As I sit here the night before my capstone presentation, I'm thinking about how I don't want to be blogging because I need to do more revisions on what I'm going to read tomorrow. Even though I'm on my fifth draft of this particular piece. Even though I've already spent two hours with it today. Even though I think I've decided which section I'm going to read. Even though I've practiced reading that section several times.
I write, like most of us do, to hopefully portray some amount of truth through my stories and essays. But when it comes time to reveal that story and that truth to an audience (for me personally, especially an audience made up of very close friends or family), it's suddenly not so easy. I've never quite been able to pin down what it was that made me so uneasy about sharing my writing with those closest to me. And at the Festival of Faith and Writing last weekend, I think I found my answer.
In our early writing classes, we were told to write what we know. In our later writing classes, we were told to write until we know. So I was very intrigued by a session at FFW titled "Writing What We Don't Know." Author Debra Dean spoke of writing not one, but two books set in Russia and revolving around Russian history. She read aloud some of her detailed descriptions of the Hermitage Museum. And then she told us that she has never been to Russia. She did much of her research through online virtual tours. And when she was told her book was accepted for publication, she was afraid of being discovered as a fraud, someone who relays vast amounts of knowledge of a place without having any sort of authority, without ever even having been there. She wrote what she didn't know.
To some extent, I think all of us "become" someone else for a little while when we're writing. We get into our characters' heads, we envelope ourselves in different atmospheres, we speak in ways we don't usually in real life. This is true of the piece I plan to read tomorrow. And I'm afraid that those closest to me will look at me and say, "that's not Ashley. That's not something she'd write. That's not something she knows." And I'll be called a fraud. It's a frightening prospect for me. But I also know that it's something I need to push through because if I go into a story knowing too much, being too safe, I know that I will never be able to get to the truth.
What are your biggest writing fears? How do you get over them? Do you agree that it's ok to write what you don't know? Or does writing what you don't know only last for so long, and then it becomes writing until you know?
This was a really interesting post. I like what you said about Debra Dean--writing detailed pieces about Russia even though she had never been there. And I can completely relate to your fear of being "found out as a fraud." Sometimes I'm confronted in my poetry with a certain line or phrase that I'm hesitant to write because it's not what I could see myself writing, or it's a subject I don't view myself as an expert in. While it does take more time, I think a good idea is to familiarize yourself with the heart of your subject, and learn more of the details as you go. You can always change it later. I think probably the hardest thing is to admit that you're vulnerable in that area because of ignorance, but sometimes I think that might even be a strength in that you are coming to it from a new perspective, and you have to pay a special amount of attention that you wouldn't have bothered with it was something you knew intimately.
ReplyDeleteMmhm. Gotcha. My biggest fear in writing is that I won't do my memoirs justice. That my stories are more for me than for anyone else. I want to get past the selfish stage and write for others to relate to because I want to make a difference.
ReplyDeleteI have been thinking a lot if it is alright to write what you do not know. I would say it would have to be done very cautiously. I was watching the most recent rendition of "Little Women" and related to Joe when she finally was proud of what she had written because she wrote about what she knew best - her sisters. I think that's very important.
That's a good question: Does writing what you don't know only last for so long, and then it becomes writing until you know? I think maybe you begin to know to some extent, but obviously you don't have the memories of ever having BEEN there. For instance, the Hermitage. You can't ever say, "When I walked up to the painting..." or "When I saw all those people in front of X, I had a hard time seeing..." It lacks the human aspect of having BEEN there, of being a lived memory. I guess. It's like the difference between knowing ABOUT something, and knowing the thing itself.
ReplyDeleteI have the same problem--I wouldn't mind an audience of people I don't know well, or classmates looking at my work, and there are a couple of close people I trust to critique, but as a whole, I want close people to stay away. What if what I wrote isn't good enough? What if the ideas coming across are cheesy, not me, or say things my people don't agree with? What if I am wrong? I don't want to disappoint anyone, or have anyone think bad things about me.
ReplyDeleteI think writing what I don't know or writing to work things out is a great idea--I just can't promise that I want to share that with the world OR my family. For me, I suspect that will look like a lot of writing, writing, and more writing, until I know what I'm saying to myself and what I want to say to others.
I can definitely relate to this in the sense that I am very hesitant to let those closest to me read what I have written. I think for me it's related to what you mentioned about people thinking that it's "not me" and then being shocked/disappointed at what they have now discovered is "me." (Or is it? Is what you write indicative of you as a person or just of your ability to see like other people?) I guess that's why people who write novels do so much research beforehand and do talk to experts in the field. Sometimes I wish I had the time to do that sort of thing for these Capstone pieces! Watching interviews has been helpful to me though.
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