Building Your Writing Toolkit: Part one – Know how you Start to Write.

Everyone writes differently: some people sit down at a blank page and dump a poem or essay out with little effort (at least for a first draft) while others require laborious research and planning to get even so much as a title on the page. Some people have an innate grasp of dialogue, while others would prefer to never deal with how people speak to each other. No matter how or what you write, though, there are certain things that help you reach the end game of your writing (i.e., anything that you consider finished). In light of that, I’m going to talk about what I’ve started calling my Writing Toolkit, offering suggestions about how you might be able to get your tools in order to facilitate your writing process. This will be an ongoing blog, with probably 7 posts to create a toolkit that will make your life easier as a writer.

Know how you start to write.
The first thing you need when you’re writing is knowledge of how you begin writing – this may seem a bit paradoxical but it’s true; until you know how you start you’ll have trouble creating ideal situations for your writing. Do you plan, plot and ponder or do you skip, skid and slide your way into the writing project you’re working on – either way you need to know you get going in order to hone your skill.

Minimal planning:

I write and plan mostly in my head. I know that it doesn’t really help me to sit down at a computer and force out a document if I don’t really have it planned in my head – the piece will feel forced and I won’t be happy with it. That being said, I do sometimes plan on paper, especially if a project is important or has a very broad span – in these cases a rough plan will keep me on track and give me something to refer to when I get stuck.

A typical plan for an essay for me might look like this:
Thesis: Ben Franklin wasn’t just a selfish bastard or a selfless altruist, but managed to incorporate altruism with self-service.
Proof: Ben Franklin as a selfish bastard (takes advantage of situations he creates) **One or two Examples**
Ben Franklin as an altruist (gives up copyrights for the betterment of a large segment of society)**One or two Examples**
Ben Franklin’s altruism as self-serving (encouraging paper currency as a printer, manipulating the throne while making money for local wagon owners, starting up businesses and taking a large percentage, etc.)**Majority of Proofs >10**
Conclusion: Ben Franklin was a lot more complicated than most history classes are willing to admit.

While a typical outline for a long short story or a short novel might look like this:
I – Intro to antagonist – position of strength, likeable
II – Intro to universe
III – Intro to protagonist – prickly, somewhat weak
A. Protagonist in Universe
IV – Protagonist backslides
A. The universe sucks and is hard to handle.
V – Pro. Vs Ant. – Pro growth, snaps out of problem.
VI – Pro wins by making space in universe, ignoring problems posed by Ant.
VII – Ant. Pissy about Pro, can’t do anything about it.
A. The universe sucks and is hard to handle when you’re a dick.
(It should now be clear that I prefer anti-heroes.)

These plans might look somewhat contradictory – an essay is only going to be 5000 words or less while a short novel might be 100 pages, but both plans are about the same length; the reason for this, with my writing in particular, is that I write specifics in my head – the characters are usually formed before I start a piece so I don’t need to make notes to myself about them, and I usually don’t start writing fiction without a central conflict planned in my head so there’s no need to write that out either.

Intensive planning:

But what if you are a consummate planner, what if you need detailed outlines to get from one paragraph to the next? The key here is to not let yourself get trapped in a plan –especially not early in the writing process.

I knew a hardcore Planner in college – she planned from the beginning of the quarter until the final period on her final essay, and she wrote terrible essays. Why? If she planned so meticulously, shouldn’t she have gotten better grades? No – because she planned before she knew what she was planning. If you are going to meticulously plan your writing, don’t write your plan until AFTER you’ve done your research.

Let’s take my Benjamin Franklin essay as an example, and modify it to fit this girl’s methods:
Thesis: Benjamin Franklin was a brilliant founding father and was also a consummate altruist, sacrificing his inventions and time to the public good.
Proof: Giving away the patent for the Franklin Stove
A.B.C….
Forming the Fire Department
A.B.C…
Forming the Police Department/Neighborhood Watch
A.B.C…
Planning the Sweeping of the Streets
A.B.C…
Planning the Lighting of the Streets
A.B.C….
Serving as a Diplomat instead of continuing in business
A.B.C…
Volunteering to take public positions, but not in position of power.
A.B.C…
Conclusion: Benjamin Franklin did a lot of good for America at his own expense, and selflessly served this country in its formative years.

Now, all of this is true, Ben Franklin did all of these things and he did them well – so why doesn’t the girl get a good grade on her essay? Because that’s only half of the truth – there’s a lot of evidence that Ben Franklin did most of what he did because he was a selfish prick who wanted to control people whom he thought were too stupid to control themselves. While our Planner was researching, she came across this information, she was well aware of the very strong counter-argument to her thesis, but she ignored it why? Even though she wrote on a different topic, I asked these questions of her (I had helped her with some research and found counter-arguments that she wholly ignored) and thus can give you a direct quote: “Well, all that stuff didn’t fit in with the essay I had planned on writing, so I didn’t put it in because it would change my argument too much.”

Planners out there: do your research before you plan.
Everyone out there: don’t plan your initial research.

You should go into a piece with an open mind – if you’re outlining a story or planning an essay, make sure you’re allowing reality to shape your work – pushing too hard to make a piece work when it simply doesn’t only leads to heartbreak.

Another example: Once I wrote a short story – it was a Science Fiction story and I thought it was pretty cool. I had some of my friends look it over, and they liked it, but one of my friends (who happened to be an intern at JPL at the time) was blessedly blunt with me about it: “Alli, the science is wrong. Space travel doesn’t work like that.” I tried to get around it, to change parts of the story, to make the story conform to science that didn’t fit and it made the story worse. I scrapped the story, re-wrote it with the reliance on space travel significantly minimized, and it made the story better.

No planning:

So let’s say you just sit down and freewrite – you let the words pour out and you hit “print” whenever your fingers have stopped moving for more than five minutes – what do you need in order to do better at the beginning? Well, it’s not the beginning you probably need help with, it’s the end.

If you don’t plan your writing, you need to rewrite your freewrites.

You may have noticed is that I don’t list plans for my poetry or short stories: the reason for this is that I don’t plan poetry or short stories – I write them in my head, rewrite them on paper, rewrite them on a computer, then do one or two more drafts before I’m satisfied, usually making only minor changes in the last three drafts – what you should note is that I make at least three drafts: I don’t care who the hell you think you are, but you should be doing the same – drafting at least once or twice to ensure a better product.

Freewriting is a great exercise, and it serves as a good illustration of what potential is evident in an idea, but freewrites aren’t final products.

If you are a freewriter, before you hit “print” you should go through your text a few times: check for grammar errors, check for places where the structure is weak, check that the whole coheres, and check a few more times for good measure. It’s no good to have written something that has brilliant elements if it’s riddled with non-sequiturs; there’s no point in displaying your beautiful control of language if your writing doesn’t have a message (thesis, theme, moral – whatever – there has to be some kind of payout other than beautiful language – even if it is a poem); there’s no value in making an excellent point of the language you use to express it is broken and incomprehensible. Rewrite. Rewrite. Rewrite.

This goes for everyone, but non-planners especially need to pay special attention to their work in order to ensure that it can be understood and appreciated by your audience.

Anyway, that went a hell of a lot longer than I expected (my non-planning side in evidence) so I’m going to cut it off now: I’ll be back on Sunday, February 5th with my next toolkit tip – How do you write Best?

Until then, figure out how you start and let me know what you think.

Cheers,
Alli.

Write Drunk, Read Drunk, Edit... Maybe

Today's blog isn't really going to be a question, but rather a bit of advice. Or at least the exploration of a theme in writing.

AFLM doesn't condone the act of the illegal consumption of alcohol;

However, if you're a grown up and you enjoy a good drink, and quite honestly you must, (I mean, what kind of writers don't drink anyway?) I would suggest that you, from time to time, move your pen away from your paper and witness the human drama.

Hemingway wrote the "Write drunk, edit sober" line but today I'd like to start with a quote from my boy Kerouac, from his essentials of spontaneous prose. Rule #3 "Try never get drunk outside yr own house." Genius. Not only is it cheap but it cuts down on drunk driving deaths. We know that writers take part in this activity because it lowers inhibition, makes the story come out more naturally, but, more obviously, it lowers inhibition and causes people to act different off the page. You just might catch some characters that you've never met before.

So, Socrates thought that writing was a way to forget things rather than remember them. Obviously, he didn't drink. And neither did Plato for that matter, how else did he find the time to record every word Socrates ever said? The point of the matter? Carry a pen and paper and take notes on these moments of inebriated lunacy, they just might make a great story. In fact, this has worked a few times for me, sometimes the stories were funny, sometimes they were solemn, but they were always raw and real. Sometimes you'll be amazed by the things you've seen with your own eyes, things that would have been lost if not recorded.

But chances are, you'll probably just laugh.

And Please,

Rule 28 "Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better"

Rule 24 "No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge"

Rule 25 "Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it"

Till next time all,

-Rainamoinen

Some Perspective for Reading Poetry & Some Better Advice

With our reading at Coffee Klatch right around the corner, I thought it would be fitting to post a blog about reading poetry. Don't get me wrong; our last reading was wonderful, and I have absolutely no complaints. I hope that all of our guests from the last reading will meet with us again this Friday – including our “occupationally challenged” friend, Phishfoot (a homeless man who contributed a great reading last time). My inspiration for this blog on reading poetry definitely did not come from our last reading. My inspiration comes from nearly every time that a teacher of mine has asked the class for a brave volunteer to read a poem aloud; it comes from nearly every time that that brave student has propped up their book, cleared their throat, and let spill a monotonous stream of words from their mouth, not even stopping, just plowing through the page as if line breaks meant nothing and as if punctuation were only for grammar's sake. I understand that it is extremely difficult to perform a poem unrehearsed and that it truly is courageous to attempt to tackle a performance in front of peers, and I respect those individuals who try, but I still wish that students who don’t know how to pronounce the word, “bough,” would refrain from raising their hands to read.

This blog isn’t really about those students though… It’s about poetry in general. Please remember, I’m no professional, and I won’t be teaching a lesson on performance today. What I’d like to offer instead is a bit of perspective:

A poem, once removed from its author and placed on paper, dies. The poet doesn’t shadow his/her poem, following it where ever it falls; the poem is left alone as its own lifeless entity. The dead poem drifts around the world, attached to paper as ink blot symbols. Its lifeless body is left to the whims of its readers.

To a poem, a reader is a god. The reader breathes into the dead poem and brings it to life with his/her performance. Whether that performance is silent, existing within the mind of the reader, or aloud to an audience, the poem lives for a brief moment as an expression of thought. The reader controls what a poem will become.

Please, for the sake of Walt, show poetry respect. If you are to give life to a poem, then give it a respectable life. Take notice of what it wants to be, of what signals it has left for you. Be a loving god, and breathe into it with compassion for its author and its message, and if you happen to think that the author and the message can suck eggs, then give it a life you see more fitting for it. And never never never read a poem as a monotonous string of sound – unless, of course, you can argue why you gave it that life.

So there it is. That’s my perspective and a little bit of advice. If you’ve read all of that, and realized that you want something other than a college kid’s opinion, then I hope you enjoy this:

I think the bard said it best.

Depression. Yay.

"Well, to be honest, I'm feeling kinda depressed"

-The depressed whale

Sylvia Plath put her head in an oven, Hunter S. Thompson and Hemingway put shotguns to theirs, Fitzgerald killed himself with alcohol. And those are just the ones who come immediately to mind. It bothers me immensely to contemplate how many of the great artists and thinkers have suffered to the point of desiring to entirely blot out their own consciousness. A study was conducted over the span of ten years that found “between 59 and 77 percent of the artists, writers, and musicians suffered mental illness especially "mood disorders," compared to just 18 to 29 percent in the less artistic professionals” (Reynolds).

I’ve been thinking a lot about this, about depression and the artistic/academic temperament. “Artistic” and “academic” are not commonly paired in such a manner, and I’m sure many people would take issue with said pairing. However, I place them together here because academics, at least in the humanities, are appreciators of art and certainly dedicate a majority of their lives to the study of art, whatever their art form of choice may be. So, in this way, artists and academics spend their lives in the service of art, either by means of creation or examination.

Considering the suicide rate and carelessness rate (and by that I mean accidental overdose) among artists and intellectuals, I think we can easily see the connection between depression and the people who spend their lives in service to art. But, why is this so? Why is it that the people who create the most beautiful and moving renderings of reality are also the ones who suffer the most mental pain? I think it is often mistakenly believed to be the fault of solitude. People are quick to point out the isolationist and misanthropic tendencies of artists and intellectuals. And there is something to that notion. Often, intellectuals, in their skepticism, deprive themselves of opportunities for community. However, I don’t think this isolation is the primary culprit.

It is a lack of ignorance that causes depression. And when I say “ignorance,” I stress “ignore.” The purpose of art is to examine the world; it does not allow for ignorance. In order to create art, you have to face the world and humanity and all of their flaws, head on. If you hide under the covers, you won't see a thing and you won't have a thing to write about. And if you appreciate art and study it, you are spending your time with commentary on the world, and again, this does not allow for ignorance or hiding from reality.

People say that artists and readers are cut off from the world, but nothing could be further from the truth. Artists (and I'm thinking specifically of writers) and readers (and all other appreciators and consumers of art) are by no means cut off from the world; in fact, they are the only ones who are fully engaged in it, the only ones who are taking the time to really look at it.

In Midnight in Paris the character of Gertrude Stein says, “The artist’s job is not to succumb to despair but to find an antidote for the emptiness of existence.” (I hate to quote a character of a literary figure, rather than the literary figure herself, but it’s a great quotation!) Considering how many dark and depressing tales the great artists have created, I’m reluctant to fully agree with this statement. After all, so many artists seem to succumb to despair. But maybe, whether they succumb or not, all great artists also find/create “an antidote.” Maybe even something like The Bell Jar, in all its gloominess, is, in its beauty, the perfect medicine for the illness of emptiness. That story, and all other great ones I can think of, does not send a message of hopelessness- it sends a message of truth. It is not cheesy or falsely hopeful or even defeatist. It is honest- life is difficult and we don’t ever know what’s waiting around the corner. Art, if it is truly great, will always be a variation of that message and it’s a message that by its very expression brings despair and comfort, as does anything worth experiencing.

Until next time,

Leena

Reynolds, Susan. “Is Depression Inevitable for Artists and Creative People?” Gather.com. 19 Feb 2006. Web. 23 Jan 2012.

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474976731117

"The Depressed Whale." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_dEtaNx2Vc

Writing or Designing or Something

I can never tell if I write to take time off from designing or if I design to take time off from writing - tonight it was a little bit of both.

Designing is a very fiddly art - you invest a lot of effort into very slight changes that your audience may never even see, but I suppose the same is true of writing.

Both art forms are more compulsory than voluntary for me - if I couldn't write or design I'd be miserable. I must write. I must lay out pages and make logos. Nobody makes me do either of these things - there's just a little voice in my heat that sometimes shouts out "YOU SHOULD DO SOMETHING WITH THIS!"

That little voice told me to design today, and so in lieu of a normal, ranting blog from me I'll present you with my other compulsion: Wormwood Chapbooks has a live blog, a logo, and a design theme as of four minutes ago, all because of that persistent little voice.

Please stop by, and check up on it now and then - we're all delighted to be sharing even more literature with our readers, and I very strongly hope that Wormwood Chapbooks will soon become a very strong division of our upstart publishing company.

You can find it here: Wormwood Chapbooks. Enjoy.

Cheers,
-Alli

*** **** *** **** *** ******* ** **** *** *****'* ******* * *** ** ***** **!!!!

I was going to write something else today, but I think I'll save it for next week. I actually just got done writing my article and was about to publish it, but something occurred to me: no one really knows - generally speaking, of course - what the hell they're talking about.

As we all know, talk of PIPA and SOPA is all over the place - facebook, twitter, texts, radio. TV, etc - but does anyone actually know what it is? Has anyone actually read these documents and studied them? My guess is probably not. But, people are very eager to talk about them and judge them.

Now, I know it sounds all big and scary, but what exactly will change is PIPA and SOPA pass? That's hard to say, really. PIPA and SOPA are fluctuating, and with the recent protests by famous sites like Wiki and Google, the documents are being edited and edited and edited....and then re-edited. So, unless everyone but me has been reading up on these documents everyday, it seems like most people are just kind of...well...talking out of their assholes.

These two documents have been all over NPR for the past few days, and the commentary has been very interesting. People from all over the US - college professors, congressmen, piracy experts, and technological moguls - who actually study these documents have put forth their opinions concerning these issues, and, interestingly enough, the main issues seem to vary from the concerns of assholes on facebook. They are concerned about foreign bootleggers, not American citizens; they are attacking people from China taking away jobs from Americans in Hollywood, not people sharing music on youtube. So what the fuck are we all worked up about?

Ok, before you think I'm a fan of this act passing, let me say this: I don't think anything should be censored - my writing should be proof of that; however, I do think that people should actually take the time to think about talking points before they start talking about things they don't know. And don't think you're educated on a subject matter just because you watch a video on youtube; "Loose Change" was popularized through youtube, and that's probably the most convoluted, misinformed shit that's ever been released on the internet. All I'm saying is please think things through. After all, this is a very important time of the year for America, and
"thinking" like an American - and by that I mean not really thinking at all - is a detriment to our future.

Think about it.

JF

Letter to the Leaves: The Literary Cannon Cigar Lounge -Members Only-

My Fellow Contributors,

If you have been following me on Twitter (@BermudaAFL) then you may have read that I am currently reading the Italio Calvino novel, If on a Winters Night a Traveler. This novel is unlike anything I have read during my time as an under grad. His manipulation of personal pronouns, the novel's self awareness and awareness of other has left me reading, re-reading, and discovering new nuances with each sitting.

But why has it taken me this long, almost four years, to come across a book that has sparked more classroom discussion than any other in my time at Cal Poly. A book that I have been motivated to read, not because of grades, but because of the desire to discuss it with my fellow colleagues outside of the classroom.

Looking back on the courses I have taken, they were filled with good books from various time periods. However I feel as though I have been trapped in the 18th, 19th and very early 20th century for four years.

What has been missing from my literary education are authors who have yet to be given the members-only key to the literary cannon cigar lounge.

Where Walt gently selects a cigar from the box at the bar and delicately places it in his mouth, before Henry James grabs his book of matches and begins to light him up. Where Milton and Edwards are debating nature's place in divinity, and Shakespeare is on stage, skull in hand, spouting forth a dramatic monologue (To be or not to be...). Where Equiano trades tales with Cabeza De Vaca and over in the corner Bradstreet and Dickinson are quietly abstaining.

I am there, only as visitor. Shuttling from one author to the next, ease dropping on conversations, catching the punch line of a joke here or choking on the smoke from a Whitmanian aphorism there. In all this haze and muted chatter, I struggle to find meaning. But with the guidance of my professor, who at this time is heaving haughty laughs with Franklin, I sift my way through the leaves of ash, and find a purpose.

But where is Ernest Hemingway, Hunter S. Thompson, Tennessee Williams, Anthony Burgess, and Gabriel García Márquez? (to name a few)

They're outside. Waiting for the critic/bouncer, who stands at the door, to give them their key. You can see them through the sounds and smoke, peering over his shoulder, staring at you.

Beckoning you to say a word on their behalf.

As Always,

Undoubtedly Yours,
Bermuda

In The Business of Lying

"A novelist's business is lying...

I talk about the gods; I am an atheist. But I am an artist too, and therefore a liar. Distrust everything I say. I am telling the truth."

-Ursula K. Le Guin, in her introduction to "The Left Hand of Darkness"

So, writers of fiction out there who think that they're portrayers of truth and humanity, you're already in the business of lying. Lying to yourself, that is. But let's put the modernist lens down for a minute and let me level with you. The idea of lying being a respectable profession really just intrigues me. I very briefly touched on this subject in my blog back in November and called upon the thoughts of Oscar Wilde found in his "The Decay of Lying." Oscar (we're on a first name basis) basically puts forward the idea that lying is the highest form of art when writing. He claims it's easy to mimic reality because, well, we're surrounded by it. Any attempt to recreate reality would just be mundane. A Lie, however, is delightful to read.

But Oscar always fancied paradoxes more than lies and Le Guin offers us with one in her introduction. She claims that science fiction writers are not in the business of predicting the future, but rather they are in the business of commenting on the here and now. Hm... So the lies need some context of truth? It makes enough sense, all jokes contain a bit of truth in them or else a sense of humor wouldn't be evoked. Readers need something to grasp onto in the sea of lies. Many people feel that Shakespeare's work remains relevant to a modern audience despite the massive cultural shifts that have happened over the last 400 years because he managed to encapsulate the unchanging human condition within his verse.

But the fact was that Shakespeare was a liar. Even his history plays contained a multitude of lies. Writers of fiction create characters, situations, worlds, and standards that are non existent in the world; however, they aren't without reason. The questions Le Guin has prompted me to ask is "where do writers draw the line?" Well, I don't know. But the real question is, can the elements of mankind only be portrayed through this systematic lying? I don't know that either, but one of the great determiners of outstanding fiction is its ability to hold a mirror to humanity.

So do we learn more through lies than the truth?

Still don't know, but I expect a visit from our resident Sci-fi authority.

I'll leave you with more words from Le Guin's introduction.

"In reading a novel, any novel, we have to know perfectly well that the whole thing is nonsense, and then, while reading, believe every word of it. Finally, when we're done with it, we may find-- if it's a good novel-- that we're a bit different from what we were before we read it...

All fiction is a metaphor."

Until next time,

-Rainamoinen

Not a Pot to Piss in or a Window to Throw it Outta!

Good evening everyone, I hope you are enjoying the rousing discussions which have been so thoughtfully prepared by all of us here at the AFLM family. Now, I have promised you concision, and in the spirit of faithfulness I am going to make sure I give you concision. And as furthering this enjoyable, yet admittedly gratuitous, introduction belies this promise, I will, now, simply vault into the matter at hand.

I was having a discussion with a friend today about writing and publishing (go figure) and he asked me whether it would be more advantageous for his career to write something widely marketable and pleasing instead of what most English majors aspire to write, the MAGNUM OPUS OF ARTISTIC ENDEAVOR! We discussed this for the better part of two hours, volleying back and forth the pros and cons of each potential decision and ended up lousy with hypotheticals. And that is why this question has made it to all of you good people. If a writer was to write something mass-marketable and tasty, as it were, which would lend to a higher chance of publication into novel, screenplay, etc., equaling a great deal of money on his part, is it artistically ethical to do so, or should this person continue to try and sell his esoteric opus? I think it is something interesting to think about, if only for the "thought experiment" nature of it. Now, understand that when I say "mass-marketable", I mean blithering trash. Also, I know some of you will say, can't the two be accomplished as one? Can't art be mass-marketable? Well, seeing as certain seemingly erroneous circumstances make it impossible to give a definitive no, I will say its not likely. Be honest with yourself, as much as you may love Ulysses, Song of Myself, As I Lay Dying, or The Decameron, these works will never be as grotesquely profitable as . . . dare I say it . . . Twilight, or any other revolting heap of worthlessness your mind can dredge up which would serve as ample example of a sideshow monstrosity which has garnered way too much profit for its putrid, hell hound charlatan of an "author."

So, there you have it, my thought provoking gift to you. I hope everyone gives this some thought, or, perhaps, if you are reading this, stunned by its elementary nature, please be so kind as to respond and educate the rest of us.

Thoughtfully,

Eric W. Strege

A Little Uplift For Anyone Feeling Down

This passed weekend, while visiting my parents in Santa Barbara, I found myself with a few hours to kill, so I decided to go for a walk. With no destination in mind, I let my ears guide me and was drawn to what turned out to be the hustle and bustle of a four mile strip of stores, restaurants, and bars. While walking down this strip I was immediately entranced by all of the musicians scattered amongst the street. I spent some time listening to each of them, my favorite being the drummer who played on trash cans and used the wheels of cars as his symbols, and was impressed by the talent of many of these musicians and found myself wondering why none of these musicians, steaming with talent, have yet to make it off the street and onto a stage. As I continued down the strip I saw a sign for a poetry reading outside of one of the book stores and slipped in to what turned out to be more of a hallway with bookshelves on either side than a bookstore. At the very end of this “hallway” was an opening with a stool in the center. This opening acted as the stage and the stool as the podium. The poets reading were fantastic, and their ability to not only read their poetry but also perform it was impressive. And again, I found myself wondering why I had never heard of these poets before, and why their names were not known by more than just those crammed into a hallway of a bookstore. And I thought about this on my way back to my parent's house.

Now I have no answers for you as to why some great musicians spend their whole lives on the corner of a street and are never recognized, or why some sub-par musicians get their names put up in lights. I can't tell you why certain poet's verses are heard by many, while others spend their existence only echoing off the shelves of small bookstores. But I can tell you this: You can never stop writing. If you love to write poetry, but are told that your poems are not good enough by one person, keep writing and show them to another. You never know what effect your work will have on your reader, or listener, or observer. The key is to never stop, and to show your work off to as many people as possible. The more accessible your work is, the higher the chances are that people will read it. Think of it as self advertising. Whether that be reading at a poetry reading, submitting to a literary magazine, or just simply to stand on the street corner and sing or read what your have written, it does not matter. What matters is that you put your work out there for others to see and develop their own opinions about. And who knows? Maybe, one day you'll find yourself or your work in the right place at the right time, and the right person will hear it or see it and love it. And the rest remains to be told.

Until next time friends,

Nick Hart

I hope they still have Fahrenheit 451 on their library shelves

Last week, as part of Arizona's 2010 termination of the teaching of "ethnic studies, "the Tucson Unified School District released an initial list of books to be banned from its schools today. According to district spokeperson Cara Rene, the books 'will be cleared from all classrooms, boxed up and sent to the Textbook Depository for storage'" (Biggers). This shocking news left me wondering: how did this ban come to be in the first place? Well the original ban was signed into law in May of 2010 by Arizona governor Jan Brewer and officially it "prohibits the teaching of any classes that promote 'the overthrow of the United States government,' 'resentment toward a race or class of people,' 'are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group' or 'advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals'” (Barr). Ah, so the reason this ban came into existence may be because it doesn't initially sound all that bad. After all, children shouldn't be taught to overthrow the government; that would be completely counter-intuitive to one of the purposes of a public school education in this country (to create a compliant workforce). Students shouldn't be taught to resent a certain race or class of people- is resentment something we ever want taught in our public schools? And a class designed for a particular group of students doesn't seem fair. And that last part is downright lovely- of course people should be treated as individuals! That's what America's all about :)

Now to the book ban. The initial banned books include Paolo Friere's Pedagogy of the Oppressed, William Shakespeare's The Tempest, Joseph Bruchac's A Friend of the Indians, N. Scott Momaday's The Delight Song of Tsoai-Talee, Like Water for Chocolate, and Sherman Alexie's The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven, just to name a few.

Why would all that uniting of Arizona school children have to be done alongside the banning of more books from schools? Why would fifty-some-odd books, such as Sandra Cisneros' masterpiece The House on Mango Street, need to be banned from Arizona school campuses? These books all involve issues relevant to ethnic groups or that raise questions pertaining to ethnic solidarity. In order to not be encouraged to overthrow the government, not promote resentment toward certain races or classes, not teach design classes for certain ethnic groups, and to treat people as individuals, books need to be banned? Authors, who are attempting to express their opinions and particular viewpoints about ethnic issues, need to be silenced? In order to see people as individuals, and not primarily as part of ethnic categories, we must lose sight of the fact that these books represent the viewpoints of individuals and the experiences of individuals? Huh.

Believing that an idea cannot be presented without being promoted is ridiculous- is teaching about the holocaust promoting it? And, by the way, according to the wording of the ban, the teaching of the holocaust could be classified as an attempt to make Jewish students feel united and resentment toward their non-Jewish classmates. This law, and its seemingly well-intentioned wording, is incredibly dangerous. It could be applied to almost any teachings that present a viewpoint of American history (or any other country's history for that matter) that is counter to the ones we were presented as children…you know, like all that shit about Johnny Appleseed and the first Thanksgiving. In fact, one of the already banned books is banned for that very reason: telling the darker side of Thanksgiving (Michael Dorris's Why I'm Not Thankful for Thanksgiving).

The history of the oppressed is not an alternate history; it is the history of the human race. If we begin to believe that the stories of the oppressed are dangerous stories that will only serve to incite our nation's children to believe they are oppressed, we are only working to silence those who have gained their voices and learned to speak out against injustice and make the experience understood and recognized for what it is.

So, what do the people who support this law really hope to accomplish? Well, some of them simply don't understand the ugliness lurking beneath its wording and are somehow missing the blatant slime covering the action of book banning. And to those people, I politely implore you to remove your heads from your asses. As for everyone else, the ones who truly believe that this law is good because it will promote solidarity among school children, I ask you to seriously consider how limiting the resources of knowledge and literature available to the children of Arizona is really going to accomplish anything like that? I agree with some of the wording of the law because parts of it attempt to eradicate viewing history from one vantage point (in this case the vantage point of the oppressed); however, the answer is not to silence those voices. The answer is to add more perspectives, not block out more. And you have to recognize that censoring viewpoints will not increase solidarity, it will only work to make certain students, the ones who feel that you are censoring their viewpoints, to see what you're doing as oppression, the very oppression you may think you've eradicated.

On this Martin Luther King Day, do not let yourself be misled by these people who attempt to silence others, with good intentions or not, with awareness of what they are really doing or not. Do not let voices be silenced and books be banned. Do no support a school system that wants to further the goal of creating compliant/non-thinking young citizens rather than the goal of promoting free-thought, exploration of all perspectives of history, and young people who grow up with an eager desire to continue learning and to not be oppressed by bullshit such as that happening in Arizona right now. Oppression is not a monster under the bed that if we just stop believing is there, will go away.

Until next time,
Leena

Works Cited
Barr, Andy. "Arizona bans 'ethnic studies.'" Politico.com. 12 May 2010. Web. 16 Jan 2012. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/37131.html
Biggers, Jeff. "Who's afraid of 'The Tempest'?" Salon.com. 13 Jan 2012. Web. 16 Jan 2012. http://www.salon.com/2012/01/13/whos_afraid_of_the_tempest/
Norrell, Brenda. "Tucson schools bans books by Chicano and Native American authors." The Narcosphere. 14 Jan 2012. Web. 16 Jan 2012. http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/brenda-norrell/2012/01/tucson-schools- bans-books-chicano-and-native-american- authors#.TxOEmuBLVKr.facebook

Lametations and Ruminations on Procrastination

I am a terrible procrastinator. This used to be something I was proud of myself for: I could wait until the last minute and still turn out wonderful papers, finish assigned readings and study for midterms and manage an A average in my classes – it was wonderful!

But now it’s not. Part of me thinks that this is because I’m getting older. I may be only twenty-five but that also means that I’m no longer nineteen – I can’t stay up for forty-eight hours straight finishing up essays or blog entries and still be energetic enough to work the next day. Part of me recognizes that I get into more trouble when I procrastinate now than I did before: work is not school, and responsibilities come back to bite me in the ass – my boss won’t forgive me for dozing in the office the same way a professor teaching an 8 am class would, and I dislike reprimands from people who write my paychecks. But the biggest part of me recognizes the core of why I don’t enjoy procrastination the same way I did when I was a college student: simply put, procrastination is the refuge of intelligent, lazy people.

In school we all knew the procrastinators who couldn’t get away with it – they were the ones whose presentations sounded stilted, who were missing vital information, and whose papers and tests usually came back with less-than-optimal scores. Rarer were the successful procrastinators, like me, but you probably knew (and might have been jealous of) the students who darted to the library to print out essays completed only minutes before class, whose papers were handed back with compliments. In school we knew these people, and pitied or envied or were contemptuous of them or hated them, but we knew them.

Out in the non-academic world I’m finding procrastinators harder to come by, probably because procrastination is ineffective.

I said earlier that procrastination is the refuge of intelligent, lazy people. It shelters people who know that they’re capable of creating a good product with less time, and so rather than passing their time in the tedium of putting together a methodical, perfect paper, procrastinators rely on a nervous zeal to move their work from page to page; their papers are lauded for the authenticity of the energy in the work, and why not? The energy is authentic – it’s hard to be inauthentically energetic when you’re writing at four in the morning after pounding a couple of Red Bulls. So people who know they’re smart, and may be aware that they are lazy, put off the work until the work MUST be done, gleefully spending their stolen time on the web or out with friends or drinking or watching TV or doing chores or ANYTHING to keep from having to do the real work.

This works nicely, and is a fairly acceptable practice, in college because college is kind in that you are given firm deadlines.

The non-academic world is unfortunately not so kind. There are no firm deadlines, no neat assignments, and intelligence doesn’t get you as far as diligence, a fact which I both respect and loathe.

My penchant for procrastination makes my job difficult; thus far I’ve avoided getting into trouble over it but it makes my days at a desk long and dull – if I were actually working at a reasonable pace I’d have something to do all the time instead of having frantic periods of catching up and mind-numbing hours of work avoidance. But worse than that, procrastination is preventing me from doing what I really want to do: write.

I’m great at writing under pressure – this blog is a fantastic example: I forgot that I was supposed to blog today until about noon, then I kicked around a couple of ideas for a couple of hours, then I sat down to write a blog at around 11:10 and I fully expect to be finished by 11:45 – but while this is a pretty good little essay, it is somewhat less than insightful and substantially more self revealing than something I would have written if I’d allowed myself more time.

Who is hurt by this sort of behavior? You, the readers, who have every right to expect good, pertinent blogs from our editors. The site, possibly, because I’m showing that I’m laughably under-prepared to be a real-life magazine editor and it could reflect poorly on our magazine. But mostly it hurts me – I wrote this because I didn’t have time to write what I wanted to write, and so what I wanted to write is lost; confessing about my procrastination MAY reflect badly on the magazine, but it really shows an aspect of myself that I dislike to a fairly large audience.

I’m trying to get over procrastination, but it’s hard – I honestly don’t give a fuck about my current job, so it doesn’t bother me in that area, but I’ve been trying to work on my novel (and a few short stories, and a few dozen poems, and a few late Christmas presents) for a long time now, but I keep finding my laziness getting in the way. I’m done with that bullshit, and I wish I had been done with it a long time ago.

So what does this all come to, why did I decide to share all of this with you? Because I know a lot of college students who read this blog and I wanted to give you a warning. Procrastination is for assholes, the people who are big enough dicks that they can’t be bothered to consider their audience or their friends. It works okay in college, but you still come off as an asshole, and it doesn’t work at all when you’re out. Do yourself a favor and give yourself time – make pressure in another way if you work best under pressure, but don’t put your work off – it’s an easy habit to get into and a hard habit to drop; laziness is a lot like heroin in that way, except when you overdose you don’t die you just fall into unaccomplished mediocrity. And really, to someone smart, proud, and able, which is worse?

Lately yours,
Alli

Unveiling the Cosmonauts

Hey all,

I'm sure your hearts are all breaking because I'm not going to be writing something incendiary today. I know, you're disappointed; but, don't worry - I'll be back next week to give you an intellectual kick in the ass.

Anyways, I got off the phone with friend and poet William Winfield Wright earlier today, and he informed me that he'll be making an appearance in Southern California on the 25th of Feb. We're going to be hosting a reading, but not in the fashion of our previous readings. This time, William will be the sole reader, offering selections from his newest chapbook, Cosmonauts, which is forthcoming from our chapbook company, Wormwood; furthermore, he'll be giving us a sneak peek at his chapbook, forthcoming in August, Bird Feet. To put a cherry on top, he'll be reading other works from other magazines as well as some unpublished work. Following the reading will be a Q&A for anyone who wishes to learn more about this amazing poet.

Cosmonauts will be released electronically within the month and the printed editions will be made available sometime during the beginning of February (as will the printed copies of AFL Issue II!)

Details concerning the venue have not been finalized as of yet, but we are working diligently to find one. If you are located in Southern California and would like to attend this fantastic night of poetry, please let me, Jack Foster, know via e-mail - it's sure to be a great night.

Until next time,

JF

Letter To The Leaves: Poetry, The Final Frontier

My Fellow Contributors,

I have always been jealous of scientists. Mostly in part because they are in the business of exploration. They ask questions, form hypotheses, and create experiments. They push past boundaries and open our eyes to new possibilities. They can do this because there are clear limits to the physical world.

But are there such, in the universe of Poetry?

Where does the sidewalk end?

Where is the next frontier of Poetry and who will take us there?

(I feel as though when I write, I am only RE-discovering)

I guess what I am really asking is where is Poetry in our current times?

But as I write this I begin to understand that Poetry is not a place. It is only a vehicle. Poetry is the ship I sail to explore the seas of my soul. I begin to find comfort in this. Somehow this reassures me, that it is not Poetry that is undiscovered, but the voices.

There are voices of Poetry yet to be heard. It is the new voices of Poetry that we must search for. Because it is the voice of Poetry that animates the corpus.

Poetry is dead.

You. You alone have its saving breath.

On January 27th, 2012, at the Coffee Klatch, let us hear that voice.

Let us resurrect the dearly departed, and embrace the spoken word together as one.

As Always,

Undoubtedly Yours,
Bermuda

Blogging in Newspeak!

Hello all and welcome to the new year,

We, the AFLM masthead, shall continue to blog about all the things you know and love about writing throughout the new year until the impending 2012 apocalypse. So, let's start at the beginning, get back to basics, and get to the real guts of the textual medium: language.

Some of you may have caught the reference in the title but I don't fault you if you didn't, it's been a while since high school. Newspeak is a fictional English dialect created in George Orwell's 1984 (which I'm currently rereading in order to write a curriculum) in order to oppress the masses. Hmm... that last sentence reads great without the parenthesis, it's almost ironic. Anyway, in high school the idea of Newspeak went totally over my head and quite frankly I probably didn't even read about it in the appendix. Newspeak is mostly an abridged form of English, words are given one meaning (meanings which support the tyrannical political party) in order to strip them of their poetic usage. In fact, in Orwell's 1984, personal writing is punishable by death.

The thought that the art of writing is a major determining factor of free will may sound like a lonely author's musings on his/her own self worth; however, Orwell has quite a point. There are inherent ideas and standards embedded inside languages that we simply pass over from day to day (the most obvious of which is probably the differentiation of feminine and masculine words, because of course, words are arbitrary and genderless). The language used on voting ballots across the country often use a certain diction to ensure that it is not accessible to certain demographics. But can language itself, by itself, stomp out the ability to think critically? Well, yes it can.

Grant Morrison, in his graphic novel series The Invisibles, offers a somewhat humorous parallel to Orwell's idea of linguistic oppression. Morrison (through his characters) claims that there are in fact more than 26 letters in the alphabet, but it was limited to 26 in order to limit the amount of ideas that could be created. Now, linguists know that even with 26 distinct phonetic letters a near infinite amount of words can be created. But the point is that a parallel was drawn between language and critical thinking. If you haven't read my blog on the confines of the ancient oral Greek mind, then please check it out, it's actually pretty relevant to the argument and a lot of fun (if you're into that kind of stuff).

Either way, I have another historical example to show here and now. So, the Japanese written language uses three different forms; Kanji (the logosyllabic system) and the two syllabaries called Hiragana and Katakana. Kanji and Hiragana are used to represent distinctly Japanese words and meanings; whereas Katakana is used to adapt new foreign words into the Japanese language. For years women were oppressed because they were only permitted to write in Hiragana. In other words, the new words (ideas) that were allowed into the Katakana syllabary could not be used by women (and thus, not expressed through writing). Even though Kanji words can be represented through Hiragana (and thus, the meaning too can be transferred), any reader of the text would be able to peg the writer as a woman and take action against her if he so pleased. In this case, the language was used to prevent revolutionary ideas and keep watch on an entire gender.

So what's the point of this rant? Read closely and write thoughtfully. We're all doing important stuff here and it's easy to forget how powerful something as commonplace as language can be. And the power of language in the form of art? Well... That's a story for another blog. Someone pick up the gauntlet!

-Rainamoinen

If We Don't Get Commenters This Blog Will Be As Dry As The Sinai !

Hello everyone, and welcome back to the AFLM blog family for what is sure to be an exhilarating new year of activity. Man, where to start? I think it has been a whole month you have been without my (insert adjective of your choosing) writing to help you make sense of your maudlin, lurid, art driven thoughts. Rest assured, no matter how much you missed me, it was a necessary break. My writing has been known to cause lethal levels of arrogance, pompousness, and intellectual superiority in some readers, some of whom are recovering only through the miracle of psychiatric dialysis.

Over the winter holiday break, I thought extensively about what I wanted to achieve with my blogs to all you kind folk, and I came up with this list. Let's hope I keep this new years resolution . . . unlike the disappointing flannel fiasco of 2010 (like it was even a possibility it could be eliminated from my wardrobe)

1. Concision - Let's face it, who has the time to sit down and read a wall of text Roger Water's himself couldn't tear down! So, I have decided to streamline my blogs so that they will be more accessible to the reader who is pressed for time but who would still like to be up to date on AFLM goings on. (This will be implemented next time, this one still might be on the long side)

2. Reciprocation - I have said this on several blogs, but its worth saying again. All of us here at AFLM are here for YOU, the reader. We blog so that we can stay in contact with the readers and find out their thoughts, expressions, worries, struggles, triumphs, etc. with writing, after all this is a literary magazine. So, in the words of Morrissey, please please please comment. Contribute to the discourse of like-minded literary scholars.

3. Sociability - I have talked to several editors and bloggers here at AFLM, and we all agree that we want to be a bit more interactive with our community of readers and contributors. This means workshops, forums, and face to face interaction with all of you (that is assuming you are local-ish . . . sorry folks, as much as I would love to visit you in Brazil, India, France, etc. its a bit of a stretch) Also, anyone who is interested, we will be hosting poetry readings (don't worry you can read prose too) far more frequently than we have before, that means more time with anyone who is willing to step into the limelight.

There you have it, my bond as a gentleman from me to all of you out there to try and become an even better blogger and editor for all of you. I will leave you with this thought. . .

who here has seen English majors walking around with journals or scraps of paper that they seem to be feverishly writing in as if they are penning the next masterpiece? I'm guilty of it, I'm sure some of you are as well, BUT how do you find yourself taking those loose ideas and formulating them into a well structured piece? It must be done, but how can it be done effectively, a way which allows these ideas to become polished without sucking all the excitement and life out of their spontaneous conception? Think about it, let me know, because I would love to know.

Wishfully,

Eric W. Strege

Write Drunk Redux

I am taking the advice of Hemingway and, in the spirit of New Year's, have decided to write drunk; perhaps I shall come back to this post at a later date and choose to edit sober.

The Mayan calendar suggests (and I don't particularly believe it) that the end of the world is fast approaching - to tell you the truth, I couldn't be happier about that.

Endings are good things if only because they have this indomitable habit of creating beginnings; if the world as we know it is ending, I, like REM, feel fine - the world as we know it deserves a good end so it can get off to an even better beginning.

2011 was a rough year capping off a rough few years that have been part of a rough new century; particularly in the realm of education our brave new world has gotten worse and I'm quite happy to think that the era of education as we know it is coming to a swift and merciful end.

Perhaps the end of the world as predicted by the Mayans heralds in a thousand years of strong emphasis on arts education, perhaps it will simply bring about the end of No Child Left Behind (which couldn't possibly come to a bad end because it's been a poorly planned and executed program from the start, so any change in its status as an apparatus of government would be preferable to its current operation), perhaps we're about to see the final gasps of test-based standards and monofocus classrooms, perhaps we'll come to the realization that classroom education is a bunk theory and go back to a culture of tribal elder education (doubtful and probably suboptimal in the long run - tribal elders are notoriously bad at explaining physics, which are notoriously important when trying to accomplish things like building effective automobiles or bridges). One way or another it would appear that changes are on the horizon, and change of any kind is an event to be welcomed, since its absence is death and all that.

Education is only one example of the kind of thing that has been hard to get a handle on since we (literally) partied like it was nineteen ninety-nine, other examples in that category include carbon emissions, the Middle East, the American Political system, and the possibility of global thermonuclear war but in all of these realms we have seen change, both positive and negative, a constant reminder that we, our ideals, and the possibility (or surety) of a different tomorrow are steadily chugging on - vibrantly alive and beautiful in our inability to stay the same even for a single second.

I find it amusing that so many people are freaking out about the end of the world. Every damn day is the end of the world, as far as the events of that day are concerned, and that's a good thing. If we didn't overturn each day, decade, century or millennium with the end of a world or an era we'd never get anywhere, do anything, or be of any use to anyone.

So here's to the end of a day, the end of a year, the end of the world, and a new beginning to all of those things; welcome in 2012 with a celebration of the changes you see in your life and the world around you and embrace every moment as the joyous encapsulation of the end of the world as you know it.

Happy New Year,
Cheers,
Alli

PS - the blog will be taking a break for a couple of days as we organize a new schedule for the writers in order to bring you entertaining, edifying, educational content in a different order than normal - so don't expect Eric's belligerence to always follow Leena's critical clarity - we're mixing it simply to see if we can set off a different set of fireworks (after all there's nothing like poking a beehive full of grumpy writers just to see what happens.)