out my thoughts, I know that if I do not, that part of my story will be gone forever.
The most inconvenient place for this to happen is in the car, while I am driving. And it happens more often than is reasonable or fair.
I can think much better than I can speak, so voice recording my thoughts would do me little good. I often get distracted by certain words, trying to phrase what I want to get across--which is much more difficult out loud than it is in my head--that I forget the scene in the middle of my describing it aloud. Therefore, I have come up with a technique that helps me remember scenes quite well, even after the initial inspiration has dissipated. I listen to music.
When I think of my scenes, I often think of them as if I am watching a film. When I write, I simply describe what I see. Listening to music while thinking of a certain scene is like adding a soundtrack to a movie. Then, when I find myself with a sheet of paper or computer access, I simply replay the song and write.
Inspiration is a tricky thing because it often just pops up without an invitation, and leaves when it pleases. I can't count how many stories I've lost because inspiration decided to hang out with me for an hour and then disappear as soon as I had the utilities I needed in order to write out my thoughts. Wasteful.
Cristina
Although it was certainly interesting to find that he wrote his poems in this way, I absolutely cannot relate to that method of writing at all.
I write a story when a scene comes to mind. If I think too structurally about a scene or a plot or a character, my ability to creatively write wanes. Given an essay or a critique, I can use a "fill in the blanks" pattern quite well, but as for creating stories, the method simply does not work.
I have written scenes at the oddest times--in the middle of writing an essay for a class, in the middle of watching a rented movie at home, at two o'clock in the morning after awaking from a dream.... Occasionally, I do get into moods where I just want to sit down and write. Scenes come to me fluidly, and I can, with ease, express them in writing. However, most of the time--especially when I am working on a lengthy project, such as this thesis--scenes that I can absolutely not live without come to me at random, and though it may be inconvenient for me in the moment to write out my thoughts, I know that if I do not, that part of my story will be gone forever.
The most inconvenient place for this to happen is in the car, while I am driving. And it happens more often than is reasonable or fair.
I can think much better than I can speak, so voice recording my thoughts would do me little good. I often get distracted by certain words, trying to phrase what I want to get across--which is much more difficult out loud than it is in my head--that I forget the scene in the middle of my describing it aloud. Therefore, I have come up with a technique that helps me remember scenes quite well, even after the initial inspiration has dissipated. I listen to music.
When I think of my scenes, I often think of them as if I am watching a film. When I write, I simply describe what I see. Listening to music while thinking of a certain scene is like adding a soundtrack to a movie. Then, when I find myself with a sheet of paper or computer access, I simply replay the song and write.
Inspiration is a tricky thing because it often just pops up without an invitation, and leaves when it pleases. I can't count how many stories I've lost because inspiration decided to hang out with me for an hour and then disappear as soon as I had the utilities I needed in order to write out my thoughts. Wasteful.
Cristina
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
the journey of my book
I don't care about making deals. I don't care about whether they decide to make a movie about it or if it spawns an entire series of novels or if kids will line up outside of the bookstore in the costumes my book inspires.
What I want is a connection.
So the journey of my book will be a myriad of relationships. The first connection are the connections I've already established - the family who have all taught me how to move about in the world, who inspire me in every way giving me moments to reflect on and to write on, who continuously push me to be a better person and who never for a minute give me any leeway, who never allow me any excuses - the men and women out here in the bay whom I've shaped into my family who continue to support the person I've become - the people on the bus, in the streets, in the mall, who are only meant to inspire me for that second, for that moment. This is the first connection.
The second connection will be my pen to the page. Connecting with the art, connecting with the space, the history surrounding me, and connecting with the story that's meant to be told - not how I would tell the story, but how the story would tell itself (thank you Ruth Foreman for that little tidbit).
After that, the book goes into print. It will be printed with a small press, preferably pacific islander. It will first explode on the literary scene in hawaii (an explosion looks like a splattering of readings, book signings, connections with other pacific islander writers etc as in I'll finally be let into the pacific islander writer circle where I will meet Albert Wendt and tell him about the first time I met him years ago at a Bamboo Writers Workshop and totally did not know it was him and actually tried to debate with him and then we'll laugh about it) and then will make its way to New Zealand and Samoa and Fiji, then eventually, at the school I'll create for girls, it'll make it to the Marshall Islands. It will be incorporated into Pacific Island creative writing classes - all over.
That's when the third connection will be made. The most important connection.
I want a young Marshallese person, girl or boy, to pick up my book at random (maybe it's a birthday present maybe it's at a library or even lame ass barnes and nobles) and read it and love it - love it the way I've loved books, like it was made for them because that's who I wrote it for - for them. I want them to love it so much they don't feel like they're alone anymore. I want them to read it and hug it to themselves like it's their best friend and know that they're not alone, that someone's out there trying to tell their story just as much as they're trying to tell their own stories.
I want the final journey of my book to be in their bag, beaten up and weathered by oily fingerprints and sandwiches from their school cafeteria, stashed away in their trunks for college and then on their bookshelves, where they will finally give it to their children and say
"This book. Read it. It was made for our people."
What I want is a connection.
So the journey of my book will be a myriad of relationships. The first connection are the connections I've already established - the family who have all taught me how to move about in the world, who inspire me in every way giving me moments to reflect on and to write on, who continuously push me to be a better person and who never for a minute give me any leeway, who never allow me any excuses - the men and women out here in the bay whom I've shaped into my family who continue to support the person I've become - the people on the bus, in the streets, in the mall, who are only meant to inspire me for that second, for that moment. This is the first connection.
The second connection will be my pen to the page. Connecting with the art, connecting with the space, the history surrounding me, and connecting with the story that's meant to be told - not how I would tell the story, but how the story would tell itself (thank you Ruth Foreman for that little tidbit).
After that, the book goes into print. It will be printed with a small press, preferably pacific islander. It will first explode on the literary scene in hawaii (an explosion looks like a splattering of readings, book signings, connections with other pacific islander writers etc as in I'll finally be let into the pacific islander writer circle where I will meet Albert Wendt and tell him about the first time I met him years ago at a Bamboo Writers Workshop and totally did not know it was him and actually tried to debate with him and then we'll laugh about it) and then will make its way to New Zealand and Samoa and Fiji, then eventually, at the school I'll create for girls, it'll make it to the Marshall Islands. It will be incorporated into Pacific Island creative writing classes - all over.
That's when the third connection will be made. The most important connection.
I want a young Marshallese person, girl or boy, to pick up my book at random (maybe it's a birthday present maybe it's at a library or even lame ass barnes and nobles) and read it and love it - love it the way I've loved books, like it was made for them because that's who I wrote it for - for them. I want them to love it so much they don't feel like they're alone anymore. I want them to read it and hug it to themselves like it's their best friend and know that they're not alone, that someone's out there trying to tell their story just as much as they're trying to tell their own stories.
I want the final journey of my book to be in their bag, beaten up and weathered by oily fingerprints and sandwiches from their school cafeteria, stashed away in their trunks for college and then on their bookshelves, where they will finally give it to their children and say
"This book. Read it. It was made for our people."
Decisions, Decisions!
Cliche image du jour: I am standing at a fork in the road, trying to decide whether to take the path on the left, or the one on the right.
To follow the left road would be to take Fiction Avenue. It's foggy in places, because some details and important plot points have yet to be imagined. But there are interesting landmarks along this road too. A soon-to-be college student who works at one of those little old privately-owned bookstores (think Pegasus or Laurel), a soon-to-be second-time mom whose passion lies in the the delicate art of cake decorating, a little half-sister who has no idea that she is part of a much bigger picture than she could ever have imagined. The silly thing is, I have to figure out the stakes, where these characters are headed, what challenges they must face, how their paths eventually come to cross. I have a rough idea, but as I say, this road is foggy. It's a tempting road, though; I sorely miss my fiction roots.
To take the right road, on the other hand, would be to embark on a journey down Memoir Boulevard. There is less fog here, because the details are clearer, based on my own experiences throughout most of my life. Peanut wars between cousins, exciting golf-cart rides up and down rolling hills, skipping rocks on the beach, renting movies to watch in the condo while being serenaded by the distant sound of crashing waves, snorkeling, jacuzzi-shmoozing, souvenir shopping, bouncy boat rides...the list goes on...and on...and on... The only problem with this road, from a writer's perspective, is that it is a little bit too...flat. In discussing the idea with another one of my professors, she said, "That's all fine and good, but what is the 'so what?' factor? What's at stake here?" That was a question I honestly didn't know how to answer. Said professor told me that while this was a nice idea, it sounded like a lot of descriptive detail and telling what happened, and little else. So, if I travel down Memoir Boulevard, I have to develop some sort of storyline, to organize sixteen years worth of memoir in space and time, to make it relevant to someone besides me. Ummm....help?
I am standing at a fork in the road, trying to decide whether to take the path on the left, or the one on the right.
- Kelsey
To follow the left road would be to take Fiction Avenue. It's foggy in places, because some details and important plot points have yet to be imagined. But there are interesting landmarks along this road too. A soon-to-be college student who works at one of those little old privately-owned bookstores (think Pegasus or Laurel), a soon-to-be second-time mom whose passion lies in the the delicate art of cake decorating, a little half-sister who has no idea that she is part of a much bigger picture than she could ever have imagined. The silly thing is, I have to figure out the stakes, where these characters are headed, what challenges they must face, how their paths eventually come to cross. I have a rough idea, but as I say, this road is foggy. It's a tempting road, though; I sorely miss my fiction roots.
To take the right road, on the other hand, would be to embark on a journey down Memoir Boulevard. There is less fog here, because the details are clearer, based on my own experiences throughout most of my life. Peanut wars between cousins, exciting golf-cart rides up and down rolling hills, skipping rocks on the beach, renting movies to watch in the condo while being serenaded by the distant sound of crashing waves, snorkeling, jacuzzi-shmoozing, souvenir shopping, bouncy boat rides...the list goes on...and on...and on... The only problem with this road, from a writer's perspective, is that it is a little bit too...flat. In discussing the idea with another one of my professors, she said, "That's all fine and good, but what is the 'so what?' factor? What's at stake here?" That was a question I honestly didn't know how to answer. Said professor told me that while this was a nice idea, it sounded like a lot of descriptive detail and telling what happened, and little else. So, if I travel down Memoir Boulevard, I have to develop some sort of storyline, to organize sixteen years worth of memoir in space and time, to make it relevant to someone besides me. Ummm....help?
I am standing at a fork in the road, trying to decide whether to take the path on the left, or the one on the right.
- Kelsey
Monday, September 7, 2009
On the 51.
I was on the 51 bus on the way to see my Mom at Bayside Rehab, and saw someone reading a skinny little play, one of those Samuel French's little booklet plays. Holy shit, it was my play.
( It was published and produced a year ago.)
Every time she looked away from the page, I took it personally. Why didn't it hold her attention? Every time she went back to the page, I relaxed. She kept doing this. Ohmigawd. She's memorizing it. She's an actor. I wept (discreetly) for joy. What an idiot.
To restore myself to sanity, I made myself think about Mom, how she's doing, planned how to feed her the strawberry smoothie when I get there, thought about her gnarled feet in her little grip-socks, and how she always wants to get out of her wheelchair because she doesn't know she can't stand up and you have to distract her. She likes to help...if she's convinced that sitting still is helpful, she'll usually sit still and forget about the belt.
(Is somebody putting my play on in the East Bay? Hey -- maybe I'll get a check! I should visit my PO Box more often...)
I saw someone I don't know memorizing their lines in a play I wrote. Someone I didn't know read something I wrote. Something I wrote is in French's, cheap and small enough to go anywhere...unbelievable - a local actor read it on the 51 to Alameda, read my f-ing play..holy shit.
It's kinda like I thought it would be. Publishing doesn't mean a car, a house, a chunk of change. It means that all through my daily doings, I can say to myself, "At least one of my play's is produced and published."
my bank account is overdrawn again. My ex's mother cuts her eyes at me. My mother couldn't swallow her smoothie today. The grocery laid off 3 people. I'm losing my place. The Shitty Committee wants me to think there's no point in writing, and maybe there isn't, but I saw someone on the 51 reading my play today, and I can't stop feeling good, like I can handle everything.
unbelievable.
I'm going dancing at El Valenciano tonight, this feels good.
Writer help --
Writer help:
I need technical help -- if something works ("works" defined as holds-
your-interest) why does it work, technically? If it doesn't work,
what piece of craftwork could mend it??
I'm embarrassed and frustrated by feedback offered without technical/
craft comments to back it up.
I'm trying to develop the habit of balanced self-editing, and
thoughtful peer feedback could go a long way toward developing that
habit as the semester grinds on...
I want to offer that to others as well, become good at seeing how
writing works, understand its effectiveness within its own terms and
genre, give useful feedback regardless of my emotional response to
the content, or literary/personal biases.
Problem of the semester:
How and when do I apply technical analysis to a piece developed from
intuition and imagery? How do I transform inchoate impulses into
tightly crafted and polished theater/literature?
I need technical help -- if something works ("works" defined as holds-
your-interest) why does it work, technically? If it doesn't work,
what piece of craftwork could mend it??
I'm embarrassed and frustrated by feedback offered without technical/
craft comments to back it up.
I'm trying to develop the habit of balanced self-editing, and
thoughtful peer feedback could go a long way toward developing that
habit as the semester grinds on...
I want to offer that to others as well, become good at seeing how
writing works, understand its effectiveness within its own terms and
genre, give useful feedback regardless of my emotional response to
the content, or literary/personal biases.
Problem of the semester:
How and when do I apply technical analysis to a piece developed from
intuition and imagery? How do I transform inchoate impulses into
tightly crafted and polished theater/literature?
Life After Publishing
It's been a year and a half since I finally finished my first novel, The Prince, and nine months two weeks and four days since I became "famous". Not famous like a movie star (I'm definitely no Angelina Jolie) but if you go to any Middle School and mention the words "Aiden Thomas", "Elementals" or "The Prince", 8.5 girls out of 10 will know exactly what you're talking about. Seriously, "Teen People" did a study on it.
I guess that's what happens when you get published by Hyperion, which is one of the publishing companies owned by Disney. As soon as they published my book, they advertised and talked about it everywhere possible. They were in stores at Disneyland and Disney World, articles were published about me and my novel in every teen magazine known to man and the last little nudge that turned my story into a full-blown sensation was an interview with Miley Cyrus and The Jonas Brothers on the Disney Channel. When asked what their favorite book was (since reading is "education and imagination"), all four went into a highly enthusiatic (and just as highly rehearsed) rant about how "awesome" my book was.
From there my world just exploded. Once Miley Cyrus and The Jonas Brothers think something is cool, then %85 of the world's tween population agree. Vehemently.
That's when I had to get three cell phones. One so that Disney representatives/my publisher could contact me whenever they wanted, one (my old phone) was now emptied of fan voice mails twice a day which usually consisted of high pitched squeals and little girls ranting about whether Orion or Asher were the true hunks of my story, and the last one I did my best to keep secret so that I could still get the twice-a-day phone calls from my parents. Whenever I could escape interviews and meetings, I did my best to still do the regular things in life. Disney Hyperion was already talking about making my novel into a cartoon series on Disney XD and later into a full length movie. Now, my job was to finish up my next 2 to 3 books in the series so they'd have a whole, epic storyline to play with (or exploit).
Before I had been published, I would go to Barnes and Noble by my job and look under the "If You Like Harry Potter, Then You'll Love These Books!" to find a new book for me to read. Now when a go to a book store, there's a whole wall of my novel with a section next to it titled "If You Like The Prince, Then You'll Love These Books!" that includes not only Harry Potter, but also Twilight and 7 or so other series. I still haven't decided what's more utterly offensive to me; the fact that some people consider my work to be anywhere near as great as Harry Potter or that I'm being compared to the likes of Stephanie Meyer. There's already full sized posters of the actors and actresses that will be playing my characters in the upcoming film, all of which are too old to be playing 17 year olds, have too perfect man dimples or sickeningly silky smooth hair. And they're all scheduled to appear at the next ComicCon.
I'm not trying to say that I'm ungrateful for everything Hyperion has accomplished for my little book. I mean, I had been planning on paying off my student loans for the rest of my life, but now they're all taken care of. But sometimes I feel a little uneasy and wonder if all of these young readers really appreciate my story and characters for what they are, or if it's simply because some teen idols said they were cool. I really wanted my story to mean more to kids and for them to connect with my stories on a personal level. I didn't necessarily plan on my readers to change their hair to look like Sasha and Mahti and wear t-shirts that says "Team Orion/Asher/Aidan" (but if you want one, they're by The Prince movie posters).
I guess that's what happens when you get published by Hyperion, which is one of the publishing companies owned by Disney. As soon as they published my book, they advertised and talked about it everywhere possible. They were in stores at Disneyland and Disney World, articles were published about me and my novel in every teen magazine known to man and the last little nudge that turned my story into a full-blown sensation was an interview with Miley Cyrus and The Jonas Brothers on the Disney Channel. When asked what their favorite book was (since reading is "education and imagination"), all four went into a highly enthusiatic (and just as highly rehearsed) rant about how "awesome" my book was.
From there my world just exploded. Once Miley Cyrus and The Jonas Brothers think something is cool, then %85 of the world's tween population agree. Vehemently.
That's when I had to get three cell phones. One so that Disney representatives/my publisher could contact me whenever they wanted, one (my old phone) was now emptied of fan voice mails twice a day which usually consisted of high pitched squeals and little girls ranting about whether Orion or Asher were the true hunks of my story, and the last one I did my best to keep secret so that I could still get the twice-a-day phone calls from my parents. Whenever I could escape interviews and meetings, I did my best to still do the regular things in life. Disney Hyperion was already talking about making my novel into a cartoon series on Disney XD and later into a full length movie. Now, my job was to finish up my next 2 to 3 books in the series so they'd have a whole, epic storyline to play with (or exploit).
Before I had been published, I would go to Barnes and Noble by my job and look under the "If You Like Harry Potter, Then You'll Love These Books!" to find a new book for me to read. Now when a go to a book store, there's a whole wall of my novel with a section next to it titled "If You Like The Prince, Then You'll Love These Books!" that includes not only Harry Potter, but also Twilight and 7 or so other series. I still haven't decided what's more utterly offensive to me; the fact that some people consider my work to be anywhere near as great as Harry Potter or that I'm being compared to the likes of Stephanie Meyer. There's already full sized posters of the actors and actresses that will be playing my characters in the upcoming film, all of which are too old to be playing 17 year olds, have too perfect man dimples or sickeningly silky smooth hair. And they're all scheduled to appear at the next ComicCon.
I'm not trying to say that I'm ungrateful for everything Hyperion has accomplished for my little book. I mean, I had been planning on paying off my student loans for the rest of my life, but now they're all taken care of. But sometimes I feel a little uneasy and wonder if all of these young readers really appreciate my story and characters for what they are, or if it's simply because some teen idols said they were cool. I really wanted my story to mean more to kids and for them to connect with my stories on a personal level. I didn't necessarily plan on my readers to change their hair to look like Sasha and Mahti and wear t-shirts that says "Team Orion/Asher/Aidan" (but if you want one, they're by The Prince movie posters).
the journey of my work
well I had a little divine help with this. when i was 16 I attempted suicide I took a bottle of valium and went to bed. I woke up pissed and went to party with friends. I was to sick to drink but the cop that caught us took me home after I cried and told him what i had done. the next night I went in my pink furry slippers and drove to drink a beer and look at the view from Glendale. the same cop pulled up behind me this time he took me to the station not because of the beer really he said the only way my dad would care was if he was inconvenienced. while I was there and asking god what to do I had a vision of being an artist in the bay area, I had a son, there were no paintings, so I guess I was a writer. at the time I had no thoughts of writing. (true story)
then I was pregnant my dad just died of alcoholism and I was pregnant and single. I went to a psychic because I had 50 $ and no idea how I was going to make it. I was thinking about buying a computer with my inheritance. I wanted to be a writer but I though a computer was extravagant. I got to ask the psychic one question. I asked if my son and I would be OK. She asked me what was wrong with me? Why did I look the way I did. She said I did theater and that I would be a writer and my son and I would travel. I bought a computer that day.
So my works journey well it began already by coming to Mills. My family was so freaked out about me writing memoir they all started popping up before I got here. My adoptive mom whom I have not spoken to for 23 years googled my writing and my graduation speech which said I hadn't been mothered until I met the professors at my community college. I don't expect my works journey to be smooth. I wonder if I will be able to tolerate the attention the, questioning, the law suits.
But as I have decided to do a one woman show based on my childhood the bad and the tiny moments of joy. I see it on stage it will start out small. It will be performed eventually at the Berkeley Rep. Where I saw the first play that changed my life. I won't tell my family but they will google me and they will know. They will come see it and if they can get through the brutal parts. I hope they will see the little girl they hurt and the big girl with an amazing capacity for compassion. I hope they will notice I didn't forget the Pinto or getting my bear after I threw it out if the car three times saying, " Teddy wanted to jump."
I f I can live long enough to get it out there I hope my work will change people, make it all worth it. Change me. I will go where it goes and my son will go with me and on the journey we will both be able to forgive our mother's and our father's and by then my son will be old enough to understand I haven't chosen writing over him. I have chosen writing so I might be capable of being worthy of him.
I will go on Oprah and pr my shit and I will still get pissed off when she cries and pretends to get me because we were both molested.
I will travel with my books and my shows and I will get enough money to buy the house that I saw in my vision when I was 16 and I will sit on the chair that can seat like 20 people that I call God's Chair in a field of flowers and look down at the water and sob. Not because my work made it or because it made money. But because I made it out alive or I found a way to choose to stay alive.
then I was pregnant my dad just died of alcoholism and I was pregnant and single. I went to a psychic because I had 50 $ and no idea how I was going to make it. I was thinking about buying a computer with my inheritance. I wanted to be a writer but I though a computer was extravagant. I got to ask the psychic one question. I asked if my son and I would be OK. She asked me what was wrong with me? Why did I look the way I did. She said I did theater and that I would be a writer and my son and I would travel. I bought a computer that day.
So my works journey well it began already by coming to Mills. My family was so freaked out about me writing memoir they all started popping up before I got here. My adoptive mom whom I have not spoken to for 23 years googled my writing and my graduation speech which said I hadn't been mothered until I met the professors at my community college. I don't expect my works journey to be smooth. I wonder if I will be able to tolerate the attention the, questioning, the law suits.
But as I have decided to do a one woman show based on my childhood the bad and the tiny moments of joy. I see it on stage it will start out small. It will be performed eventually at the Berkeley Rep. Where I saw the first play that changed my life. I won't tell my family but they will google me and they will know. They will come see it and if they can get through the brutal parts. I hope they will see the little girl they hurt and the big girl with an amazing capacity for compassion. I hope they will notice I didn't forget the Pinto or getting my bear after I threw it out if the car three times saying, " Teddy wanted to jump."
I f I can live long enough to get it out there I hope my work will change people, make it all worth it. Change me. I will go where it goes and my son will go with me and on the journey we will both be able to forgive our mother's and our father's and by then my son will be old enough to understand I haven't chosen writing over him. I have chosen writing so I might be capable of being worthy of him.
I will go on Oprah and pr my shit and I will still get pissed off when she cries and pretends to get me because we were both molested.
I will travel with my books and my shows and I will get enough money to buy the house that I saw in my vision when I was 16 and I will sit on the chair that can seat like 20 people that I call God's Chair in a field of flowers and look down at the water and sob. Not because my work made it or because it made money. But because I made it out alive or I found a way to choose to stay alive.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Journey after my novel.
It's been a year since my best selling novel took to the shelves of every bookstore, airport, bedroom, school campus and classroom. I'm sitting up late. All the lights are out and I"m mesmerized by the buzzing light of my computer. Like a fly I'm just a zombie to its' brightness. My email is open. I have other windows open as well.
I'm doing all I can to not open the emails from my grandmother title New York Times Review...Room runs out and it trails off. I can guess the rest, something alone the lines of it's a short but still impressive review hon. I'm sure the email runs somewhere along the lines of: I can't believe you've made it this far. Me and your grandfather are so proud of you. He showed it to all his coworkers at the art institute. How's the second one going? Love always. I look onto the next email title I'm so proud. My mother. I retreat to one of my other open windows: a movie.
It's over and I'm typing. Working on my second installation. Copying my written words from the tattered Composition Book to the hypnotizing computer. It's 2am. I decide to check my voice mails left from yesterday and the day before and a few days before those two days:
-Requests for public readings and signings
-My publisher crying about how I am punishing her with my self seclusion act.
-An older message from her jubilantly yelling of movie deals already being offered.
I make a mental note to call her after the sun fully rises; thought I know she's up just as I am. I'll apologize for what she calls my 'phase of a hermit lifestyle' as I review the movie deals as she runs them by me...Saying no to the first, claiming that the main character absolutely cannot be played by a white teeny bopper. I'll give her hope in saying that I'll consider the second and third offers. Secretly I feel the second one is peppy and then depressing at all the wrong times, but that's her favorite so I have to humor her. She hates the third choice. I know this but I simply love it. (I had hoped the director of my dreams would beg for the script. After months of waiting and a few pints of Haagen Daz coffee ice cream I got over that rejection. Many people had thought I was recently dumped.) However, this third choice seems so close to my dream that I'll end up settling for it.
My publisher will cry (she always does), claiming that I had made such a dent in history with the numbers I had made on the book that it would be a waste if the movie sales didn't add up to them. After a meeting with director, we come to an agreement of me having the end say on all accounts of the end product of my film. In the end, I'm still not satisfied, though my publisher loves it. In a few years I'll rewrite it and republish it (with my same publisher). I'll demand all old copies to be removed from the shelves and destroyed. Only copies that had already been bought will remain in existence.
-Alana G. G-B
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