Install me in any profession....

O God, O Venus, O Mercury, patron of thieves,
Lend me a little tobacco-shop,
or install me in any profession
Save this damn'd profession of writing,
where one needs one's brains all the time.
- Ezra Pound's "The Lake Isle"

--

No kiddin', Ezra.

--

It's getting to that point in the semester when I'm looking at my to-do list and most of it involves writing. I have an explication essay for American Poetry due soon. I have a news script to write for Tuesday. I have a big research paper I haven't started, and another I'm not even going to attempt until a few days before it's due.

My brain is fried.

But, I keep chugging on. Sometimes all you gotta do is write anyway -- whether it turns into a masterpiece or just an Anne Lamott-style shitty first draft.


Here's to writing.




Lauren


Scriptwriting Archive:
Broken-down Poetry, and what it means
The strenuous marriage of writing
Poetry as Therapy, pt. II
Imagination
Sh*tty First Drafts
Cross-train
Go get a life
Wishing writing could change me

Wishing writing could change me

Sometimes I think my writing can change me. And it always can, but only to a certain extent.

I want writing to bring me peace about a situation, but it's only temporary. I think of my smoking poem from last month. I used it to implore my boyfriend to stop smoking. He still smokes, and I no longer have peace.

It's not that I wanted the poem to change him. (I mean, yeah, a little.) I wanted it to make me feel better about the situation because at least I understood why I felt the way I did.

I want writing to revive my dry faith. I want to write a poem about how I feel about God (see "Eli, Eli") and get myself out of my rut.

But, it doesn't work like that. Writing helps, but it's not a world changer.

Still, I wish it were.

--

Everything I Am

love&hate

     together

bid farewell

to sanity

adieu, adieu—

   here’s everything I am

   here’s everything I am

It’s yours or fire

--

Scriptwriting Archive:
Broken-down Poetry, and what it means
The strenuous marriage of writing
Poetry as Therapy, pt. II
Imagination
Sh*tty First Drafts
Cross-train
Go get a life

Go get a life

At a panel discussion with top literary magazine editors at the College Media Advisers NYC conference Monday, a quote by Rainer Maria Rilke came up. You've heard it before: "Write what you know." One of the editors pointed out that Rilke didn't stop there. He said, right what you know, but if you don't have anything to write about - go get a life.

Let's be honest here: I don't have much of a "life." Forgetting my Iraqi escapade, I've lived my whole life in the Midwest, I have a normal family, I go to college. I don't have a lot of interesting things to write about.

So. What do I do?

I get a life. I find adventures to write about.

But I don't think that means I have to travel abroad every summer either. I think I can find adventure here (okay, I'm in New York as I write this. Here as in Marion). I think that if I look hard enough (or broad enough) I can find adventure wherever I am.

I just need to find the excitement in the ordinary, everyday.

It's not that I have to lie and pretend something's exciting like I do on Twitter. (Whoa! #awesome sandwich I'm eating! #yummy!) I can just have a different perspective on something.

This trip I'm on, for example, has been quite the adventure. School trips are, in theory, supposed to be kind of lame. Or typical.

Well, we're staying at a church in a rougher part of Brooklyn with the kindest church members taking care of us. We're a group of students with very diverse personality traits. We have gotten lost who knows how many times. Our internet is shoddy, so we've been improvising with our homework. (I've had to dictate an email to my boyfriend over the phone so he could write and send it for me.)

It's been an adventure.
And it's something to write about.

So, in response to the Rilke quote, I'd say, yes. Find adventure. But don't assume adventure only involves foreign countries, passionate romances or danger.

Adventure could be right in front of you.



Scriptwriting Archive:
Broken-down Poetry, and what it means
The strenuous marriage of writing
Poetry as Therapy, pt. II
Imagination
Sh*tty First Drafts
Cross-train

Cross-train

So I write a lot -- go figure, I'm a writing major. But, I don't spend a lot of time writing for fun. As outlined in my last Scriptwriting blog post, I do a lot of everything for my classes, but I don't have a lot of time or energy to write for fun.

Last Sunday I got to. I got most of my homework done for Monday and Tuesday, so I spent the day writing poetry. Some of it turned out interesting.

I'm not entirely finished with the following poem. I think its metaphor was lost a little. But I'll let you read it. (You're welcome.) Ha.

--

Like the birds

You pointed up at a bird perched and

showed me how

its feathery neck moves in          jerks—

sharp, decisive

on a pivot

because its eyes are stationary

without periphery.

You pointed back at us and

said the same thing

about human eyes:

how they move like a bird’s neck, in          jerks—

always trying to focus.

I find this particularly entertaining

that as you tell me this,

I do whatever I can to avoid          you—

I look every which way in jerks,

sharply, decisively

to avoid your glance.

I dream of flying away.

--

As I began writing this post, I wanted to pose a goal for myself: write a poem a day. As I thought about it, I decided to shorten that to a poem a week. Then, I gave up on the goal completely. Do I have time?

I should make time.

Like anything else, writing gets better with practice. And like anything, variety is key. When you exercise your body, you don't spend all your energy on one set of muscles. Even those training for marathons cross-train.

I need to cross-train my writing. That may mean putting aside my homework to slave over a poem -- but that's okay. (I'd probably rather being doing that anyway.)


Lauren


Scriptwriting Archive:
Broken-down Poetry, and what it means
The strenuous marriage of writing
Poetry as Therapy, pt. II
Imagination
Sh*tty First Drafts

Sh*tty First Drafts

I’m learning the fruit of my creative effort often ripens instantly. I’ll sit down and get thousands of words, but then a week later, working with the same discipline, will have nothing. But my job is not to make the words come. Who am I to make the words come? My job is no different than a farmer. I till the land. I fertilize the soil. I plant the seeds. Unlike the farmer, though, I am surprised when the green shoots sprout in the spring. I think perhaps it is magic, and it will never happen for me again. But the farmer knows if he tills the land, and is blessed enough to get rain, the harvest will come. Don Miller via DonMillerIs.com

--

Author Anne Lamott encourages what she calls "shitty first drafts." Sometimes you just have to write. You don't feel it. You don't think you're producing anything worthwhile. But it doesn't matter all that much. You just need to write.

I'm there right now. As a writing and journalism double major, I spend most of my life writing. I write commercial scripts. I write essays. I write memoirs. I write nonfiction, fiction, creative nonfiction. I write news articles. I write emails.

Sometimes I can't keep myself going. My writing seems so very forced. For the most part, that's okay. I've learned that for newswriting, there's a formula that I can follow. My stories on online registration or a student's creative writing prize may not be interesting, but they're written correctly. Sometimes my scriptwriting rough drafts truly are shitty.

I like Don Miller's metaphor. Writing is like farming. It's habitual, first of all. You don't get plants without the process of tilling, planting, watering. Sometimes you don't get anything. Sometimes you get lush vegetation.

So right now, when I could care less about writing, I will write. I will finish this blog post. I will finish the essay I've hardly started. I'll keep thinking about the memoir piece I'm starting.



Lauren

--
Scriptwriting Archive:
Broken-down Poetry, and what it means
The strenuous marriage of writing
Poetry as Therapy, pt. II
Imagination

Imagination

This weekend my friend Caitie and I went to see The Decemberists perform in Chicago. The Decemberists is one of my favorite bands, particularly because of lead singer/songwriter Colin Meloy's imaginative writing.

I think Colin was probably like me as a child: instead of paying attention in class, he stared out the window and wrote stories in his head. An imagination like his has to develop over time. There's no way he became the writer he is now without having a childlike imagination, since being a child.

Not familiar with The Decemberists? You have no idea what I'm talking about? Well. Let's look at lyrics from "A Cautionary Tale."

There's a place your mother goes
When everybody else is soundly sleeping
Through the lights of Beacon Street
And if you listen you can hear her weeping
She's weeping because the gentlemen are calling
And the snow is softly falling on her petticoats
And she's standing in the harbor
And she's waiting for the sailors in the jolly boat
See how they approach?

With dirty hands and trousers torn
They grapple until she's safe within their keeping
A gag is placed between her lips
To keep her sorry tongue from any speaking, or screaming
And they row her out to packets
Where the sailor's sorry racket calls for maidenhead
And she's scarce above the gunwales
When her clothes fall to a bundle
And she's laid in bed on the upper deck

And so she goes from ship to ship
Her ankles clasped, her arms so rudely pinioned
Until at last she's satisfied
The lot of the marina's teaming minions
And their opinions
And they tell her not to say a thing
To cousin, kindred, kith, or kin, or she'll end up dead
And they throw her thirty dollars and return her to the harbor
Where she goes to bed, and this is how you're fed

So be kind to your mother
Though she may seem an awful bother
And the next time she tries to feed you collard greens
Remember what she does when you're asleep

This is one of the band's most bizarre songs lyrically, and for that reason, one of my favorites. I love the twist ending. You kind of forget the narrator's addressing someone's child, but you're reminded again at the end.

Whenever I hear this song, I imagine a kid eating dinner with wide-eyed shock, perhaps dropping his fork at the last beat of the song.

I think the key to being a good writer is having a broad imagination. No matter how good your mechanics are, if you can't think of an interesting idea or storyline, no one cares what you have to say. (Ah, I mean, in creative writing, not technical writing.)

--

Scriptwriting Archive:
Broken-down Poetry, and what it means
The strenuous marriage of writing
Poetry as Therapy, pt. II

Poetry as Therapy pt. II

Thursday I was upset about something (or, many somethings) while I was at Nathan's house. After some crying and some huffing and gruffing, I did what I always need to do when I'm upset: I wrote.

I laid down on Nate's couch with my laptop on my stomach and started typing. Nate asked me what I was doing - I quickly hid the screen from him.

"Don't read it," I said.

"Are you writing angsty poetry?"

"Yeaahh."

--

Writing is therapeutic -- especially poetry. I write poetry when I'm upset or particularly emotional (good or bad).

Going back to my MacDonald quote about poetry being the utterances of men's thoughts, I think poetry is one of the best ways to express emotion. That is, if writing's your thing.

Back in high school, when my friend Austin had some anger issues, I told him to write it out. Instead of lashing out at people, he should write in a journal. It served him well.

Poetry and writing is therapeutic to me, but for artists, painting is. For musicians, playing is. Whenever Nathan's in a bad mood, I make him play his guitar.

--

This post is meant to be a reminder -- mainly to myself. Instead of ranting, instead of venting to everyone I know, I need to write my feelings down. My journal is an awfully good listener.

--
Scriptwriting Archive:
Broken-down Poetry, and what it means
The strenuous marriage of writing

The strenuous marriage of writing

"Being a writer is a strenuous marriage between careful observation and just as carefully imagining the truths you haven't had the opportunity to see. The rest is the necessary, strict toiling with the language; for me this means writing and rewriting the sentences until they sound as spontaneous as good conversation." - John Irving, emphasis mine

I read this in my creative nonfiction class Friday as a preface to a memoir by John Irving. Immediately it reminded me of scriptwriting and the importance of writing conversationally.

The first half of Irving's quotation is referring to fiction or creative nonfiction: you tell the truth, but let your imagination play a role. (In creative nonfiction, unlike fiction, you can't use your imagination without first prefacing it. You don't lie.)

In scriptwriting, I see this "strenuous marriage" -- even only a few weeks into my scriptwriting course.

The radio spot writer wants to tell facts: WHAT is the product? WHERE can I buy it? HOW is this product special? WHY is it worth buying? etc.

But at the same time, it's done in a creative way:

PERSON 1: Man, oh, man. It's gone -- it's all gone!
PERSON 2: What is--
PERSON 1: Quick! Someone call 9-1-1!
SFX: DIAL TONE
OPERATOR: 9-1-1, what's your emergency?
PERSON 2: Jimmy, Jimmy. What's happening? What should I tell them?
PERSON 1: Someone ate all my Doritos!

For me, I favor one partner or the other in this marriage of sorts. I'm noticing that for this class, I'm favoring the Facts and ignoring Creativity. The danger of this is endless: I could write a boring spot; I could write something that's supposed to be funny; but falls flat, I could overwhelm people with facts.

The opposite is just as true: If I focus too closely on creativity, I may forget to add important facts, like WHAT the product even is.


As for the second part of the quote, about writing something as "spontaneous as good conversation," I can't help but think of scriptwriting. That means stripping writing from very "Englishy" language. That means I don't write sentences like:

Though my love for Doritos is vast, I only have fifty cents -- not enough to buy a bag.

You write the way people talk. How do people talk? Well, go back to the beginning of the quote again. You figure it out through observation. When I'm writing dialogue for short stories, there's always one character who has an overuse of the word well, because that's what I do.

An excerpt:

Then he likes you?

Not exactly.

You just said the rest was history, like it’s the end of the story. So it’s not?

Well, that was a month ago. So much has happened.

Like what?

The date.

You went on a date with him?

Sort of.

Tell me!

It was nothing. We just watched a movie at his apartment.

Alone?

Well, yeah alone. It was a date … I think.

I write wells in only because when I was writing this piece, I was saying the dialogue outloud. (I even cut out some of them, because it was a little too over the top. Good writing doesn't mean you add in speech flaws for effect. Apparently I say well too much.)


Thanks, John, for the insights.
I don't know about the rest of you, my dear Scriptwriting class, but it's a lot easier to talk about something (writing) when you have something to base it on, i.e. a quotation.

Just a thought.






(Now I'm hungry for Doritos.)


--

Scriptwriting archive:
Broken-down Poetry, and what it means

Broken-down Poetry, and what it means

Hello, my new readers.
Welcome to Broken-down Poetry.

For those of you who frequent my blog, you're probably wondering what's with the intro. Duh, I'm at Broken-down Poetry.

Well, here's what's up: Today and for weeks to follow, I am blogging for a class, Media Scriptwriting. We're required to blog about writing weekly. Well, I do a lot of that anyway, so I thought I'd go ahead and keep with Broken-down Poetry instead of creating a new blog. (Plus, BDP needs more readers!)

So. Welcome.

--

So what is Broken-down Poetry?

First and foremost, it's a blog I started my senior year of high school over at Wordpress.com. (Funny story: I moved from Wordpress to Blogspot because I thought Blogspot was cooler. Most professional bloggers are doing the opposite.)

I named the blog from a quote by George MacDonald, a 19th Century clergyman/writer. He said that "poetry is the highest form of the utterance of men's thoughts. ... Prose is but broken-down poetry."

I knew in twelfth grade that I was a prose writer - I didn't write any of that poetry crap. I fell in love with MacDonald's words because I knew that what I wrote came from my heart, but it was broken into easily digestible pieces.

Okay, what do I mean by that?

I mean that I am not a flowery writer. You know who's a flowery, detail-oriented writer? Jane Austen. So is Nathaniel Hawthorne. And so is another Nathaniel, my boyfriend, who is probably reading this and is probably not very happy with me. (Heh. Flowery in a good way, Babe.)

I am a clear-cut, let's-get-rid-of-these-stupid-adjectives writer. I delete word; I don't add them. I don't waste my time describing a scene to you. I say: here's the scene. Imagine it yourself.

When I started writing poetry earlier this school year, I noticed that even then I was eliminating words. I was breaking down poetry into smaller bites of poetry.

If you look around my blog, you'll see that everything is short. The posts may be long, but paragraphs short. My poems are typically 5-8 syllables a line.

So what's this mean to you? Nothing, I guess. I just find it interesting.... I find it interesting how my writing style fits my personality. I'm the one telling people to hurry up - let's go! I'm the one who goes from one task to the other without slowing down. I can't sit through movies because I'm too antsy.

I write the way I feel - rushed. Let's not belabor this.

I like that media scriptwriting is all about writing within time constraints. Oh, I can do that. You say 30 seconds, and you got it. I can tell a whole story in a few seconds if I want. (Okay, I imagine it's going to be a lot harder than that.)

But truthfully, I'm excited. Finally I can worry about keeping things short than adding words to meet some stupid page requirement.



Win!

More importantly ... Lauren's Writing Goals for 2010 Revisited

I just posted a revisiting of my Christmas Break Goals, but I find this more interesting, because I've had a whole year to accomplish these goals. Let's see how I did.

1. Write more fiction. I did it! I wrote a lot of fiction this year:

I wrote poetry ("Lets Break Up," The Incarnation, Txt Msg, Unsaid, Future/Present Poems [w/t], Tree Poems [w/t]) and I wrote short pieces (And Eat It Too, the untitled story I wrote about some girl being in love, In Theory, The Little Red Hen Retold).

Note. I didn't count the writing I've done in class (Prose or Creative Writing) nor the works I haven't published to my blog.

I still don't like writing fiction short stories, but I don't mind short short stories and poems. I just have commitment issues, as exemplified in the post before this one. I'd rather labor over a short work than a longer work.

2. Write more frequently. My goal was to write four times a month, which would mean in 2010 I should have blogged 48 times. And in 2010, I blogged a total of (drum roll please) 74 times! Wow!

In 2009 I blogged only 40 times!

It should be noted that I blogged completely different in 2009 than 2010, mainly once I discovered my love for poetry. My posts in 2010 were generally shorter than those in 2009, they contain more photos and more fiction for sure. I think this is good. The first goal shows that I wanted to vary my blog posts anyway. This is good. I shows that I write more than just non-fiction.

3. Connect with other bloggers. Fail. Okay, so Jason Boyett did do that interview piece with me, but that's about it. Actually, I haven't been to Jason's blog much since he moved to BeliefNet.com, mainly because that site's obnoxious. His blog is good, but that site is annoying.

4. Take risks! I have! I've taken a lot of risks with my writing. I inserted swear words all over the place; I try new stuff with dialogue; I write only in dialogue; I gave poetry a shot; I just wrote what I felt like writing instead of thinking about the rules; I've imitated others' writing styles.

5. Learn big words. Okay, I haven't done this either. I have a new favorite word, at least: assuage. I love that word. With me now: assuuuuuage.





Ha.
Lauren

and green and green and green ...

II.
Late October
and the Norway maple hasn’t turned
red or orange or whatever color
Norway maples turn.

Today
and tomorrow:
an endless cycle of green
and green and green
and green and green.

Through the window
the masochists
slit their wrists,
crying but with bliss.

--

Author's note: "Things that cause people to sin are bound to come" [Luke 17:1a]. If only they weren't.

Life updates, August 2010

I haven't blogged to just blog in a while. I've written a lot about PLC; I've written a few creative pieces, but I haven't just blogged.

Granted, most of the time I blog I have some muse to inspire me. I'm muse-less. I'm reading an essay by Ray Bradbury about "feeding and caring for your Muse," but it hasn't helped. I'll be back to school soon and will have plenty to write about. So, no worries. (Were you worried?)

But, stuff has been going on, so I'll update you.

Updates:

1. I'm in America. Yes, I'm adjusting well. I've spent 20 years and two months in America; two months away isn't going to do much difference. I wish it did, sort of. I wish I viewed my life completely differently (but for the better) now that I'm home. I wish I was more thankful for my freedoms. I wish I spent my money on the children in Iraq and not on Old Crown coffee.

2. I have a boyfriend. For those of you who don't know the story, Nate and I started talking when I was in Iraq - the first week I was there, actually. We had a few classes together at IWU. (Fun fact: one of my first memories of Nate was when he beat me in Scrabble. Bah!) We're "official" now, and have been for 3 1/2 weeks.

3. I'm going back to IWU soon. I don't know the exact date, but I'm heading back early for Sojourn workshops. I am the managing editor this year (second in charge, I guess), so I get to plan said workshops. It's kind of fun. But also extremely stressful and hectic and frustrating.

4. I have a million half-read books on my bedside table. I started reading a few books in Iraq and in transit (Jayber Crow, Teaching a Stone to Talk) and started a few more now that I'm home (The Zen in the Art of Writing, The Copy-Editing and Headline Handbook), but I've only finished a few this summer. I'm disappointed in myself. Last summer, 19 books. This summer, 3.

5. I was in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette this morning. I was interviewed about my internship. You should read it, then feel led to donate to PLC and #RemedyMission.

Creative Writing: In Theory

Whenever I write fiction or creative nonfiction for my blog, I feel the need to preface it. So here I go.

I want to call this an outline. I have a concept for a story, but this is how far I got. It's kind of a character sketch, kind of not. I haven't decided who the girl in the story is - if she even needs an identity. Well. I'm digressing. Just read:


--

He took a sombre satisfaction in thinking that perhaps all along she had been nothing except what he had read into her. (This Side of Paradise, pp. 105-106)

She only liked Alex in theory. She liked the way he might have looked if he dressed the way she wanted him to. She liked the way he would take her out to her favorite restaurant and order her favorite wine and laugh at all her jokes and hold her hand by dessert. She liked how he would walk with her through the woods behind her house, down a path that didn’t really exist, and kiss her for the first time under the brightest moon she could imagine. She liked him for all of that, but Alex didn’t do any of those things. He didn’t even know how she spelled her name, much less her favorite wine.

Besides, she was with Sean and he had done all of those things, except that he wasn’t much fun to daydream about. Because when he takes her to her favorite restaurant, he orders her favorite wine without asking first, he laughs at her jokes but expects her to laugh at his, and he holds her hand from the appetizers to the chocolate cake. And when they walk down through the woods behind her house, the moon isn’t bright enough to keep her footing – she slips, but he catches her.

What I Do 40 Hours a Week

Most of you have been asking about what I've been up to, other than learning about what it means to be a Kurd in northern Iraq. ...

I am an intern. I work 40 hours a week - did you know that? I walk to the office every morning at 9, and walk back at 5. I have a lunch break from noon to 1:30.

We work in an office space on the third floor of a mall. In our office there's a lobby with couches, a kitchen, a bathroom, and two rooms. We have a split (A/C) in both rooms, but our power often goes out, which renders them useless. Also, the Internet hasn't been working.

So, most of us leave the office and go to 1. Assos Hotel across the street 2. Melody Cafe, where all the Amerikim hang out 3. Blue Cafe with delicious milkshakes or 4. home.

On every morning except Monday (our work week is Sunday-Thursday) we have a staff meeting at 9. We talk about what we did the previous day, what we will do that day, and what might stop us from accomplishing our tasks.

On Mondays we, the interns, spend our mornings having Interlocutions a.k.a. "Fireside Chats" with Jeremy. We typically discuss blog posts or news articles as a group. (Last week we talked about starting an NGO, why you should travel to countries outside Europe, and about something called voluntourism.)

After our meetings, we get to work! Everyone has a different task, according to their interests. I am in charge of Preemptive Love's year-end review, which is developing into a "Who We Are" coffee table book. It's coming along rather nicely. (A quick shout-out to Dr. Karnehm. Working on the School of Nursing magazine has helped me out a lot since I've been here!)

Besides the year-end review, I help others out with their tasks (such as updating the PLC blog or doing audio for the Honya video).


Soon I'm going to blog about the other interns - they're so awesome. I want you all to virtually meet them!



Lauren

"Why I Write" by George Orwell

Two observations:

1. I like George Orwell's thoughts on writing more than I like his writing.
2. I may own every book on writing ever printed.

--

I've noticed that I have a really hard time blogging when there's nothing to blog about. I've spent my last few weeks in the States reading, hanging out at Starbucks, watching movies and editing magazine articles -- nothing's really "blog material." But I have to keep writing. Must ... trudge ... through. Ugh.

--

"[The writer's] subject-matter will be determined by the age he lives in ... but before he ever begins to write he will have acquired an emotional attitude from which he will never completely escape. It is his job, no doubt, to discipline his temperament and avoid getting stuck at some immature stage, or in some perverse mood: but if he escapes from his early influences altogether, he will have killed his impulse to write." p. 4

I find this so, so true. Dr. Allison warns us that if we establish our voice too early in our writing career, we risk "writing ourselves in a corner." If I only write snarky-meets-prophetic blogs, will I be able to write anything else? But if I deny myself this pleasure - hey, it is my favorite kind of writing - will I want to write at all?


Ah, what a dilemma!


"I think there are four great motives for writing, at any rate for writing prose. ... 1. Sheer egotism." p. 4

No kidding. This reminds me of Don Miller who said (paraphrase) that if he were honest with himself, he writes so that people will like him. I do the same. It's definitely not my top reason for writing, but it's always in the back of my head. Who doesn't want to be a famous writer, though, really?


"2. Aesthetic enthusiasm." p. 5

I do like words. A lot. So much so that I've been playing "Words with Friends" on my iPod for the last five hours. And let me tell you, I've been kicking butt. I'm so much better at this than I was at Scrabble for Sentence Strategies.

"3. Historical Impulse. Desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity." p. 5

Meh. Whatever.


"4. Political purpose-- using the word 'political' in the widest possible sense. Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other people's idea of the kind of society they should strive after." p. 5

Ding, ding, ding! That's it, Mr. Orwell! That's why I write! Yeah, there are a couple parts of #1 and #2, but a big chuck of it's #4. I write because I want to change the world. Is that lame? Too IWU-World-Changers for you?


It's true though.


"It seems to me nonsense, in a period like our own, to think that one can avoid writing of such [political]  subjects." p. 8

Ol' Orwell wrote this in the mid-forties, but I think his words are even more relevant today. Shall I list: genocide, AIDS, poverty, hunger, child soldiers, forced prostitution, sex trafficking, congenital heart disease in little Iraqi babies. 


How could we avoid writing of such subjects?


"What I have most wanted to do throughout the past ten years is to make political writing into an art." p. 8

Thanks for putting to words exactly what I believe, Mr. Orwell. This is, essentially, why I'm a writer. Not just to write politically (to "push the world in a certain direction"), but to create art that challenges people.


Throughout the rest of the essay Orwell despises journalism which takes the art out of prose - which is true, which is why I added a double major. (I think we've learned in Practicum that journalism doesn't have to be boring - you can be creative with it - but in journalism, facts trump the creative license.)

"If poetry is not truth, and does not despise what is called license, so far it is not poetry. Poetry is the highest form of the utterance of man's thoughts. ... Prose is but broken down poetry." George MacDonald

I'm starting to think that Orwell's "Why I Write" is the same as my "Why I Write," only written more eloquently.




Thanks, Mr. O.

The Elements of Style, p. 120

"Style takes its final shape more from attitudes of mind than from principles of composition, for, as an elderly practitioner once remarked, 'Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar.' This moral observation would have no place in a rule book were it not that style is the writer, and therefore what you are, rather than what you know, will at last determine your style. If you write, you must believe--in the truth and worth of the scrawl, in the ability of the reader to receive and decode the message. No one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader's intelligence, or whose attitude is patronizing."

O Me of Little Faith

A review and commentary on Jason Boyett's new book.

--

Context: I've been embracing this thing called doubt since last November. I could tell you the specific date, if I looked it up. It was that Saturday Jacque came to visit me at school, the first time we hung out since she stopped believing in God.

I didn't talk to her about it; I wonder if she even knows about my doubt.

--

Jason Boyett makes me feel a little better about myself. Doubt is still very new to me. Like I said: November. For someone who's been annoyingly sure about everything pertaining to faith, a few months is not a long time.

Jason starts his book by saying: "I am a Christian." (Me too.) "I have been a Christian most of my life." (Me too.) "But there are times--a growing number of times, to be honest--when I'm not entirely sure I believe in God."

Me too.

I didn't have to face my doubt back in November, because I was crushing on a boy, and when you're crushing on a boy, there are more important things to worry about than your faith, like whether or not that boy likes you back. He didn't like me back. In December I had to face my doubt.

Jason says that doubt is something we need to walk alongside. (Hey, Doubt, can we be friends?) It's not to be pushed down or reasoned away. It's something you need to live out.  He says it's okay to ask questions because John the Baptist doubted ("Are you the One who was to come?") and so did Thomas ("Unless I see ... I will not believe it."). He needed proof.

I feel like Gideon, who even after God made the fleece wet with dew and the ground dry, I ask him to make the fleece dry instead. Prove yourself to me, God, I say. Sometimes he does. Sometimes he seems vague and aloof.

In December, when the crush was gone and all I had was myself and my doubt, I wrote a creative essay about how the God I believed in was dead. It ended with a stream of cusswords I'd never say in real life. It made me feel better, though, to get it out in the open. In the same way, doubt is better dealt with in community. It's not something that we should hide. We shouldn't be afraid to expose our weaknesses.

Jason writes:

My impulse here is to write "Owning your doubt means refusing to pretend." Don't pretend to be better than you are. Don't pretend to be smarter than you are. Don't pretend to be more spiritual than you are. Don't pretend to have it together when you don't. Don't pretend to have all the answers when you don't. Don't pretend to worship when you don't feel like it. Don't pretend.

But I can't write that in good conscience, because I still pretend. A lot. Too much. (pp. 157-158) 

The few months I've wrestled with doubt have been marked with isolation and cynicism - especially at a Christian school. I still talked to my friends about my doubts, but I didn't feel like they really got it. I felt like they just saw me as one of those baby Christians who's just figuring things out.

For me, writing it out helps, like with my creative essay. Talking it out helps too, but it's harder. It's hard admitting to others your doubts. I remember Jacque was afraid to tell me when she started doubting God, because she thought I'd try to Four-Spiritual-Laws her back to salvation. (I didn't.)

--

Doubt isn't very fun to talk about. It isn't much fun to read about either - not typically. But Jason keeps his book light and humorous. He gets into the deep stuff (he quotes a lot of Latin phrases) but he adds his signature subtle humor by frequent use of footnotes.*

And if this were a style critique, I'd say Jason effectively uses rhetorical questions to bolster his theme of doubt. This also keeps the writer (Jason) from sounding elitist or arrogant. The reader thinks hey, this guy's got a lot of questions too! I can trust him!

If this were my Sojourn column, I'd tell you that you should buy the book just because Jason is a stellar human being. If this were a cannarf review, I'd give it a +5. If this were my blog - and it is - I'd direct you to Jason's blog because he does a better job of promoting himself than I.

Also, you should go buy his book.

* footnote. Yeah, I know, I'm clever with this whole footnote thing. Right after I tell you about Jason's use of footnotes, I add my own. 

But one thing that's really attractive about this book is its size. I'm not the first one to comment on this either (ahem, Katie McCollister). It's small enough to keep your hands from cramping, but the print is still large enough to read without squinting. Kudos to Zondervan on this one.

Lauren

Creative Writing: Head vs. Heart

I wrote this over Christmas break.

I like imagining what my head and heart talk about - they're always disagreeing. This is the manifestation of that. Enjoy.

P.S. Well, just don't read too much into it. Just ... enjoy.

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My head and my heart are always at odds with each other. Head is pragmatic, reasonable and is always making those ridiculous pro-con lists. Heart is passionate, stubborn and can convince Head of nearly anything. Today they’re in a full-out death match. (Head can be so brutal!)

HEAD: Heart, it’s time you get over this boy. He doesn’t like you anyway. Remember that movie? Let me spell it out for you: he’s just not that into you!

HEART: Gah, shut up, will you? Can’t a girl dream? He did act like he liked us in the beginning - hullo?! You were there. You’re the one who had to convince me that he liked us. I was the one who kept telling you that “oh, he probably treats all his friends like this,” or “he just likes our company.” You had to be so adamant about it!

HEAD: Well, he did seem to like us at first.

HEART: So he lost interest? Great. That makes me feel awesome.

HEAD: Hey, I don’t know. Boys can be weird. And gosh, haven’t you ever lost interest in a guy?

HEART: Well, yeah, but I usually have some good reason to. ... You don’t think he stopped liking us because of something I did, do you?

HEAD: You can be a little over the top.

HEART: But so can you, Miss Let’s-Analyze-Everything!

HEAD: I’m just doing my job, Heart. If no one analyzed the situation you’d still be caught up with your last crush ... the engaged guy? Remember him?

HEART: Hey, you promised to let that go. I wasn’t myself. I was too busy marking off your stupid checklist.

HEAD: That’s a perfectly good checklist!

HEART: It’s a stupid checklist. It is supposed to tell me what we want in a husband. Really? When did you make that list, anyway?

HEAD: Uh, five years ago.

HEART: Exactly, we were fifteen years old and you thought you’d know what we’d want in a husband. Guess what? THAT ENGAGED GUY WAS NOT OUR TYPE!

HEAD: Geesh, calm down! It was one simple mistake.

HEART: One mistake? What about TallGuy and ObamaFan and WorshipLeader? They fit your little checklist.

HEAD: Hey, don’t blame me for all of those crushes. You’re the one who fell for them.

HEART: Yeah, but not because I thought they were hot or romantic or whatever - the things hearts usually fall for. No, it was because they fit your stupid standards. Stupid you with your stupid, stupid standards!

HEAD: Stop calling me stupid! That’s very offensive.

HEART: Sorry, Head. You’re just upsetting me.

HEAD: Why, Heart? He’s just like every other crush.

HEART: But he’s not! He’s the one that didn’t fit your list, but is so perfect for us.

HEAD: How do you know without my list?

HEART: I just know. I mean, he is smart like you, and creative like me, and he sees beauty the way we do, and he is really clever and quirky, and he would fight for me - I know it!

HEAD: Is he cute?

HEART: You know he is. But that’s not even the half of it. He’s like someone you’d read about in a book and fall in love with. ... Maybe that’s why you’re so eager to get over him, because you think he’s just a storybook character.

HEAD: Maybe. ... He does seem to have that too-good-to-be-true quality about him.

HEART: And for once I didn’t make it up. He really is that amazing.

HEAD: He really is.

Sigh.

This isn’t helping anything. He’s not calling us and you are not over him yet.

HEART: So what are we going to do?

HEAD: For once, I don’t know.

--

I love that last line.

Title Track: Poets

“Poets do not go mad, but chess players do.” – G.K. Chesterton

A few weeks ago my favorite author, J.D. Salinger, died at the age of 91. This was, ironically, at the pinnacle of my Salinger obsession. I had just bought two of his books I didn’t own; I read passages of them every night before bed. Up until his death, I slept with a copy of “Nine Stories” by my pillow. (I mean this literally – for some reason it was easier to keep it tucked by my side than to set it on the nightstand.)

I spend an unfortunate amount of time thinking about Salinger. Admitting this may disprove Chesterton’s quote in and of itself, whether you call me a poet or not. But it’s true. Even when I’m not reading one of Salinger’s books I think about him. I just wonder what he had been up to for so long.

Since The New Yorker printed his fifth and final novella about the Glass family back in the mid-1960s, Salinger hadn’t published anything or starred on any talk shows. I heard once, on the “Colbert Report,” that he recently sued someone for making a sequel to “Catcher in the Rye,” which was the first time he’d spoken to the press in 30 years.

30 years of silence – interesting. This is why I have been thinking so much about him. What could he have possibly been doing?

I had read once that one of Salinger’s characters, Buddy Glass, is the apparent author of all Salinger’s novels. In “Seymour – an Introduction,” in which Buddy is the narrator, he mentions that he’s written several stories about his family and that his brother Seymour, the poet of the family, wrote volumes of brilliant poetry that was not published because his widow has all rights to them.

This got me thinking. What if Salinger spent 30 years writing Seymour’s poetry? Maybe those 15 unpublished manuscripts they found in Salinger’s safe were really Seymour’s poems. I imagine Salinger staying up until 3 a.m. scrawling poems on parchment in the candlelight, his eyes heavy from sleeplessness and booze.

Maybe poets do go mad.

I went to a Derek Webb concert last weekend in Huntington. Webb is known for his powerful lyrics. As he sang song after song about his convictions, I started thinking about what I would write about if I were a lyricist.

I’d probably start by singing songs about love and God and peace and hope. But then I’d see myself getting burned out pretty easily by all the optimism, so I’d move on to angry rants about politics and war and sin and hatred. Then that’d depress me even more, so I’d take a break from music for a few years, join the Peace Corps, then revert back to my original topics: love and God and peace and hope.

I wouldn’t make a good lyricist.

I noticed, too, at the concert how desperately I try to communicate my emotions and convictions through words like Webb. I think this is an inherent need for humans.

Actually, I know it is.

My blog, the one I link you all to at the end of my column, is called Broken-Down Poetry. I stole the name from a quote by George MacDonald, a 19th century writer and lecturer.

He said, “Poetry is the highest form of the utterance of men’s thoughts. There would have been no prose if poetry had not gone first and taught people how to write. Prose is but brokendown poetry.”

That first part – “poetry is the highest form of the utterance of men’s thoughts” – resonates with me. This is that longing to express myself. Not only do I want to express myself, I want to do it well – poetically. But sometimes I can’t. Sometimes my words get jumbled and it comes out like gibberish.

Words fail me. Living has to be enough. I can’t always tell you what I think, but I can show you. I’m crying – I can’t tell you why, but I am.

Paul wrote, “We are God’s workmanship [his “poema,” poem] created in Christ Jesus to do good works.” My life is a poem.

I am, in a way, like the Salinger I dreamed up – writing in the darkness, spending years striving for the right words. Maybe I can’t express my convictions through song, but I can through the way I live my life.

I want the poetry of my life – my actions, my convictions, my attitude – to reflect who I am in Christ. Even if I can’t express it in words.

The post was originally printed in Indiana Wesleyan University's The Sojourn newspaper.

Creative Writing: On a Bench with Joel

Preface: I promised more creative writing in my 2010 Writing Goals. Here's round two. I wrote this piece for Prose, and I admit I am awfully proud of it. For the most part it's in classic style, but I waver from it here and there (which is why I got points docked). 


The names have been "changed" to protect the "innocent."

--

“It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation,” said Joel, quoting Herman Melville.

Joel sat on a bench in the far corner of the college student center. An empty cardboard coffee cup sat in the empty seat beside him; his MacBook was propped open on his lap. Joel was haphazardly deleting a list of unanswered emails when the girl arrived. He shut the lid.

“Sit down,” he told her, moving the cup. Joel shoved his Mac into the open satchel bag next to his sneakered feet. As he made room for the laptop, the bag’s contents spilled: gloves for the cold, a book of poetry (to be read for class and for pleasure, he assured her), and a digital voice recorder. He put all the contents back inside except for the recorder.

“When I’m driving in my car and I have a great idea, I talk into this,” said Joel.

She nodded. The girl had a recorder of her own peeking out of her side pocket; she pulled it out to show him. “I have one too.”

He continued, “My housemate left it when he moved out, so I kept it. He never could take care of his things.” Joel tossed the recorder on top of the satchel and kicked the bag underneath his seat.

The girl pulled her legs up onto the bench turning to face him, and Joel did the same. He drummed his fingers on the wooden-arched back; he leaned against the armrest. She inched closer, hoping he wouldn’t notice.

The girl was sure she was in love; there was no other word to describe her feelings. While other boys his age wasted away weekends watching movies and playing video games, Joel made art; he read. Joel was not like other boys, always rambling on about football or girls; he spoke about art and philosophy. He was a teacher, the girl his student. All she wished to do was sit at his feet and listen. And she listened intently.

As they sat there on the bench – the girl unaware of anything but him, he unaware of anything but himself – Joel began telling her of his lengthy theories of theology and the human condition. He told her how he was an Epicurean; he does everything with moderation. He told her he hated obese people; he eats everything with moderation.

He told her what it meant to be an artist – unrestrained by anything but one’s own inhibitions. The girl was a writer; she managed to tell him between breaths. He viewed art more highly.

“With art you can be original,” he said to her. “Writers use everybody else’s words.”

Originality was Joel’s favorite trait; he believed he possessed it in heaps. When he got dressed in the morning, when he chose what to eat, what picture to paint, who to speak to – he thought of no one but himself. He renounced imitation. Joel taunted anyone who thought inside the box, and mocked those who tried so desperately to do the opposite.

“To be nobody but yourself in a world that’s doing its best to make you somebody else, is to fight the hardest battle you are ever going to fight,” said Joel, quoting e.e. cummings.

The girl scooted even closer to Joel. He was too distracted by someone behind her to notice. A blond boy who looked to be Joel’s opposite – blond hair, clean shaven, broad shoulders – was walking past. Joel called after him, but the boy hesitated coming over. After a full-arm wave from Joel, the boy walked to the bench. He stood before them, ready to speak – he opened his mouth to start – but Joel spoke first.

“Can I see them?” Joel pointed to the three-foot portfolio the boy’s white knuckles clutched.

He refused. He knew Joel to be a relentless critic. They continued in a ping-pong of pleas and denials until the boy gave in. He held his breath.

“It’s not bad,” said Joel, looking at a charcoal drawing, “but it’s missing something.” Joel spoke a textbook of critiques: the composition’s off just a bit; this shouldn’t be the focal point. Art should tell a story, he said. This doesn’t tell a story.

The boy looked on expressionless.

“You’re upset?” Joel asked him.

He didn’t respond, but looked at the girl for support. She stared back at him with wide-eyes, saying nothing.

“Well, I wasn’t going to lie to you. What good would that do you?” Joel slid the drawing back into the portfolio and handed it back. “Did you have a chance to see my artwork? It’s hanging upstairs in the art building.”

Gripping his portfolio much harder than before and walking in strides much more hurried than before, the boy left without answering.

Joel turned to the girl. “I wasn’t going to lie to him.”

The girl, blinded by her infatuation, could not see what the boy saw. She could not see the self-absorption, the superiority complex. To the girl, Joel was an intellectual, an artist with insight she could only understand if he broke down it down into bit-sized pixels.

Joel was right: the boy’s composition was all wrong.

“It was nice talking, but I need to finish my homework,” said Joel.

Without voicing the truth – her desire to stay, to hear him talk more – the girl got up and stuck out her hand. “Goodnight, Joel.”

He met her hand with his. But mid-shake, he scratched her palm with his forefinger. He smiled. “I like to touch people in a way they’ll remember me.”

The girl blushed as she walked off in the same direction as the blond boy. She didn’t look back, nor did Joel watch her leave.

Reaching under his bench, he retrieved his MacBook, opened it, and deleted a few more emails before beginning his homework.


Afterward: In classic prose, the writer presents a truth to her reader. When my classmates read this, they thought my truth was that "Joel is an egotistical jerk." That wasn't my original intent, but okay. 


Dr. Allison, however, wrote the greatest comments on my paper. After Joel acts elitist toward the girl (for the first time), he wrote: "He should be slapped!" And after the girl scooted closer to Joel the second time, he wrote: "She still likes him? Why?"

Oh, Dr. Allison, if only you knew.