how i became a writer

For my entire life, I have wanted to be a Writer.

Naturally this means getting published, and even, maybe, (although I would never admit to such a wishful hope) producing a bestseller one day. I've been journaling and daydreaming and telling stories for as long as I can remember, and with nothing really to show for it, except a box of diaries, a computer folder dedicated to notes and story ideas, and one novella that I "completed" in high school and can't bear to re-read.

This week, I decided to take a page out of Castle's book, and take myself seriously. [1]

...anyway. In college, for my senior honors project, I decided I was going to start writing a book. At the end of the semester, I presented on it, I graduated, and under the pretense of "stepping away from it to let it develop in the back of my mind," I haven't opened the file since. [2] I had 41 pages, a lot of notes, and most importantly: inklings of an idea about what it means to Be A Writer.

In the last week of trying to Write More, these ideas have begun to resurface in the practical, hands-on kind of way, and I am eager to share [3] what I believe to be a decent foundational approach to the insurmountable task of Getting Started. [4]

1: the muse is a tease

Basically every creative person I know waits to write or draw or whatever until "the muse descends." Because when you've got some down time and you're just feeling really inspired and passionate, it's a great time to bust out the old moleskine and be clever. Except the problem is that we then tend do nothing until we get those surges of creative energy, and let's face it, the most common time to get them is either right as you're falling asleep, or when you're in the shower. [5] If you only wait for the muse, the number of times you are actually productive dwindles significantly, until you all but forget that you like to write in the first place. So don't wait. [6] You can't rely on the muse (that fickle minx) and you shouldn't. When I'm feeling inspired I'm also at the height of my perfectionism, and I hardly ever get anything done, because I'm too worried about losing the Perfect Moment to horrible writing. On the flip side, however, if you condition yourself to write every day, or every other day, for some concentrated amount of time, you are at least producing something. One and a half pages of crap is still better than nothing. Which brings me right to my next point, which is this:

2: editing and writing are not the same thing

I like to edit. In fact, I could spend all of my Designated Writing Time reviewing the last four pages, making them the best four pages you have ever read, and at the end of this time period (which really is never long enough, but it's what I have), I haven't actually written anything. This ... well, this defeats the purpose. Four pages of really brilliant writing is still only four pages, and doesn't get me a publishing deal. And yeah, it's awful to skim yesterday's work and not do anything about the fact that you hate it, and is that even what you want to say? And does this ramble? And is that a good character-driven bit of dialogue? But the thing is, it still doesn't get me another page. I'm training myself to leave it alone, to look forward to the time that I can red-pen the hell out of my ~*finished manuscript*~ and until then, I'm going to focus on actually producing said manuscript. Which means no editing.

3: there's nothing permanent about your decisions

is very closely related to #2, but I make it a separate heading because it has two main points I want to address. The first is for perfectionist, anxious creatives like me: it's okay to pick a direction for the sake of getting some writing done. Nothing is final until probably like, the final publishing date [7], and if you spend your whole 47 minutes of writing time dithering over character names or period settings, you still don't have more than four pages. Pick one, and go for it. If you hit a problem somewhere in the future, reassess as necessary. Names? Use one so ridiculous you won't become attached to it, and wait until it presents itself. Or better yer, spend some time outside of said designated writing time in order to brainstorm ideas and make notes for yourself.

The other side of this section is for perfectionist, anxious creatives like me: it's okay to change your mind about a past decision. Even one you were in love with. It's hard to let go of the things you loved (especially when they were just so good!) but more often than not, it's necessary. Mostly in terms of editing (because let's be honest, that's when you basically destroy everything you wrote and start over), but also in terms of just writing something down. You have to let the writing go in the direction it wants to go, and not get caught up in "but I was going to do it this way!" I only half believe in the writers' myth that your characters and story run away from you, but that half of me is pretty darn convinced. [8]

I'm pretty sure that Stephen King said something about "killing your darlings," [9] and that's ironic, because it brings me to my next thought:

4: there really is nothing new under the sun

I have a friend who doesn't even like to use the term "creative" because she believes that if God created the world and everything in it, all we are doing is copying it in a variety of ways. I think there's some truth to that. There are limitless scenarios and nuances, but the core ideas about humanity, relationships, and emotions are never going to change. Someone is always going to say "wow, way to rip off ___." Obviously there's a fine line here, and I'm not suggesting that 50 Pairs of Shoes is going to be a successful romance novel, but when it comes down to it, you can't spend all of your energy trying to create something completely new. Because it won't be. And anyway, the Greeks probably did it first.

5: writing is writing is writing

People keep telling me that the menial journaling and blogging that I do still counts as writing. I have a really hard time accepting this, because as previously stated I am an anxious perfectionist. But in the end, every little bit still counts toward the final goal. Everything you produce is proof that you can produce something, even that page of terrible poetry or the sketch of the family on the back of a napkin. Not everything you produce in the course of your life will be worthy of publishing or selling--but that doesn't make it meaningless. Do you write for the recognition of having written something, or do you write because writing is just...fun? Goodness knows I have to remind myself this. And goodness knows--writing isn't always fun. It's almost like a relationship: you have to dedicate the time and energy, even when your heart isn't in it, even when you wish it could be better. Writing isn't just an isolated magical Thing--it's a process, a habit, a way of life. It doesn't get better unless you do it, and you can't do it if all you care about is the end result.

Am I a writer? You know what, I think I am. I might not be a good one, I might be a little rusty--but I write, and I do it because I adore it. And I think that even for anxious perfectionists like me, that is enough.

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[1] I use "decide" as a very loose term here, but that's a story for a different post. Also, look at all the clever jokes. ahaha.

[2] except for just now, to see how many pages it was. Sorry, Andy. It's lost but not forgotten.

[3] primarily with other struggling creatives out there, because I feel your pain, but with everyone too because what the heck

[4] I mean, for whatever that's worth, since I have approximately four pages of Brilliant New Story and have never been remotely published

[5] that last bit might just be me.

[6] I think this is essentially what Stephen King is saying in his infamous "butt glue" quote (you know, about making yourself sit down to write and then staying there until it happens). I quite enjoyed On Writing, but I also appreciate Peter M Ball's objections to it, because--well, because he gets me.

[7] clearly, I don't know the first thing about this process

[8] see also [4] because I will be the first to admit I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm guessing Being A Writer is sort of like Being In Love ... you just know.

[9] or he was quoting Faulkner? It doesn't matter enough to research this right now

why i've been going crazy for the last few months

I can't decide if posting this is cheating, since I didn't write it for my blog in particular, but I guess it's no worse than posting a link to someone else's blog? So here it is: my grad school application essay. It feels a teeny bit pretentious to show it off, but I'm kind of proud of it, so...whatever.

Oh, and while I'm being self-conscious, I thought about taking out the school-specific details at the bottom, but then I didn't.

Anyway, enjoy.

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When I assign the first paper in my future English 101 class, it will be on a current and controversial topic sure to elicit strong opinions from my students. This will encourage them to share their perspectives while giving me a snapshot of their writing abilities. But my favorite part of this assignment will come at the end of the semester, when I ask them to write a second paper on the same topic—except this time, they have to write it from the opposite point of view.

I can’t wait for the uproar when they learn that this is their final.

This assignment epitomizes what I find so glorious about writing. On a practical level, it requires a structured outline, thorough research, and the ability to present information in a logical progression. But this assignment is about more than just composing The Perfectly-Written Essay. It forces students to build an argument from scratch, and to learn how to use language to support an idea—even an idea they disagree with. In committing to the writing instead of only to the position, students learn the value of each and every word used to present a perspective. In using their writing to communicate to the world, students learn the power those words have, and the importance of having reasonable support for their ideas.

There comes a time in our lives when we have to figure out what we love and what we stand for. We have to account for ourselves, but in order to do so, we first have to understand ourselves. In college—right when we need it the most—we learn a beautifully structured method for thinking through an idea and supporting an opinion: expository writing. The classic essay format provides a way to identify the questions we are asking, and gives us the medium with which to answer them. But most of all, the essay calls for order in the form of a thesis. And when students are inspired to create and deliver a personal opinion by means of that thesis, they not only learn to write effectively, but also they also come to a better understanding of their own beliefs.

The unfortunate reality, however, is that college writing assignments are often a wasted effort. Working in the Concordia Writing Center for four years revealed to me that even the most diligent of students do not take their English Composition classes seriously simply because they are boring. The essay is established only as an arbitrary format for future homework assignments, and students walk away uninspired. And what a shame that is, because learning to write is the perfect platform for learning how to think critically. English Composition must not become obsolete, and I intend to be a part of its regeneration.

To do so, my idealism needs to be met with the reality of experience and the structure of a strong education. My attraction to the English department at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee lies in the department’s dedication to writers, evident in its cross-cultural, interdisciplinary studies as well as in the active support and involvement of the writing center. I look forward to the guidance of scholars with such diverse backgrounds and research interests, particularly Alice Gillam and her course “Teaching Writing as Process,” and Dennis Lynch’s experience as Director of Composition. I am also eager for the opportunity to hold a teaching assistantship, which is the ideal method of a hands-on education for my intended career as a professor of English. I hope to use my experience at UWM to reshape the way we write, and consequently, the way we think, one thesis at a time.

Today, the essay. Tomorrow, the world.

wanting, wishing, and peaches

This filibuster of a post is something of a response/continued discussion of (or at the very least, inspired by) the article/presentation "Grammar, Identity, and the Dark Side of the Subjunctive" by Phuc Tran at a TEDx conference. Thanks to Jasmine for sharing it with me on The Facebook (...a long time ago. whoops).

wanting

I love that this guy's dad just straight up told him, "don’t study something you don’t like. What do you like? Study that." Because ... yes. Just freakin yes. Life is too short to get caught up in "but what if" or "should I." We have purpose here, and we crave meaning and fulfillment for our lives. Too often we do things (or don't do things) because we feel that we must, or that we are stuck in the a holding pattern and it's too risky to break out of it. And in doing this, we aren't living meaningful lives. We're just accepting the circumstances we fell into, and giving in to the pressures that got us there, and (essentially) we aren't living the life that we were meant to live. [1]

The key is figuring out what it is you want and pursuing that thing. There's no equation to calculate which decisions will add up to a perfect life, plus, you have zero control over the future. Over your actions and your reactions, yes. But there is no way to know what the future will bring, or who you will meet, or what you might have to go through. There is an infinite amount of possibilities in the unknown, and if you spend all of your time trying to only make the "right" choices (or not making any choices, for fear of the wrong ones), you never really get anywhere, or pursue your own goals. Decision-making, for all its stress and drama (and believe me, I would know), really IS as simple as "what do you want?" Because if you aren't pursuing your goals or your dreams, what are you living for?

Don't get me wrong. It isn't wrong to have a somewhat subjunctive view of the world. It's always wise to consider the possibilities, to weigh the options, to be forward-thinking and responsible. And you can't just live your life by making rash, spur-of-the-moment decisions because you feel like you want something at that moment. Because most of the time I want to sit on my butt and watch tv and eat ice cream. And I never, ever, want to get out of bed to go to work in the morning. But that's not the kind of want I mean. I'm talking about the goals you have at your core, the things that come from your faith and your dreams and your imagination. I want to live in a heated apartment, eat decent food, and drive a safe car. I have neither an inheritance nor a rich husband, therefore, the logical conclusion is that I go to work to help pay for that stuff. I want to go to grad school and become a professor, so I took the damn GRE even thought I hated every second of it. We make sacrifices and compromises in order to meet an end goal, an ultimate desire.

Of course, if the focus is only on getting what we want, then we become self-involved and obnoxious. Enter stage left SIN, and the danger of choosing to live in a way that makes us ~~happy. This entire argument does not exist without the caveat of "sin does tend to make us 'happy' but that doesn't make it okay, or good for us." And when we're dealing with such a precarious concept as "wants," it's extra easy to let our sinful nature rule our actions. For example--I want to not lose face or dignity when I fight with Aaron. Regardless of what the fight is about, I want to be Right, and I want to Win. And if I give in to that desire, and fight for my pride (rather than try to actually resolve a disagreement), then I am, in fact, being self-involved and obnoxious. The argument is also twice as long and three times as awful. If, however, at the core of my desires, I want to maintain a loving, understanding relationship with Aaron, I have to forego my pride and maybe (gasp!) admit defeat. It's the difference between momentary, physical pleasure, and long-term overall happiness. "Usually, the right thing to desire is what makes you the happiest in the long run." [2]

wishing

Of course (if you're me) you then have crises about what is going to make you happiest, and whether you're wanting the Right Things, or if pursuing your desires is making you selfish because you aren't aware of the people around you. And here's where the "subjunctive" (as Phuc Tran would use it) gets in the way. We have a tendency to look back and think "man, if only I had ____" or "I wish I could be more like ____." This thinking is, in short, both pointless and harmful. The fact is that you didn't do that one thing, and you are not like said person. It accomplishes nothing to spend your whole life looking over your shoulder and wishing things had gone differently. I will be the first to admit that I struggle every day with doing this. I worry all the time about whether I screwed up and what people are thinking about me. For the most part I am pursuing my goals (with, at present, an agonizingly lengthy waiting period), and living the way that I feel I am called to be living. As mentioned in footnote [1], I also believe this is exactly where I am supposed to be right now. But that doesn't stop me from feeling guilty that I could not do more, or from being afraid that I have made or will make the wrong decisions.

Lately I have been having a lot of self-conscious anxiety, primarily because I have a tendency to stick my nose into other people's (relationship-related) business. With good intent, mind you, and because I love and worry about my friends, but still in a proactive, confrontational kind of way. [3] And because I care deeply about my friends and their wellbeing, I have a tendency to get vocal about the things that concern me. I have definitely learned that all relationships are different, and that they must be carried out in their own way, and I have also learned that all people need to learn in their own way, and that means usually you have to let them figure it out for themselves. But I have also heard too many times "why didn't anybody say anything," and there have been a couple of times that I could have said something and chose not to, and therefore I am determined to... well, say something. The only problem is that this kind of thing only occurs at those times when the friend in question doesn't really want to hear it, and then I begin to second-guess myself, because who am I to make any sort of comment on another person's choices.

When I expressed some of this self-conscious angst to Caitlin, she responded with resounding encouragement. She commented that we get extremely focused on not messing up, which, in her opinion, is backwards. "We should be focused on proactively doing the right thing," she told me, and it's better to go overboard with good intent than to not say what you felt. She added that because I am "the only one who feels [my] particular feelings," it is up to me to be the one to share them. "There's only one of you, and you were made that way on purpose. Just be it to the full. Care about people exactly the way you care about them, not in a more 'acceptable' way." [4]

This conversation effectively ties together both the indicative wanting and subjunctive wishing. I want to be there for my friends, because I want them to be happy in the overall sense. This means that I choose to do something that I don't really enjoy (such as telling them what they don't want to hear, and probably upsetting them, and possibly even ruining our friendship), in order to accomplish an ultimate goal. Because even if I'm wrong, saying what I said gives them cause to prove me wrong, which then in turn helps to solidify their feelings and opinions. So there is no point in wishing that I had done it differently, because it's already done, and now all I can do is trust that God will use their choices and my actions to help them find meaning and fulfillment in their lives. (see [1] in regards to "meant to be")

another catchy header

Believe it or not, this post was originally in relation to Phuc Tran's article/presentation. And I have one more speculation to make in regards to his discussion of grammar and identity; naturally it is in regards to his use of Star Wars to emphasize his point.

In the Star Wars saga, the Sith Lords speak in opaque subjunctives. Darth Vader says to Luke, "If you only knew the power of the Dark Side." Vader obviously knows how enticing the use of a present contrafactual optative sounded. And Yoda? He speaks with the bare bludgeon of the imperative and indicative. "Do or do not. There is no try." Yoda knows how hard and uncompromising the indicative is. It takes courage to embrace the indicative--it takes real courage. And even though what Yoda says is true, Luke doesn't stay with Yoda in the swamp because he has his own path to weave in between Yoda's indicative truth and Vader's seductive subjunctive. [5]

I'm going to top that nerdiness and add some good old Lutheran theology to the mix, just to see what happens. Obviously, the Sith are the badguys (or, you know, sin); the subjunctive is about guilt and shame and making up for the past or the missed opportunities. The indicative, as portrayed by Yoda, represents the Right Way To Do Things (in other words, the Law, which is of course good, but also impossible). And Luke, human dude that he is, can't stay in the Swamp of Righteousness because, requote, "he has his own path to weave."

And so do we, thanks to our sinful human natures. We are commanded to follow the indicative path of what is right, and yet we are completely unable to do so. We are tempted by the subjunctive of guilt and possibilities, and this causes us to pursue our physical desires, while feeling ashamed of the things we know we've done wrong or that we think we could have done differently. So while we try to live like the Jedi, we will never be as awesome as Yoda, and this failure makes the Dark Side seem more and more inviting, and the truth seem more and more unattainable.

But we have what Star Wars does not: we have grace. Our path is woven out of the fact that we are redeemed, and our salvation comes from outside of ourselves, outside of the confusion of our desires and the regretfulness of wishing. [6] This grace gives us the freedom to live the way we were made, and to pursue our desires: "there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live." [7] We will spend the rest of our lives wishing we had acted differently, or that we ourselves are different, because as long as we are on this earth we will be plagued by our sinful nature. But even when we do look over our shoulders and wish it could have been different, we have the reassurance that "for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose." [8]

"And this way of seeing the world? It has real force." [9]

the asides

[1] I will digress to comment (briefly, I hope) on the idea of "meant to be." Because I don't like to use this phrase lightly, and it could theoretically be argued that whatever situation we are in is the one that we are meant to be in. And by "theoretically" I mean that I can and do argue that point. I believe that simultaneously we are where we are meant to be, but also that we need to actively pursue the things that we are meant to do. Those things might change depending on the choices we have made, but then again we are designed in such a way that we are best suited for certain roles, which, if we are pursuing those roles, will place us in situations that allow us to use our talents and personalities to their highest potential. But even if we are not reaching our full potential, we are still exactly where we are meant to be, and in being there we are acquiring the necessary experience in order for us to carry on that pursuit. So it's all "meant to be" but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be ... trying to be what we are meant to be.
It's all sort of wibbly-wobbly.
[2] This is a quote from my favorite older brother, Keaton. Who may or may not remember saying it.
[3] I will abstain from a digression into my feelings and/or passionate opinions about relationships, but rest assured I have a lot of them.
[4] Dear Aussie, please excuse my paraphrase; it was for the good of the narrative. I hope I have done you justice and feel free to send me hate letters if I have not. Just do it in free verse poetry, please.
[5] Yeah yeah, I know I'm an English major and everything, but guess what, I am still too lazy to look up how to correctly cite a quote that some guy said and someone else wrote down so you could read instead of watching the video. I didn't make up that stuff in the quote block or that following phrase in quote marks (which look like this: " "), and you can hear/read it in the original text if you click the link at the top of this post. That Vietnamese guy is the one who thought it in those words first. I'm just using his argument to support my own. Happy? Good. That's all you're getting from me.
[6] "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast." Ephesians 2:8-9
[7] Ecclesiastes 3:12
[8] Romans 8:28
[9] Another direct quote from Mr Tran. See [5]. Please note that I intentionally used his quote to mean something else entirely, and that's probably wrong and stuff. All credit and respect to Mr Tran and his article and original intent. And stuff.
[10] I didn't know what to entitle this post, and I was all out of clever and witty things to say, and Minte told me to call it peaches. So I did.