Phosphorescence

In the history of ink, which is rapidly coming to an end, the ancient world turns from the use of India ink to adopt sepia. Sepia is made from the octopus, the squid & the cuttlefish. One curious property of the cuttlefish is that, once dead, its body begins to glow. This mild phosphorescence reaches its greatest intensity a few days after death, then ebbs away as the body decays. You can read by this light. ~Srikanth Reddy

Last to be first, lose to find, die to live. These, the paradoxes upon which we build our lives. It's fascinating and mysterious to me.

This week, I read the above excerpt from Facts for Visitors, which reminded me of the paradoxes inherent in the life of a creative writer. We delve into our pain and brokenness to create beauty. Sit sequestered for long periods of time to help build human connectedness, the effects of which we seldom see. 

I love the image of death creating the phosphorescence of words. There really is such a powerful, phosphorescent quality to writing—we illuminate the inner workings of ourselves and the contours of each moment to help others do the same.

It’s hard though, isn’t it? I really resonated with Sarah Schock’s description of art the Editor’s Note of this spring’s Inkstone issue as something that requires a battering ram to the heart. It hurts. And takes a lot of guts.  

I just want to take a moment to thank you each of you for the sacrifices represented in the pieces you have shared with me and others in our classes. In this year’s classes especially, I have really seen you all (and the others in those classes) step out and take deeper risks, growing in vulnerability and a willingness to tackle the tough or taboo topics.

Seeing how much I’ve been personally impacted and blessed by hearing from the depths of your experience has really challenged and inspired me to pursue vulnerability myself. It’s such a profound blessing to realize that you’re not alone. To understand yourself a bit more clearly through the musings of someone else.

So, thank you for the courage that your writing this year required. This will probably sound weirdly maternal or cliché, but I’m proud of you. As Hougen says, you are beautiful people, more than you know. Please don’t ever stop.   

be okay

This week I am learning what it means to be okay. To be okay with imperfection and uncertainty.

I’m sure at this point in the semester we feel as though everything should be coming together. But, as always (right? there’s nothing new to the end-of-the-year/semester scramble) we are panicking and wondering what we got ourselves into as we struggle to find motivation and enough coffee to keep us awake late at night.

However, strangely so, I am finding that it’s easier for me to work on Capstone now. Not that my pieces are coming together or anything (not even close!), but I think I am over the fear of having to create something new, from scratch, that will be fabulous and glowing and ready for that May 8th afternoon. I am okay with not knowing what’s going to happen. I am even okay with how my pieces are growing and changing and are unfaithful to me, throwing temper tantrums and running away and forcing me to ground them. Haha. Do you ever feel like they are your children, your babies (maybe only you girls will relate with me here), and it hurts to see them grow up but is so rewarding all the same? I dunno, maybe I’m just being too sentimental again.

I read a short story for my Non-Western Lit class about a Bengali woman who lives in Seattle with her 3-year-old son and travelling husband. Her father, who has recently lost his wife, comes to stay with her for a week, and the story flip-flops between both their point of views in a personal essay, first-person-narrative form. I found it interesting that it kept me thinking about my  Capstone pieces rather than the theme of “West meets East” for my class. It kept showing me that writing about the ordinary in a meaningful way is so possible. It doesn't have to be some revelational moment in your life. It just has to be beautiful.

Check in time. How are you guys really doing? Are you okay with uncertainty? Are your changing pieces slowly turning into something you know you'll be proud of?

Tweaking, Tinkering, and Taking Apart

Lately I've been trying to rework my capstone poems, and to be honest, I'm not making a ton of progress. I often have this problem when revising poetry--I feel semi-okay about my first draft, but when I try to reenter the poem to make improvements, I just can't find the inspiration. It's like I'm trying to touch up a watercolor painting with oil pastels--the end result is patchy and inconsistent, as though it's been created by two different artists.

Not this kind of tinkering.
Though let's face it, this would
probably be more fun.

I'm attempting to do two different kinds of revision for my poems: tweaking/tinkering with my "Shopping with My Mother" piece, which was slightly more polished, and practically taking apart the other, which needed a different direction altogether. (Yep, the alliteration was intentional. I'm very cool.) Both types of revision, I'm discovering, are equally difficult. Obviously, it's hard to basically start from scratch--I mean, where do you even begin? But minor editing is challenging too. It can feel like you're simply slapping Band-Aids onto open wounds--the changes stand out in an ugly way, and they don't even really fix the problems in the first place.

I guess my biggest issue here is cohesion--creating a common tone throughout the poem, a common thread tying everything together. For some reason, I have a really hard time doing that when I'm revising. I'm not very good at stepping back from the poem and reading it with fresh eyes to see if it makes sense. Instead, I wind up either inserting new images that turn out to be irrelevant and/or off-tone given the rest of the piece (if I'm tweaking/tinkering) or taking a few of my favorite lines and trying--futilely--to make them flow fluidly in a new poem (if I'm taking apart). As a result, my poems often end up feeling a little superficial--feeling almost perfect, but not quite (cue Shel Silverstein).

How do you guys handle the revision process for poetry? How do you enter back into the world you created in the first draft? Any tips for tweaking, tinkering, or taking apart a poem?

Happy Endings...Or at Least Hopeful Ones

One of my Capstone goals was to successfully execute a poem with a happy ending…or at least a hopeful one. The trouble is, I don’t know how.

As I discussed with many of you in Advanced Writer’s Workshop last fall, I feel like the exhortations that I’ve kept hearing the past few years to avoid overly “tied up” endings and clichés has caused me to produce mostly pieces that focus on the confusion/chaos/pain side of life.  I can only think of one thing that I’ve written my entire college career that has a hopeful ending.

While I really appreciate the way we’ve been encouraged to delve into the complexities and brokenness of our world in our pieces, not all of life is broken. There are certain moments that are happy and hopeful and conclusive. And I want to capture those too—but I’ve avoided them the past four years because I know they’re much harder to capture in a way that doesn’t sound cliché.

My poem that I submitted for critique this week was my attempt at writing a more hopeful poem. The idea was to show my childhood surprise at how the sweetness or syrup hid a bitter taste (life isn’t as rosy as we think when we’re kids), but then point to how bitter sap can be turned sweet (the hard things produce an unexpected sweetness). I liked the idea, but it ended up coming out more bitter than I intended. And I don’t know how to add the more hopeful ending that I had intended in a way that doesn’t sound sappy.

I know that if I’m to write about happy or hopeful themes successfully, I need to find some good examples to follow, but I’m not sure where to find them. Lately I’ve been reading three books of poetry that McCann gave me Bread Without Sorrow by John Hodgen, After All by William Matthews, and Facts for Visitors by Srikanth Reddy. They all contain some beautiful and varied poetry, but I can’t find any with hopeful endings.

Can you relate with my struggles to capture an artistically hopeful ending? Do you have any techniques or tips to offer? Do you know of any examples of quality writing (poetry or personal essay) that has a hopeful ending? 

The Trouble with Poetry

"Write what you know."  This advice leads to a lot of writers scratching their heads: well, I know about writing…I’ll write about a writer!  Such works often turn out derivative or form meta-narratives, where the work calls attention to the process of writing instead of the story the author is trying to tell.  I even remember a unit on “Poems about Poetry” in Intro to Lit Studies. I try to avoid this in my own work, but I did find one writer who takes a humorous and original twist on this tactic.

Billy Collins, one of the few modern poets I enjoy, has several poems about poetry. The collections I borrowed had “The Trouble with Poetry” and “Workshop,” but I also stumbled across “Introduction to Poetry” online.  “Workshop” was my favorite, with lines like

And what’s an obbligato of snow?

Also, I roam the decaffeinated streets.

At that point I’m lost. I need help.

             It makes me think of our workshops, how we have some nice things to say, but there are parts that just confuse us, and others that speak to us, along with the obligatory disclaimer that maybe the poet knows better than us.  Likewise, “The Trouble with Poetry” admits the fear of running out of new illustrations and images.

             One thing that makes these pieces work is the implication that the reader has experienced similar situations himself. I mean, my younger brother who prefers history would not understand “Workshop” at all, but the situation is immediately clear to any creative writer.  Another technique the author uses is a straightforward tone, almost conversational. There’s no deep psychological musings about the process of inspiration or the author’s duty to readers—it demystifies the process by laughing at itself.

             While I don’t have any poems like that, I think the techniques are useful for any topic with an internal focus. For example, my essay on letter-writing doesn’t have scenes in the sense a story about waterskiing or vacation would, so I should acknowledge that fact and use it to my advantage. Which of your pieces do you think would benefit from slight self-awareness?

ps. I have no idea what's up with the white box.

Breathing while you're up

I've been in a few musicals, and from them I've learned one or two things about singing. One thing I remember is that you are supposed to time your breathing, so that you know where you are planning on stealing a gulp of air. I was never very good at that. I would see the long note coming, panic, and end up breathing early. Then, when the long note arrived, it showed up just as I was about half-way through my lungful, and I would wimp out about half way through.

Writing can be like that sometimes. It's important in a busy, busy schedule, to plan when you come up for air. If you breath too early, you might not have enough time to do what you need to get done.

The 29th of March is my twenty second birthday, and this week was all about holding my note. Staying on task, keeping my eyes on the prize so that I can go home over Easter. And it wasn't easy.

When we work on our capstone projects, sometimes we have to push. To force our minds to wax creative at the absolute worst and hardest possible times. To meet deadlines and expectations, we just keep squeezing, hoping to find the proverbial golden egg amongst our many thoughts. This week was like that for me.

But! It gets better. Pushing has it's rewards. First and foremost, when you finish pushing... you have something. It might not be good, (or have a beginning, middle, and end), but it is edittable. Some of my best work has come out of edits. I read what I wrote, sometimes weeks ago, and I just know what I wanted to say. Editing prose is hard, but the trick is remembering the goal. Visualize what the finished product will look like, try to keep the emotional journey in you mind, and just push.

Does anyone have any other tips for editing prose? Editing poems is great because I can see everything I want to do, and work with; but prose is too big for that. It's easy to get discoraged as I try to write within the box I've created for my self. Any ideas?

the thread of your life

It's interesting how in life we have all these expectations for ourselves when we start something new. I realize this is a general statement, but at the moment it applies to my spring break. I went in expecting to spent a ton of time reading and re-writing old drafts and, of course, writing new ones.

But then I worked two jobs, did homework for other classes, and went out of town for half of the week. And in the midst of all of that going on, every time I sat down to write or edit, I got angry at the document.

I got angry because my expectations were holding me back. I expected spring break to be freeing, to inspire me, and to validate me as a writer. I thought I would be finally good at this since I made it halfway through. It took me a few moments to see that perhaps I had set my goals too high. Perhaps I had elevated Capstone into such a "grown-up" thing that it was hard for me to see it as something that I could use for my journey instead of an unrealistic goal that I realized I could never achieve.

Last night I gave up on Capstone reading and went to Barnes & Noble to look at magazines for my new class. I was distracted by Writer's Digest, which contained an article about writing memoir. Thinking this applied for my life much more desperately than finding a magazine to write for, I delved in to the main things in memoirs and how to write one in the best way. These included plot, theme, character, setting, and dialogue. It was theme that stuck out to me, since this is what I've been striving for in my writing (especially my personal essays/memoirs about Italy).

"We are shaped by what we decide to do with the circumstances of our lives," rather than the circumstances themselves. It hit my like a slap of that winter-wind out there right now. The article went on: find out how you've grown, changed, acted and reacted to what you've been through, figure out what it looks like in hindsight from your perspective now, and how will you continue to change because of this? What is the thread of your life?

It occurred to me that I've been trying too hard. I've been trying to be something I'm not, write about something I'm not, and go about it in a something-I'm-not way. I need to think more about how it fits into my life now, and maybe how even Capstone will fit into my life as an experience I will never forget.

Are any of you feeling this way? That perhaps there is more to these Capstone pieces than golden words on silver platters? That maybe our pieces will be dirty and messy just like our lives, but that's okay?

Finding My Sea Feet

Recently, Ms. Hougen asked me how Capstone was going. "It's pretty good," I said, nodding as if to assure myself of that fact. "It took a while to get into it, but I feel like I'm finally finding my...sea feet." She looked at me dubiously. "Do you mean sea legs?" I hung my head in shame.

I think that's a pretty good illustration of my Capstone experience so far. I'm starting to get used to the process, and I'm slowly figuring out what I want to say in my pieces. But I'm still struggling to put it all into words. Sitting in a coffee shop in South Dakota with all my tests and papers behind me, I am so grateful for this break. I'm hoping it will recharge me, give me the energy and inspiration to really dive into my Capstone projects. I hate that I haven't been able to completely immerse myself in them just yet.

I'm also looking forward to doing some more reading. I've still been going through Patricia Hampl's I Could Tell You Stories, but I've been feeling as though I want to diversify my reading material a little, so I've also dipped into Joan Didion's Slouching Towards Bethlehem and Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Both are really, really good (at least, the small bits I've read so far) - but they're also pretty different from my own style and subject matter. (Didion's is rather journalistic, while Dillard's reads somewhat like a nature diary.)

Part of me really likes that disparity - I think it's good to take in different perspectives so your own writing can reflect some of that well-roundedness. But I wonder if it can also be a little destructive to your own work. (What if my writing comes out sounding nothing like me, or if I start including really unrelated topics, just because I'm subconsciously emulating others' work?)

This sort of goes along with Julie's struggle to reconcile contemporary poetry with her preferred style of more old-fashioned poetry - except I'm wondering about the significance of different styles within the same genre and time period (namely, contemporary personal essay). Do you guys think it's helpful or detrimental to read drastically different styles and subject matters from your own? If you're doing personal essay for Capstone (which I think we all are), what are you reading for inspiration, and why?

Of Audiences and Straddling Worlds

Lately, I've been feeling like a straddler of multiple worlds. As a commuter, I have three worlds that I am forced to shift gears between multiple times each day: my home world, my internship/career world, and my college world. Each is so completely different it can be disorienting. At each, there are different expectations of me, different ways I am treated, different ways I relate to people, different clothes I wear, etc. I wonder which one I really am sometimes: college student, career woman, or Reid kid. I've been feeling that way with writing lately too, especially as I look ahead to graduation when I will need to carve my own path in the writing world. I want to write from the depths of who I am: my voice, my passions, my interests, my confusions, my experiences. But I also deeply want to impact an audience, to move, challenge, and inspire them. And these two don't always line up: being true to myself and my deep convictions while at the same time writing to my audience's deepest needs and desires. Here is one specific example. At Northwestern, I have mostly moved among two Christian sub-groups: those who think and communicate about God in a theological, philosophical way and those who think and communicate about God in a creative, expressive way. I really love and value both, and I am firmly convinced that they are not opposing but complementary, that they both need each other. I have been deeply impacted by the writings of theologians AND Christian artists. And I most desire to write in a way that incorporates both sides of the Christian-writing spectrum. The trouble is, neither of these groups seems to like the other. In fact, most are very antagonistic towards the other group and their type of writing. And then you have those more mainline Christians, which is the group I grew up in, who don't really like either: they see theologians as elitist and Christian artists as superfluous or worldly. There are practical issues involved in reconciling/incorporating both into my writing, but I think the deepest hurdle I'm facing now is fear. I'm afraid of being judged. I'm afraid of my writing being ineffective because it is too quickly labelled by one side or the other and tossed aside. I'm afraid of not being considered a good Christian writer. And I'm tired of defending both sides of this division, both sides of my writing and communication, to the other. Tying this into my Capstone readings, one author I've been reading lately is Mary Karr. At a time when I'm struggling to find an authentic voice, I so admire how raw her writing is, the courage that her writing exhibits. She writes about her experiences in a brutally honest way, expressing Christian truths in a way that I'm sure would be considered offensive in the more conservative Christian camps, not to mention leaving her vulnerable. At the same time, she's also not afraid to include explicitly biblical things. In "Disgraceland," she even tackles the topic of conversion, incorporating some strong biblical/theological elements like Christ, Communion, Satan, and Eden. Those who would applaud at her more rugged portrayals and fearless critiques of Christian culture would probably bristle at the mention of Christ and conversion. This isn't a vague spirituality that anyone can subscribe to. So, that's where I'm at. Can you relate to my feelings of being split between cultures? Do you ever feel afraid of your audiences? If so, how do you work to overcome that fear?

What I Hate, I Do

When I realized I’d have to read modern poetry for this class, I had no idea where to begin. To me, the genre consists of bewildered, existentialist writings with odd punctuation and pretentious phrases. Granted, I haven’t read much poetry but my sympathies lie more with the narratives of the Illiad or Inferno, or the dazzling wit of G.K. Chesterton, with statements such as “For the front of the cover shows somebody shot/And the back of the cover will tell you the plot.” Few modern poets attempt either category.

One poet I have read and enjoyed for this class is Elizabeth Bishop. Her poem “One Art” struck me as straightforward yet challenging, beginning with the opening line, The art of losing isn't hard to master.  She presents a thought about everyday life in such a way as to make readers consider the implications. What does it mean to lose things? Is it painful because we aren't used to it, or because it happens too often?  Besides the nature of losing things, the poem also made me think about the purpose of poetry.

In oral cultures, poetry was a way to tell a story. But as writing became more common, poetry gained new applications—to present a situation, to explore feelings, to play with words.  Today, poetry seems to focus primarily on the second of those three uses. Maybe that’s one reason I have no taste for it. The poetry I like to read presents images, whether caricatures or detailed portraits, stripped of superfluous details.  While they may take unusual angles, they still attempt to present a discernible reality.

I have noticed this intention in my own writing as well. In my poem for Advanced Writer’s Workshop, I tried to show brief portraits of individuals in a famished city.  My previous poem for this class took a more impressionistic approach, trying to get inside the mind of a grieving man. My next poem, however, seems determined to plunge into existentialism. Maybe it’s the opening line—“Tonight I am homesick, but not for home,”—or just the tendency of poetry to flounder towards abstract, but I think I’ll see where it goes.

Do any of you have certain aspects or styles you don’t like to read, but seem to creep into your writing anyway? What do you do when that happens?

Writing over the top

So, I am not a normal writer. Inevitably it seems like my stuff is ten steps over the line. This has been a real problem for me, especially in academia; it always feels like my pieces just can't find any traction. Every now and then I am able to buckle down, grind out the alien quality inherent in my writing, and find the kernel of personal perspective that gives my writing merit. But this is rare, it's so much easier, so much safer, to simply write the abstract art. Everything I sit down to write seems to come out horribly skewed, and only by the process of rewriting, and rewriting, can I untwist it enough for it to reflect anything of the reader.

I think this is one of the reasons why I wrote my last short story the way I did, off the wall and with an emotional narrator. It gave me an outlet for the chaos of my voice. It let me write something totally off the wall and hope that my own natural tinted world-view would enhance, rather than detract from the piece. The problem that I encounter is this, without thinking about it, I failed to realize that that is what I always do. I always try to harness my strangeness, and it always turns out poorly.

I have been reading Aimee Bender's Willful Children. I picked this book because Bender's story Fruit and Words, was the inspiration for last week's piece.  But as I read this book, I can't help but feel like a have missed the point somewhere along my own journey. As if I was the hero, who had acquired the magic sword, but who had failed to grow in his quest to attain it. And, when the time comes to slay the dragon, the hero flees because he lacks the requisite courage.

That is me. I have come so far, writing story after story, but often without refining them, building up the emotional fortitude to shove each scene against the grinding stone. To rewrite five or ten times, until the piece, the soul of the piece, sparkles for all to see. In light of this, I am very glad that I gave myself a faster schedule, a schedule with three drafts inherent. Maybe I will be able to grit my teeth and take the rubble I have presented, and where the rock away to reveal gems within (if there are any gems to find.)

Either way, I guess I have found out the schedule won't do it for me. I have to find the desire, the pride, that will propel to put every effort, and most joy, into the writing process. Bender's stories are masterful, they are precise. Every nonsense perfectly positioned at the edge or core of the story. It inspires me.

I suppose that the main questions I would ask my peers are these: How do you fight the instinct to wait for 'inspiration' (it is the worst trap I know)?  What makes the writing process the most fun for you? Do the stories you write ever entrance you?

truth and emotion

Getting back on my feet again after the past 7 months has not been easy. Part of me wonders if that's natural for a writer, to go so long and then stumble when you begin again. Part of me is scared it's not and that maybe I should re-think my major. But then again, we all deal with those wayward doubts at times, and the best advice I've gotten is to tackle them to the ground and, well, keep writing.

Many people have expressed curiosity at what I learned in Italy and how I am going to incorporate that and everything else European into my writing. The truth is that I have no idea – to both of the above. What I learned is really a bunch fuzzy fragments of life lessons floating about in my mind, and the life that I experienced overseas isn't something you can put in a box, much less on paper.

 But when I look at all the baggage I have now (don't worry, the literal stuff is unpacked and the rest is on it's way), I realize that I picked up a lot of emotions over there. Maybe I already had them, maybe they were stored up. I think they're piling up now at the doorway to my writer's mind because I felt so alone while over there. Thus, I did a lot of thinking. So when I'm trying, now, to write down stories, memories, thoughts, questions, and ideas, it's all getting bogged down with whatever mood I am currently in.

 Amidst all this, I am reading Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. I'm not sure if I either never finished it or don't remember much from the two years that have passed since, but I do remember loving it. Right away she brings up this idea that I can't get over: “good writing is about telling the truth. We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are.” This kind of reassured me that my wanting to communicate the truth of who I am is okay, it's natural. It's human, and about being a human writer.

 But now I have a lot of questions, and whichever one you have thoughts about, I would love to hear your answer: How do you keep working on one piece and keep the same theme and ideas while experiencing drastically different moods while writing it? How do you avoid sentimentality in your writing? How can I write what means a lot to me without compromising the truth because of writing fears?

 I guess I am just trying to get immerse myself in the writer's mindset once again.

Here Goes Nothin'

...And we're off!

I'm still wrapping my mind around the fact that this is my last semester, that I've finally reached the pinnacle that once seemed so high and mighty: senior capstone. Were we really freshmen once, looking up to the capstone students like well-equipped warriors off to fight some bloody battle? Ah, the good ol' days. The blissful innocence.

Well, we've hit the ground running, and I suppose there's no looking back now. I just hope we won't be killing each other (or ourselves) before this is all over. (Ha ha, just kidding.) Anyway, I guess this is where I start talking about what I've been reading and working on (I'm still trying to gather my bearings about all this).

For my portfolio, I'll be doing two personal essays and two poems. Since my first project is an essay, I've been reading (big shocker!) some personal essays. I picked up Patricia Hampl's I Could Tell You Stories, a collection of autobiographical essays relating to the idea of memory, because I recalled reading a few of her essays in Autobiographical Writing. I remember loving both her use of language and her advice/commentary on memoir - a genre that I'm becoming more and more fascinated with but which I still don't fully understand. So, Hampl will probably be my memoir mentor for a little while here.

So far, I love this book. Hampl weaves her personal experiences into reflections on reading and the nature of memory. I like this approach because it blends the realms of reading and writing and adds a universal applicability to the specific stories of her personal life. As she says in her preface, "writers write about writing and about books not because, like us, books turn to dust, but because, like us, they are born of flesh, and you can feel the blood beat along their pulse" (12). I saw this exemplified in her essay "The Mayflower Moment: Reading Whitman During the Vietnam War," in which she intersperses her reactions to Walt Whitman's poetry with her grappling with individual and national identity as a young adult living during the divisive time of the Vietnam War.

I could definitely learn from Hampl's style because my personal essays tend to really emphasize the personal, and I need to learn how to incorporate universal themes and outside sources into my writing so that I can invite others into my experience. I don't want my essays (at least this first one) to be quite as expository as some of Hampl's seem to be, but I really love her ability to zoom in and out, to ground the reader in concrete detail about her past in one sentence and to explain some general truth in the next. I also appreciate her ability to interact with a text without sounding too scholarly or intellectual - she brings a realness to reading that I love.

Well, that's all for now, folks. I'm excited to start this journey with you all!