Read my Medium Raw challenge essay: The Marinara Miracle

Read my Medium Raw challenge essay: The Marinara Miracle

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Writers Can't Help But Write

I've been doing a lot of soul searching on this subject, and I have to say that I just can't help but be what I am which happens to be a writer. Last year about this time I applied to as many MFA programs as I could afford. That ended up being five, which is a horribly small number but so was the number in my bank account. I was rejected from them all. That was a little soul crushing, I'm not going to lie. For as long as I can remember I've been telling stories. I remember telling stories to my little sister because neither of us could sleep so we might as well be creative. Mind you, this was AFTER we would make up our own bedtime stories with Dad! I've just always been attracted to the creation and sharing of stories, so to be so firmly denied by five MFA programs was heart breaking.

So, after some hoop jumping and because a few very wonderful and amazing faculty members liked me (who knows why!) I got into SIUC's MA program instead. The advice most new writers hear is usually along the lines of "if you can do anything else in the world and be happy do that instead." This MA program was my attempt at doing something else. I couldn't tear myself away from literature, so why not major in literature instead of trying to write it and see if that makes me happy. Good plan, right? Well, no, not really. Because the truth is, it really doesn't fill that little space in my heart that is only shaped for fiction writing. My inner storytelling seems to resent all of this English analytical business. I really just don't enjoy tearing apart other peoples stories and molding them to fit my theories as to what sort of symbolism their use of color is throughout their novel. One semester down and I'm not really proud of anything I've written for these classes. I received all A's, isn't that nice. It's just not the kind of writing I feel fulfilled doing. So now what?

Well, now it looks like I'm going to have to join all of my fellow writers on that uphill climb of mount Successful Publishing. By the looks of things, not many people make it to the top these days, but apparently I caught the same derangement as every other writer and I just have to try. Why does anyone climb a mountain really? Because it's there and because they are compelled to climb it.

I just don't feel like my self in this literature program. I look around at my colleagues and I see that they honestly enjoy all of this, but for me it's like pulling teeth. I sit in front of my computer and pull out my hair just to slowly ooze out paragraphs of analytical crap. I don't even believe my arguments, which makes getting A's on these papers even worse. I feel like an impostor and at any moment SOME one at the table is going to see through my clever disguise and call me out. "You, there, at the end of the table. You read pop fiction, don't you? You can't be one of us, you're a fan of Stephen King!"

It's not like I'm NOT a fan of literature. As a child I ate up stories by Louisa May Alcott and Jane Austin. I still love reading Melville and Hemingway, and even in the sixth grade I would read Shakespeare's comedies over and over again because they were hilarious. It's not that I don't like literature, it's just that I think I appreciate different aspects of literature than my fellow English MA students. I love good, well-round characterization, or clever plots; I love stories that seem to suck you in so completely that when you are finished you feel as you just got back from a really good trip out of the country. I appreciate how the author endears some characters to you or how you end up liking a character in spite of yourself. I like it when the authors weave worlds around you that are so real you miss them when your done. I appreciate, no, I love a good, well-written story. These observations are the observations of a story lover, but not really anything an academic article could be about, at least not by an MA student. A writer could probably write an article about another writer's technique, but I'm not sure I would ever be able to teach a class on such observations if I am not an MFA student.

So, where does this all leave me? It seems to leave me sitting here praying I can get into an MFA program sooner rather than later, and it really has me considering dropping the whole MA racket altogether. Plenty of writers worked mundane jobs while writing in the evenings and praying for success. I don't define myself by my profession, so I could be perfectly happy working at some Starbucks because I know I'm more than just a barista. I'm a writer.

Television Killed Imagination

Just the other day I was thinking about all of the crazy games of pretend my little sister and I and all of our friends used to play together. They were all extreme melodramas; castaways stranded together on some tropical island jungle, orphans trying to escape the asylum (we loved that word and never seemed to put it together with insane asylum, even sister detectives up against the greatest crime ring ever gathered. All the stories we made up involved sets of sisters, since our friends were also sisters. We were either all related, or we'd trade sisters and become two sets of siblings again only this time there would be one blond and one brunette apiece. (It's funny but Erin and I used to be mistaken for twins and so would our two friends, which I why I think we liked to switch sisters, it made each of us unique in our little unit.) We'd run around the yard in all sorts of crazy get ups, since both families had trunks of dress up clothes and old hats. A deck would become a cabin or a boat, the railing could be a horse or a tree, we made up our worlds as we went along and to this day I swear I could almost see each and every setting we created clearly in my mind. That was how powerful our imaginations felt.

This thought came up because I was writing a paper about how the internet might have shortened attention spans, leading to writers possibly changing how they structure longer pieces of prose. I observed in one of my literature classes this semester that a lot of modern authors have stopped following one character throughout an entire novel and have started to write about a large cast of characters, hopping among them like a frog from a cat. Novels have become, as my old friend put it, "choppy". At first I only equated this to the shortening attention span,but then my friend said something else that might have redirected my blame a little. She called modern novels, "scene-cutting fiction". And she is exactly right, modern novels do seem to pattern themselves more after movies than literature. The leaping from character to character is very much like a movie jumping from scene to scene. Even the long flashbacks feel more like movie scripts.

So, does that mean that movies are having a drastic effect on literature? And, if that is the case, what is it doing to the generations growing up with scenes and characters handed to them instead of having to envision for themselves what they hear or read? At first I placed movies in a sort of modern remake of the oral storytelling tradition, but then I realized that even back then the listener had to see with their imagination everything that was being told to them. Even watching a play takes a little imagination for the viewer to step outside of him or herself to really watch the play as if it were happening in some kind of real world setting. Movies and television take that need completely out of the equation. What is that doing to imagination?!

Could reading be declining simply because children don't have to use their imagination anymore? Think about it! A child is placed in front of the television at an very early age. They hear and see everything they need to in order to keep up with the story being told to them, so there is no room for personal interpretation. Unless you actually turn off the TV for large amounts of time and make sure to read to your child, preferably from a book without pictures, where does this child ever learn to actually USE their imagination? If they have video games they don't even have to use their imagination during playtime! They can see their characters and the environment they want their character in right there on the screen, no filler needed. As a child I used to spend a LOT of timing playing with my toys and pretending they were all over the world, but that was because I had to. I didn't have elaborate play-sets with backgrounds and accessories. I had a fist full of "Pretty Ponies" and the couch! Sometimes in play those ponies weren't even ponies! We weren't allowed any sort of violent toy, so sometimes a pretty pony had to substitute for a slingshot. (They worked really well too, if you twirled them by their little tails and let them fly. Mums never really found out why so many ponies seemed to lose their tales. "I don't know how this happens, Mummles! Oh, Erin's eye? I think she bumped it.")

So what does all of this mean? This means that I fear for my nephew's play time. Will he be able to experience all of the crazy pretend adventures that I did and still do cherish from my childhood? The whole reason I'm a writer is because of the free range I had with my imagination growing up. I LOVED pretend and as I grew older and pretend for teenagers becomes less accepted I started writing down all of the stories I used to act out as a child. Those were the years my stories were really cultivated. I think my writing is still running on old games of pretend, the stories are just a little less melodramatic and peopled with more realistic characters. (The characters I used to pretend to be were all insanely emotional. Granted, I was insanely emotional at the time, one of the few blessings of growing older is the development of better self control.)

What are we missing out on by destroying imagination at such earlier stages of child development?! Maybe the novel isn't dying out but murdered by encroaching technology that preys on our more lazy tendencies? Yes, reading a book takes more work than watching a television show, but it is so much more rewarding.

Writers Speak Up, I Can't Hear Your Voice

So, the topic of voice was brought to my attention today. Questions like what are we talking about when we say an author has a good voice, what is voice in writing, can it be taught, how does someone improve their authorial voice; these were all discussed in length, though it was never concluded as to just what voice really is in a text. I tried to define it several different ways because I know voice exists I just wasn't really sure how to point it out. It can be painfully obvious when compared that different authors have different ways of saying things. Stephen King comes to mind instantly because he has a very distinctive voice; I can always guess an quote from King. There are other obvious examples, like Faulkner or Hemingway, authors who we use to now describe the voice of new authors, but what is voice really?

Voice could be almost anything, it could be the author's choice of words, where they put certain phrases, how they say certain phrases. Voice could be how the author constructs thoughts, describes a tree, strings words together; voice could be the feeling of the author coming through the text. Passion, coming through the words.

Maybe that is why voice is so hard to find in modern stories. Maybe, due to the readily available numbers of MFA programs - due to the thought that creative writing can be taught like history, mathematics or science - due to the very business-like world of publishing and the ability to screen artists for the proper academic degrees the feeling, the emotion, has been sucked out of the art. And isn't that the heart and soul of the whole endeavor; passion?

A friend once told me that it is a curse to be an artist because we are entrusted with feeling and expressing emotions for our whole society. He said we feel emotions twice as strong because we need the surplus to poor into our art. I loved this idea because it gave me an excuse for my "moods"; for crying at every episode of Bones I watch and for getting as passionate as I do over all the little things in life. (I will literally sing over a particularly fluffy blanket or dance for a bizarre new fruit at Shnucks) The more I think about what he said the more I see he is right. Emotion is what brings the story off the page, it's what fills each word and makes the pages fly by unseen but felt. The good books make me feel the same emotions as the characters.

The great books can make me sob.

Voice in a story is the emotion of the author; for the topic, story, even the individual characters. (I've cried over killing some of my darlings, but for the sake of the story it must be done.) A strong voice can transfer those emotions from the page to the reader.

So, what has sucked this passion from our modern writers; and, more importantly, what can we do to get it back?

Chilled Summer Nights

I was never really one for the hot summer days. I don't like to sweat, and I don't like the sun in my eyes or the glare reflecting off everything. Summer just always seemed to harsh for me with its extremes.

However, I do love summer rain.

A rainy summer day makes for some of the best weather. The air chills, and smells earthy and clean at the same time. Those fancy room candles can never get it right. It's the smell of wet and green like the sprinkler days from childhood when you sail through the grass on your slip and slide speeding like a bullet until you run out of plastic and skip across the yard coloring knees and elbows green. If you're lucky the cloud cover will last all day, a canopy keeping out the sun and letting in an ambient light as if someone turned down the dimmer switch for the world to set the mood. Even before the lightening there is a charge in the air makes the hairs on your arms stand at attention. The colors seem to grow brighter without the sun's competition and everything that grows green stands a little taller, feeding off the storm's energy. If the clouds and wet continue into the night a haze might gather in the dips and lows of the land, meeting in the pooling light of streets lamps like lovers in black and white films. Everything feels damp, including you, and the breeze gives you goosebumps. Walking in summer nights, breathing in the thick atmosphere, feeling your clammy skin, can bring back those childhood memories of staying up past your bed time to play one last game of capture the flag or cops and robbers; the excitement of seeing the neighborhood through the filter of night that distorts the world like water distorts the sun across the ocean floor. The friendly day time street becomes a little sinister with deep shadows that hide all sorts of creatures from any child's imagination. The world at night, both frightening and exhilarating and that tingle up the spine cold be the wind or the creeps.

Even as an adult, walking around my neighborhood on rainy summer nights, my heart beats a little faster with excitement and nostalgia; the air seems thick not just with humidity but with possibility, and I remember how important it is to live life with that kind of wonder. To have to question whether my goosebumps were caused by a chill in the wind or by my own excitement and giddy anticipation for what the night holds. Nights like this one help to wash away some of my cynicism that seems to build up with living in the day to day world of adulthood. It makes my spider senses tingle and my arm hairs stand on end and puts a smile on my face. It revives my imagination and reminds me why I chase the stories in my head and continue in the pain process of trying to write and share them with the world. Rainy days seem to be my muse, and I revel in them as much as everyone else seems to revel in the sunny summer.

Summer kills my brain

Seriously, my brain feels like mush. It's something about the summer air, or too much sun; something has cooked my brain. I say this because I seem to have a horrible case of writer's block lately. Although, truth be told, my thoughts just feel very slow lately.

It's probably the allergy medication.

Either way, I don't like it. I feel like only half of myself. I made a choice when I was young, a conscious choice mind, that I could either develop my physical self and get into sports or develop my intelligence. Even as a kid I sided with the mind. So for most of my life I have tried my best to focus on my studies and to learn as much as possible. I'm a very klutzy adult, but I'm told I can be pretty bright when I want to.

So, now I just feel... blah.

If I could I would just not take the allergy medication and be back to my usual self; however, down here in Southern Illinois, pollen and mold allergies are fierce. I have never experienced headaches up north like I have every summer here. So now I have to make a choice, live with the pain or live with this feeling of air-headed emptiness.

And I do feel like an air-head. Literally hollowed out, or even better filled with helium like a balloon. I float about the house with no real intent because my mind is filled with nothing but helium like thoughts. I can tell I'm weighted down, probably with reality, but the real concern doesn't reach the front of my thoughts. The only noise that creeps in is annoyance at being unable to form the correct sentences as I try to write through this writer's bubble that traps me.

Oh, Hindsight, your 20/20 clearity blinds me.

There are times when I wonder if I picked the right major for my college career. I love literature, don't get me wrong, but there are times I wonder if my training as an English major is taking away from the pure joy of the story itself, the reason I ever fell in love with reading in the first place. There is also the question of just what do I WANT to do after I actually leave academia for the "real world." For me this whole college adventure is expensive and while I hear "you can always go back and study something else" that just may not be the case for me. It's taken me this long just to get where I am now, working, borrowing, living on next to nothing just so I can get a degree. I don't think I can do this again with a different focus, I just can't get into any more debt.

The thought crossed my mind as I was reading the introductions of the new teaching assistants on the listserve. We all had to introduce ourselves and talk about our various degrees and what we were trying to earn while here at SIUC. Most of them already have multiple degrees in various subjects from history to sociology, and now are trying for MA's or PhD's. And then there's me.

I was trying to an MFA program, which would leave me with even less of a choice for my future outside of college, but at least it would have been a program I would have enjoyed. Now I'm in this MA program, and I'm not sure if I even LIKE writing the papers and doing the analysis. I know I can, and that it's rare I receive anything less than an A in an English class, but really my heart is more in the story than picking it apart. I like to lose myself in the world, suspend disbelief, and get lost in the characters and what's going on. You can't do that when you write a paper, you have to keep yourself apart so you can find all of the aspects of whatever interpretation you are arguing for or against in the work. I would love to TEACH literature, but I almost don't want to go through all this training. I can SEE enough in the works, and I hate being tied to these wheel ruts of theory and analysis.

Compounding this doubt is the fact that I really loved studying Chinese. I mean really loved it! Learning Chinese was like learning a secret code as a kid. Every translation I did felt amazing! I'd crack the code and understand the message (which was usually something about two made up friends in my textbook and what they ate for lunch or what movie they saw last weekend). It was fun, and almost addictive in a way. I also loved learning about the culture through the language. Now, knowing this, I sometimes ask myself if I should have majored in Chinese studies or TESOL studies and then worked as a translator for some business somewhere or something. China is becoming a huge market and those skills are actually in high demand, I might actually have been able to find a good paying job with that major.

I even liked living in China for those few months. It was an amazing experience and I learn a lot about myself and what I could handle. I also learned how much I LOVE to travel. I love it! Traveling is amazing, especially when you can really get involved in the culture around you.

I don't know. I wonder if I made the right choice here. Not because I don't want to teach, I still do, but because, well, will I be able to teach once I'm out? And will I also have this "what if" feeling when I do?