Building your Writing Toolkit: Part Three – Substance and Substances.

I loathe the phrase “the so what factor.” I kept butting heads with professors in my lower division English classes who would bring up this idiotic idiom every time I turned in an essay. Two things about this attitude piss me off: first, a reader should care about my opinion because it is well researched, well argued, and eloquently presented; second, there’s always someone out there who will say “So What?” and frankly I don’t give a shit about that segment of my potential audience who isn’t going to hear what I’m trying to say – if they don’t get what I’m writing because it isn’t relevant to their view of the world, they don’t matter to me.

I don’t think that authors (or essayists or poets) should sit down, look over their delicately crafted work, put themselves into the mindset of a fourteen-year-old and ask “so what?” about their writing. There’s always someone who won’t care, there’s always someone you won’t reach, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

But before you can communicate with any audience you need to know what you’re writing and why you’re writing it. One of my professors had another question he frequently tossed at his classes, and this question is one that I have no problem with: What Does it Do?

Many writers have trouble reading over their work for the sake of their work – it’s hard to read a short story you’ve written as an outsider and simply enjoy it as fiction, which means that it’s hard for writers to see what their work does in someone else’s eyes. A lot of what I write entertains, and that is all it does. It doesn’t answer big questions, it’s not intended to teach lessons, and it’s not typically solemn and grave: I’m snarky as hell and if I try to write something too serious I generally sound either pedantic or emo. It took me a long time to understand this, and an even longer time to accept it, but since I’ve accepted that sarcasm and wit are more present and pleasant in my writing than sincerity and gravity I’ve had a lot more fun writing.

I’ve taken a rather long time to make the tool parallel for this blog but what I’m talking about here pretty much equates to a level. I tried for a long time to write poems about how I really felt and how the world made a difference in my life that was relatable to the lives of my readers – but it was all bullshit. I wanted so badly to be serious in all that I wrote that I skewed my writing. When I entered the Sigma Tau Delta writing contest at Cal Poly a couple of years ago I tried to write a serious horror story, something realistic and gritty and angry and deeply terrifying. All of it was utter crap, and so in a moment of desperation I wrote a poem that started with these lines: “On a night run thick with mystery/and choked by swirling fog/I made a travesty of chemistry/and my homework ate my dog.” The poem, “My Homework ate my Dog” won first place in the contest and opened up a new world to me as a writer.

When I was writing based on the “so what” factor I was convinced that all of my writing had to be deep and meaningful – my essays had to speak to everyone and strike my readers dumb with the majesty of the ideas they communicated; my poetry had to be grave and deep and dark and mourn the human condition; my fiction had to be intense and real and target core issues of morality and reality to be considered worthy, and I was miserable when I was writing because nothing I wrote communicated what I wanted it to. When I changed my perspective on writing from asking “so what” to asking “what does it do” I was able to write essays that were informative but wry, poems that were silly and relaxed even when they were serious, and fiction that tends toward the fantastic more than the fatalistic and is easier to read, write, and appreciate as a result.

“So what?” is a question that convinces writers that everything they create has to be substantive – that your writing HAS to say something meaningful and insightful and original or it’s not worth the paper that it’s printed on. “What does it do?” is a more honest question that encourages writers to really examine their writing and ask what THEY are doing and how it works for them.

Some writers are better than others at writing substance and some writers are better at writing lightly. You wouldn’t expect Cormack McCarthy to publish a three-act comedy for the stage and you wouldn’t expect to unearth an Oscar Wilde novel about humanity in the face of the apocalypse. It’s up to you, not your professors, not your parents, not your society, to determine what kind of writer you are. In truth you’re probably somewhere in the middle, like most writers are, but you need to determine where you fall in the silliness to substance continuum. Don’t beat your head against the desk trying to write like Proust if it doesn’t make you happy; don’t try to light-heartedly prance through writing comedy dialogue if it makes you miserable – take a good, hard look at what you’ve written, figure out what you like the best, what you were happiest writing, and what topics you’re comfortable handling. Do this with your academic writing, your fiction, your poetry and you’ll learn a lot about what you should be writing as opposed to what you think you should be writing. Grad Students, I’m talking to you too – don’t start a thesis on Swift if you’re more knowledgeable about and comfortable with Austen. Look at all your writing, ask yourself honestly “what does it do?” answer yourself honestly about what it does, and get down to the business of getting comfortable in your writing skin.

Don’t get complacent, though. Challenge yourself and experiment, write things that make you uncomfortable but write them your way. Practice, practice, practice and grow as a writer, as substantively or silly as you need to be.

Now finally a quick note on the other half of the title of this blog. Many people feel that to write substance they need the aid of substances – this is bullshit.

You’re a fucking writer. You are a writer sober, you are a writer drunk, you are a writer tired, you are a writer rested. You are a fucking writer. You don’t need to be drunk, high, amped on caffeine, jittery from nicotine, or hideously lonely to write. Kerouac, Hunter S. Thompson, Ginsberg and Hemingway are dead – most of them died too young – and dead men shouldn’t be your guides. Write. Just write. Rely on yourself alone to get you through the pages and stanzas that lie before you. You are better than the need for some substance to give you substance, and if substance isn’t something you do well naturally then no substance will help you pour it out on the page. We don’t need another generation of young, dead poets – we need people with the strength to keep poetry alive.

I’ve once more run too long but I’ll be back next week in spite of that, and I’ll be discussing Building Material for your Material. Until then, Cheers, and be excellent to each other, Dudes.

- Alli

Building your Writing Toolkit: Part Two – How do you Write Best?

For this blog I’m talking about the environment you write in – some people require complete silence to write while others require the cozy hum of conversation around them, some people like to listen to classical while others like to write love sonnets to the dulcet tones of black metal, some people write outdoors, some people write indoors, some people write best on a computer while others prefer a notepad – so what works best for you and how do you achieve it? Think of this blog as a way to help you set up a studio space – a method of creating an environment where you can write peacefully, but also an environment that you can hopefully take along with you. The last blog was about initializing a product; this one is about organizing the toolbench where your toolkit will see most of its work accomplished.

As an artist (when I’m painting in particular) I’m very picky about my environment – I set up a towel and an easel, lay out my paints, put my brushes easily within reach, and lock the door, opening it only (and I do mean only) to use the restroom or get more water for mixing paint; I don’t eat, I don’t sleep, I don’t talk to people – I don’t even change the music – before I start painting I make a CD with ten or so songs that I like, set it on repeat, and when I realize that I’ve heard the same song four times I take a minute to stretch. It’s not a social environment, it’s not a friendly environment, and I don’t take kindly to people intruding on me for silly things like noise levels or food or the house burning down.

While I don’t need as sterile an environment to write effectively do find myself incapable of writing after putting out a fire, or in a moving vehicle, or even with the sound of a conversation behind me buzzing in my ears – maybe you can, and that’s fantastic, but is it the best place for you to write? Probably not. So let’s examine that.

Noise:

People tell me that when I’m painting or drawing, I make the face that I’m illustrating. I don’t know if that’s true, but I do know that when I’m writing I tend to reflect the music I’m listening to. Classical is completely out for me when I’m writing fiction – Mozart, my favorite composer of all fucking time – messes with my writing; I start to hear the notes and enjoy the music and class up my writing to match what I’m hearing, which is fantastic if I’m trying to write a period drama or a sonnet or something like that, but which is utter crap if I’m trying to write a horror story or Science Fiction. Similarly, I love Rammstein but I find that I become a little too … abrupt … if I’m listening to Rammstein when I’m writing an academic paper. Now, I know this sounds dumb but it happens – if you listen to music when you’re writing read through your writing and figure out if the music had an impact on it. If not, cool, but if it did change your tone you either need to change what you’re listening to or cultivate that tone – I’ve found that Mozart is good for essays for me, and that Rammstein helps me write angry German characters. However, the best noise environment for me is with some music, preferably the extremely ignorable kind – synthpop, mild techno, Sigur Ros and nineties teen comedy soundtracks are all amusing and unlikely to distract me with complicated instrumentation or profound lyrics.

So play around and figure out what works for you – even if you don’t find the actual words you’re writing are influenced by the music you listen to, you may find that you’re more productive when listening to a certain kind of music, or that you write emotions better when you’re listening to music that captures the essence of that emotion (seriously, I dare you to write something totally depressing while listening to “Ode to Joy.”)

Now about other kinds of noise: I don’t like hearing people talk when I’m writing – I start to write down what they’re saying or I get distracted and just start eavesdropping on them (which is great when you’re working on dialogue, but less great when you’re writing a poem about coyotes.) Some people work best with people talking around them, some people hate it – figure out what works for you and include that in your writing regimen. Natural noise is a tough one – waterfalls and waves and wind can be incredibly soothing and can help some people write, but are an irritating background sound for many others – again, figure out what works best for you and try to stick with it.

Locale:

Three times now I’ve tried to go on “writing weekends” by myself, check into a hotel room, and just sit down to write for three days straight. All that came of these experiments was an amusing story about bedbugs (which I’ll retell some other time) and a firm resolve to never again stay at a Motel Six. I write well in parked cars, in libraries, at the beach, on camping trips, in quiet classrooms, and I write very well in my garage with a cigarette and a cup of coffee. My luck at coffee shops is spotty and requires A) Some music to drown out people talking and B) A coffee shop where I’m not a regular and therefore won’t be constantly interrupted by people I know asking what I’m writing. I do not write well in hotels that I’ve checked into with the specific intention of writing, moving vehicles, in front of a television, in crowded classrooms, at sporting events, or when I’m at work at my “real” job. Everyone is different, and you as a writer will be different from day-to-day when it comes to where you’re comfortable writing. I tried the writing weekends because I have a friend who swears by them – he’s a fantastic poet, but he’s easily distracted and so he needs to get away from his friends and his life to finish a series, but they didn’t work at all for me. I have another friend who doesn’t understand how I can write in a dirty garage with washers and dryers going and my husband working on the car behind me – she needs a clean, empty desk and a constantly re-filled pot of tea to get words out. Just like you’ll need to figure out what noise level suits you best for writing, you’ll have to test yourself to find out where you write best; maybe you’ve only ever written in your bedroom at night – see what happens when you go to a coffee shop at noon; maybe you’ve only written when you’re around a lot of people – find out what happens when you write alone in your car.

Platform:

Okay, I touched on this in one of my “Tips for Writers” blogs but I’m coming back to it – what do you write with? Physically, in your hands or on your lap or at your desk – are you holding a fountain pen? A Quill? A laptop?

I write most of my blogs on a laptop – it’s handy for research, I can take it almost anywhere and it forces me to take breaks when I forget my charger. That’s great for blogging, because I give myself time to check my blogs over and because they’re generally short pieces that don’t require five re-writes.

Poetry is another story entirely – I write most of my poems in notebooks before I type them because I’ve usually written them in my head before I write them in the notebook. In my head I write for sound, in the notebook I write for structure, and on my laptop I re-write them for sound before I re-write them again for vocabulary. When I compose a poem from start to finish on the laptop it generally stays a first draft forever – I’ll occasionally change a word here or there, but I never re-write it (read: take the time to improve it) the way that I do when there’s that intermediary between my head and the paper.

I strongly recommend writing anything that’s longer than 2000 words by hand, at least in part. Why? Typing is too fast and if you’re writing more than 2000 words you’re less likely to re-read what you’ve written than if it were 100 words. Take the time that hand-writing a piece requires, and take the time to transcribe it, again at least in part, so that you’ll have a greater familiarity with the wording and heft of the piece.

Well I’ve once more written substantially more than I had planned so I’ll cut myself off here, but I will give my final thoughts about developing a writing workspace before I go.
Build a comfortable space for yourself. Isolate yourself or immerse yourself as much as you need in order to write comfortably. Create an ideal environment and write in that environment as much as you can – but don’t come to depend on it. Always have a notebook handy just in case you’re struck by inspiration in the worst writing environment possible, and take as much advantage as you can of any situation that you’re in.

I’ll be back on Sunday, February 12th with the next part of the toolkit – Substance and Substances, a two-for one about writing content and the stimulants writers sometimes depend on to achieve contentious writing.

Until then, Cheers,
Alli.

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.

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.

Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before

Hello everyone, I come to you this evening as a man who seeks to speak plainly. Instead of my signature prolixity, I aim to offer a few personal truths spoken as honestly as I once did.

As you have probably noticed, a few of us editors have decided to share our personal academic histories, all with the intent of enforcing the point that, despite previous engagement - or lack there of - in education, there is always a moment where things can be turned around. And although this moment is better coming sooner rather than later, the main importance is that it comes at all.

When I was an elementary school lad, I obsessed over the quality of my work, I gave great thought to my reputation with my fellow classmates and instructors alike. This continued until about 7th grade, the grade where I - to put it nicely - lost sync with myself. I found all of my assignments dull and exasperating, and decided not to complete them. Believe it or not, the only interest I had in school was science (go figure). I participated in science fair competitions and won first place in district, county and state competitions, and one year even won first prize in the Discovery Channel National Science Fair (first prize was a large savings bond and an entire week vacation in San Francisco where I would get to meet the Mythbusters, ya, how awesome is that?!) Aside from that, I also competed in "Botball" robotics competitions and made it to 3 national competitions (why they were in Oklahoma is still beyond me). Now I know what you are thinking, "what does this guy mean he lost it? Compared to Jack, he is a model student!" Well, I suppose in some ways you would be right, but everything really hit the fan when I was in high school. Like Jack, I was in I.B. everything, and hated nearly every minute of it, mainly because I hated all the teachers (especially the English ones). I had become so accustom to leaving everything to the last minute and not caring if I even had a test the next day, they never really hurt your grade anyway, how could it in a class that had 2,000 points for a quarter? This trend continued: failing notices, progress reports, make up assignments, emails flying back and forth between my mom and the teachers, emotional mixtures of apathy and guilt, all the while somehow making B's and C's (I'm convinced Jack and I are born under the same sign or something, its the only excuse), it was terrible. Believe it or not, this lasted until SENIOR YEAR of high school! I was in a quandary about what to do with my life (my love of science having worn off somewhere between 9th and 10th). I forced myself to sit down and really meditate on what I enjoyed, and what my natural abilities were/are. I began to realize that, if I thought back to all the great memories of my childhood, adolescence, and on up, almost all of them came back to literature: the excitement of the elementary school library, my mom bringing home the new installment of the Lemony Snicket series for me to read, staying up nights to find out just how these characters, who, in ways, I felt closer to than any of my other friends, would escape the next trap or solve the next riddle. That realization in mind, and the thought that a future which would allow me to pursue what I loved was right in front of me if only I applied myself, compelled me to achieve good grades and to truly attain knowledge so that I could have a future. I know it sounds cheesy to say that from that moment on everything was different, I started caring about my academics, about my place in things, etc., but its the truth, and from then on I have always made it my purpose to excel in my pursuits, which, I can is something I have succeeded in.

So, again, if you take anything away from the overly sentimental stuff above, it is this: Do not be afraid to take action over your life. Act wisely and decisively, Think earnestly upon matters which concern you. Only then will you begin to find true fulfillment. As I said before, its best for this to be done sooner rather than later, so take my advice and the advice of the other editors who have so openly blogged about this. Learn from our mistakes (my god I've suddenly turned into my grandmother) and don't be afraid to do a little soul searching. The moment you stop being able to surprise yourself is the day you lose worth.

To Dr. Easley & Mrs. Bickford, two very special ladies - E. W. Strege

Reflections on Education

To college students and educators,

What does it mean "to educate"? A couple of things I've recently read have caused me to ask this question. First of all, fellow-editor, Ryan, posted about the prevalent downfalls of freshman composition. As a composition instructor at a local community college, this matter particularly struck my interest. The other article relating to both parts of my current ponderings (that of what it means "to educate" and what a composition instructor should strive to do) is from The Chronicle, is written by Kurt Schick, and can be found at http://chronicle.com/article/Citation-Obsession-Get-Over/129575/.

I certainly agree with Ryan's point that many professors focus on form and not content. I also agree with Ryan's sentiment that this focus is detrimental to students who already possess writing and critical thinking skills and equally to those who do not. This type of instruction teaches students that there writing is not "correct" if not systematically or if not following a prescribed format. This format is often, of course, the five paragraph essay.

Schick's article, "Citation Obsession, Get Over It," deals with many professors' and writing centers' over-bearing focus on teaching the intricacies of citation formats such as that of the MLA. Schick says that students are being stifled when they are made to memorize such mundane information and that the focus should be instead on helping students to understand how to better integrate outside sources and information into their own writing and ideas. To further illustrate the context of the uselessness of MLA format documentation for undergraduate students, Schick argues, "Bibliographic citation has apparently eclipsed perfect grammar and the five-paragraph theme as the preoccupation of persnickety professors." Having worked for years at a writing center and for some time now as an instructor, I can attest to the truth of Schick's argument with one caveat that I'm pretty sure Ryan would agree with: citation formatting and the five-paragraph essay are both still "the preoccupation[s] of persnickety professors." And, I realize now, that both need to be thrown out the window of the ivory (and not-so-Ivory) towers of undergraduate education.

But, without them, how do we teach writing? Well, one of the concepts that may need to be embraced is that we can't "teach" much at all; what we can do is demonstrate and encourage. Many composition pedagogy writers have written about the importance of fostering an environment for learning and critical thinking. I can honestly say that I didn't really understand what that meant until a few days ago when reading my students' most recent batch of essays. They had gotten the form down- intro, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion. But, there was nothing there. I had spent far too much class time explaining formats and helping them with their generic outlines, and I had spent far too little time helping them to actually develop their ideas. Reading some of their essays was like eating a burger with no meat (not even a veggie patty), pardon the somewhat tired metaphor. The bun is nice and fluffy, the condiments are tasty, but without the meat, the questions remains, "why the hell am I eating this? Hell, why was it even made?" and when the only answer to these questions is something along the lines of "because I have to consume it because they had to make it," there is a problem. There is a problem because only a few years ago I got into this field because I wanted to do something where I could always be learning and thinking and because I wanted to encourage others to learn and to think too. When I as an instructor am only reading to grade and not with any interest in learning from what my students have to say (because, well, they didn't say much of anything) and my students are only writing to a bench mark, not for discovery or to really think about anything, what is the point of any of it? This is a question that extends to all fields of study, particularly at the college level, though I would like to think that it could be applied to any realm of education.

I'm not going to ask this rhetorically; I am just going to say it. In education, students should be encouraged to care about learning for the sake of learning and educators should feel the same. There should be excitement on both ends- there should be excitement to teach and to encourage students to think and there should be excitement in learning and thinking. Otherwise, what are any of us doing in these classrooms we spend so much of our lives in? If you're a student and you think of your time in that chair as just a means to make more money, well, there are better and, for you, more interesting ways. And if you're a professor and you think of your time in the classroom as simply your current means of making money, there are certainly more lucrative ways.

The fault for what we are, our means-to-an-end laziness, lies in the hands of the educators and the students. Professors and teachers would often like to blame it on the "damn kids;" this is to ignore the fact that the only difference between the two is a couple diplomas. We are all the same. We all fall into the trap of easy formats. It is, after all, easier to teach about MLA citation and how to write a five paragraph essay than it is to find effective ways to encourage critical thought. But, if teachers continue to teach in those easy unthinking ways, then students will continue to complete their work that same way and I will continue to be frustrated when they turn in essays that are so formulaic and unthinking that I don't want to read them.

To answer my original question, what does it mean "to educate." Well, oddly enough, dictionary.com actually has a decent answer: "to develop the faculties and powers of a person…" Let's keep that in mind the next time we are in a classroom, whether it be in a chair or at the front of the room. Let's not stifle or be stifled, let's not get caught up in what's expected, let's forget about formats for awhile. Let's remember that we are there to read, to question, to think, to write, to explore, and let's enjoy our time doing so- otherwise, let's go somewhere else.

Notes for Writers - Kill your dead metaphors

Please consider this description of a glittery vampire:

“Edward in the sunlight was shocking. I couldn’t get used to it, though I’d been staring at him all afternoon. His skin, white despite the faint flush from yesterday’s hunting trip, literally sparkled, like thousands of tiny diamonds were embedded in the surface.” (Meyers, 260)

Now please consider these descriptions of inanimate objects:

“You have to walk a mile to find a telephone booth, but when you find it, it is built as if the senseless dynamiting of pay phones had been a serious problem at some time in the past. And a British mailbox can presumably stop a German tank.”(Stephenson, 148)

Both of these excerpts describe nouns, both are about the same length in words (neither is more than 50 words), both are narration not dialogue, but one is apt and amusing while the other is somewhat insipid at best.

I know that it’s easy to make fun of the Twilight books, but more people are interested in laughing at the fans than in really examining why the books themselves are so laughable, mainly because the latter concern is easily answered: the Devil’s in the details.

Meyers’ description of her main male character is entirely based on cliché. Sounds weird, doesn’t it, that glittery bloodsuckers are trite?

Well, they are when written like this. Shining, sparkling, shimmering or glowing like diamonds (even thousands of tiny ones) has been done. Done to death. It’s a dead metaphor and nobody who takes their writing seriously uses language like that for anymore. Don’t believe me? Look at the list below.

The ocean looks like a thousand diamonds, strewn across a blue blanket. – Incubus

Her lips like the red rose in dew, her eyes they did sparkle like diamonds – The Maid with the Bonny Brown Hair (Irish folk song author unknown)

Shine on you crazy diamond – Pink Floyd

I want a girl with a mind like a diamond, I want a girl who knows what’s best – Cake

No one on that list is serious. All of those lyrics (and please note, they’re lyrics, not prose) are making a point about the cliché of shining like diamonds or are trying to kill the cliché by expanding the metaphor, for instance, the Cake lyric is about how diamonds are cutting and sharp – not how they’re sparkly.

Now think back to the description of a phone booth and a mailbox. Neither the phone booth nor the mailbox are described by their overt visible properties – you hear nothing about their shapes, colors or sizes; instead Stephenson uses a humorous suggestion of their physical properties to allow an image to form in the mind of the reader. I’ll admit that the ability of an object to stop a tank is somewhat overused in descriptions of various intimidating things (occasionally women) but the thought of a mailbox as an intimidating object never occurred to me until I was actually typing this sentence. What Stephenson has done here is the opposite of what Meyers does in her books; Stephenson uses wry phrasings to animate the inanimate while Meyers uses dead metaphors that (unintentionally, I’m sure) suck the life out of her characters.

So what does that have to do with you, reader?

I’ve read about a lot of shining eyes, soothing waters, kind hands, warm hearts, quiet rain, frozen time, awkward silences, and loving caresses recently.

Stop it.

I want to read about shining fists, soothing arguments, kind ignitions, warm katydids, quiet tsunamis, frozen cats, awkward sex, and loving LCD screens.

Shake up your writing, mess things up, be original and be daring. When I was in a creative writing class once, and made the mistake of writing “time froze” in one of my short stories. My professor’s response was a kind “DEAD METAPHOR” scribbled in inch high letters with a red pen. My response was to reconsider and turn in a second draft with “time took a breath” in its place. It might not have been the best fix, though I was fairly happy with it, but at least it wasn’t one of a million stories, poems, novels, essays, or articles with “time froze” somewhere in there.

As an experiment, consider:

Annie’s heart slowed only after Kevin lowered his shining fists and stalked back to his rattling old Dodge. Yesterday, once all the soothing arguments, heralds of a better time coming, were done her ignition had been kind and allowed her to get her beater of a Beetle the hell out after only wrenching the key twice.

Today, in the wake of Kevin’s latest attempt at reconciliation, the warm katydid hum on the air was a balm – a soothing tsunami that washed away the tension burned into her after the day; her muscles, which had been as rigid as a cat frozen by a sudden sound, relaxed. Kevin was awkward sex at its worst, all elbows and knees, all the time, with eyes as loving as an LCD screen when all your searches return zero results.

Sure, it’s not much – yet – but it’s the beginning of something interesting, and that’s all that matters. So kill your dead metaphors, dump out your shining diamonds, and welcome a world of dynamited phone booths and soothing tsunamis. Play with your language, play with your perceptions, and let’s get out there and make a better world of it in and for books.

- Cheers,

Alli

Works Cited:

Meyers, Stephanie. Twilight. Qtd. online. 2005.

Stephenson, Neal. Cryptonomicon. Avon Books. New York: New York 2005.

Suicidal Scriptors?

Originally posted Thursday, October 20, by Eric W. Strege at www.afewlinesmagazine.com

To our devout followers,

Recently I, while re-categorizing my library, became reacquainted with a book which I’m sure – at one time or another in my possession – was used as a doorstop. The book is Roland Barthes’ The Pleasure of the Text, a work of portentous literary criticism which serves as a Structuralist “manifesto” of sorts. In it, Barthes questions the notion of textual significance as driven by the vehicle of authorial notoriety or intent, which got me to thinking about the little bio “quips” usually attached to the submissions we at AFLM receive. I decided that this theory is something worthy of the readership’s attention and took it upon myself to compose a modest essay in regards to a section of Barthes’ text, aptly titled, “The Death of the Author.”

Roland Barthes, a luminary of the Structuralist movement, vehemently called for the literary public to distance themselves from the classical concept of authorial lordship through his evocatively titled essay, The Death of the Author, wherein he urges readers to separate literary works from their authors in order to liberate the writing from antiquated interpretive strictures. Barthes continues on to say that, “To give a text an Author is to impose a limit on the text, to furnish it with a final signified, to close the writing”, and in so doing, devalues the text by implying that the work is singular in its objective and unmeritorious of multifaceted interpretation. Furthermore, in contrast to classical and romantic beliefs, Barthes regards authorial antecedence to a work as a fallacy, further postulating that, “the modern Scriptor is born simultaneously with the text”, the Scriptor existing only to produce, but not to explain the work. Barthes reinforces the theory of the “Intentional Fallacy”, in its rejection of the Author’s intended meaning as constituting the work’s primary import, through the development of his theory in which he established the Scriptor and text as co-creators of themselves, consequently making Authorial intent indefinite and variable.
Through the rejection of the Author or Scriptor, as regards textual interpretation, Barthes advocates individual literary explication, insisting that literary meaning is established by the impressions of the reader, and not by authorial authority. In so doing, Barthes’s devaluing of the author aims to properly acclaim the text, and celebrate its audience acceptance, rather than further aggrandizing the Author and his unequivocal analysis.

If you have made it this far, and haven’t been lured down the charlatanistic primrose path by more immediately gratifying distractions, you are to be both commended and congratulated, for a point is on the eminent horizon. As much as we respect all of our contributors for their efforts in sustaining the magazine with a constant stream of submissions, we are not able to accept all of them for one reason or the next. One reason, which has become more prevalent, is a seeming preponderance of effort put into the bio “quips”, as noted above. Most contributors use the given bio space to give a name and a way to contact them with the ruling on their piece. Some submitters, on the other hand, find this space appropriate to use in lauding themselves with what seems to be an endless enumeration of accolades and accomplishments. Others, still, commit an even more egregious transgression, that is, they use the space to tell the editors how the piece should be interpreted! Please be aware that I am by no means out to offend any readers, only to comment on some apparent bones of contention. It is our pleasure and purpose here at AFLM to consider so many great pieces of work from all across the genres and mediums for publication, and consider ourselves privileged to have such a loyal following of individuals who appreciate the contemporary literary heritage as much as we do. With that in mind, remember to let the quality your work speak for itself. Don’t try to dazzle us with claims of celebrity, and please do not stifle your piece by providing us a pre-packaged analysis. If the piece is a truly great work – like some of the pieces we receive are – its significance and urgency will be communicated through the given text, photograph, etc. In short, let’s all aspire to take a page out of Barthes’ book and further commit ourselves to the crafts of artistry, never forgetting that it is the work we leave behind that becomes our legacy.

With all due respect,
Eric W. Strege

Notes for Writers - In honor of our latest deadline

Originally posted Monday, October 17, by Alli at www.afewlinesmagazine.com

We, the editorial staff of AFLM, have just passed another round of reading to see what will and won't make the cut for our next issue. With that in mind I see some problems in the world of writing for publication and thought I might offer some advice for those people who are looking to improve their chances when submitting to this, or any other, literary magazine.

The first places that I ever had my writing published are the kinds of places that the literary world sneers at. I was taught to write, not for journals or clubs or collections of literature, for the pages of my high school newspaper and yearbook. From there I moved on to my junior college newspaper and magazine, stopping along the way to design, write and print several professional conference programs; all of this was before I got to a Cal State and had the shrewd eyes of professors gauging and weighing every sentence I turned over to them. By the time I got here, to the publishing desk of AFLM, I had already had a rather unique experience in presenting my words to any kind of audience. For those of you who haven't shared in these experiences, let me tell you that having a professor mark you down or getting a story rejected by a literary magazine is nothing in comparison to the shame of your yearbook accidentally publishing a story about defeating Communist Hawaii High at water polo, misprinting a college president's name as "WHO IS THIS PERSON" for 20,000 students to see, having every attendee at a conference come up and needle you over a typo, or (worst of all) realizing that there are a couple thousand people in your hometown with your idiotic 16-year-old opinions committed to print forever.

These kind of shocks are normally reserved for journalists because more people pick up the local free paper or buy their high school yearbook than will ever see most of the poems, short stories, essays or artworks ever submitted to a small journal for consideration. As such, I have some well-gotten advice to share. I hope it helps.

1. Read your copy to a tree.
This sounds stupid, I know, but it works. But before you choose to submit something, before you share it with friends, before you let your mom read what you've written, read your copy to a tree. I do this for almost everything I write and it works because you need to have a safe audience who can criticize your work - in other words, you need to hear what you've written before you really realize what you've written. A tree (or a cat, or a dog, or an infant niece or nephew) is a living thing that will listen to your work without commenting which allows you to hear what you've said. You hear all your mistakes, all the sentences that don't make sense, all the numbers, all the research you've forgotten to add until the last minute; in other words, you hear all the things that you glance past because YOU know what you meant to say that others will jump to criticize or that will make you look foolish if printed.

2. Get away from a computer.
I write all of my poetry, much of my fiction, and at least half of my articles or essays longhand. This is nice because it means that I don't have to lug a computer around with me all the time and can instead just scribble some notes or an outline in a notebook or on a napkin. But even better than the convenience is the inconvenience. We live in a digital age, most people can type faster than they can think through a sentence or read for a mistake and so the mistake might as well not exist if the author is so busy typing up more sentences and probably more mistakes. So write longhand, transcribe on a computer (adding more and trimming as needed) and literally get in touch with your work.

3. Put it in a drawer.
One of the most frustrating things on a yearbook or a magazine staff is the day when you actually get your product. You've been away from it for at least a couple weeks and as soon as the boxes with your book are unpacked you grab one, sit down, and scan for everything you did wrong. And every single time you did something wrong. When you're working on a daunting project - a poem that needs a lot of adjustment, a longish short story, anything that you're planning on presenting for other people to read - at some point the work becomes invisible to you. You're so worried about it that you can no longer see the words on the page, no matter how many times you look at them which is why writers need to take a vacation from their writing. Stuff it in a drawer before you submit it, don't look at it for at least a week (a month is more ideal) then go through it slowly; if you still like it, it's as ready as it ever will be for publication - if you don't like it, see the next bit of advice.

4. Rewrite.
Nobody spits out a perfect first draft, it just doesn't happen. Most bad writing is fixable, almost all writing is capable of being good, and even good writing can always be better. Look for worn-out phrases and replace them with something fresh, see if your structure needs to be tweaked, allow for new ideas to form and materialize in re-writing so that your work is better as a whole. If you think that you are touched by the muses and your first draft was perfect and all other drafts you write will be a waste, I can tell you right now that your work is more shallow that it should be. Inspiration is a great starting point but meaning is created in depth and depth is created by adding on anything that you might have missed in a good, but not great, first draft.

So, thanks for taking the time to read and good luck writing. It's a challenging world and we all need what help we can get.

- Cheers until next time,
Alli