Telling Me What To Do

I was really worried about the work-shopping aspect of this course. I'm used to teachers and professors telling me what does and doesn't work in my writing, as they've been doing that my whole educational career  However, I'm pretty used to just going back to my work and doing exactly what I'm told would improve it.  I've never spent a lot of time defending my choices, or even politely disagreeing with a professor, and doing what I know is right for the piece.  I appreciate that in this class and in the Zinsser book, I've been encouraged to consider the criticism, and make a good choice on what to keep and what to change.  I'm not bad at being told what to do, but I'm a lot better at being encouraged, and constructively criticized.

I feel that I could certainly stand up to an overzealous editor.  I'm learning that not only do I have to take ownership of my piece of work, but also the entire writing/editing/proofreading process.  Like my children, no one is going to be the advocate for my piece but me.  As a writer, it's my responsibility to nurture and protect my work.

As far as the peer review goes...I've loved it.  What a blessing it is to be in class with kind, patient, talented people. I've been very happy with the feedback and encouragement I've received in the course.  I'm not one to share a piece before it's completely finished, but I think I will give it a go from now on.  Now, to find the right reviewers!

Enjoying Writing

 Can you isolate a single experience when you thoroughly enjoyed your writing--both the process and the final product? Specifically, what was it about that experience that interested you--and which you enjoyed? Why? What about your writing thrills, excites, or satisfies you in those moments?


There are many times that I've enjoyed the writing experience and the fruits of my labors.  My blog, before life got more hectic than I could handle, was the place I spent the most of my writing time.  Once specific piece wrote was after our former church's Christmas Eve service.  It is below:

 

For the first time in our Anglican life, I went to the 5:00 family service instead of midnighht mass on Christmas Eve.  This is, obviously, because this is my first Christmas Eve as a mommy.  Though I had to miss my favorite service of the season, I feel far closer to the Lord and Mother Mary this year than any other.

Soon the Virgin will give birth.  It is but a little less than five months ago that I labored and delivered Adeline.  I labored in a warm, comfortable hospital room.  I had a birth plan that indicated if and what pain medications I may want, what positions I would like to labor in, who I wanted in the room, what liquids/foods I would wish to have.  I had nurses at the push of a call button, medical professionals with sterile instruments, and medical knowledge of what was happening to me.  So, at this hour when when Mary would be laboring with our Savior, I think about the conditions in which she brought him into this world. Suffering and surrounded by animals, most likely without proper sustenance, and definitely without a midwife or doctor.

I wonder if Mary knew the reward that would be the world’s because of her faithfulness.  I wonder if pushing was made easier by knowing that the son of God would soon emerge from her.  I wonder if she was worried that something may go wrong.As soon as she was born, I knew that Adeline was made in the image of our God and that she had been set a part by Him for His purposes…but how would it feel to know that your child IS God?  “But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.” (Luke 2:19)  Man, I know that feeling!

As a new mommy, I must admit I feel a little bit of guilt and regret towards Mary.  I know that this day, as her Son, our Savior, is born, I have already sentenced him to death.  I have sinned against my neighbor, my Savior, and, in turn, His/Our Mother.  And yet, she intercedes for her Son’s murderers. Should someone (God, please forbid it) inflict pain on Adeline, would I be able to ask for his salvation in a court of law?  I cannot think that I would, nor would want to.  But the Blessed Virgin does so for me – and on a MUCH bigger level.

So as the clock nears 12:00 PM, I think of Mary and her labor and delivery more intently and knowingly than I ever have.  I pray that someday my daughter will feel closer to Mary simply by becoming a mother, and as such will feel closer to her Savior…because once He was a baby not so different than she is now.

This piece is very much me.  It is how I think, it is how I feel, it is about two of the dearest things to me; my faith and my family.  What I enjoyed so much about writing this piece was the intimacy of my soul and my words colliding into a piece that others (mothers especially) could understand, and the hope that perhaps it would reveal something to the reader that they hadn't thought or felt before.  

The satisfaction, for me, comes in saying something in a way that perhaps others haven't.  It is being clear, with a balance of conciseness and eloquence in order to reveal something to my reader.  It is being passionate about something, but reigning in that passion and excitement in order to communicate it understandably and as beautifully as possible.

Dialogue

I, as usual, enjoyed the Zinsser reading this week.  I enjoyed the practicality of his advice on not beginning with a notepad, and then bringing it out once the interviewee is comfortable and loosened up.  I was relieved when he suggested that we shouldn't be using a voice recorder, as I think that tenses people up even more than a pen and a pad of paper does.  I appreciated his advice on how to weave an interview into a piece without overwhelming the reader. I'm hopeful to do this in my own piece.

--

My husband, Matthew, has been a stay-at-home dad to our daughter for almost two years now.  He's absolutely wonderful at it, but we've never really talked about what he thinks of it, or how other people view him.  So, I asked him.

"I love being home with her.  I get to see and interact with her in ways other dads don't get the opportunity.  I get to see all the crazy annoying things she does and also get to see the amazing progress she makes daily," he responded.

"What do your friends think?"

"Half of them think I'm lazy and lucky to be home to play video games all day.  Most other dads say, 'Dude, you have a harder job than I do!', but I think the truth lies somewhere between those. I'm definitely not gaming all day, but hanging out with her all day is mostly fun."

"Are you ready to get back to work or classes?"

"Absolutely.  I wouldn't take back this time with her for anything, but you should get a chance.  And, that Master's program isn't going to finish itself,"  he replied.

The Living Room

 When you get finished, write a paragraph of metawriting; what did you find yourself having to rethink? What challenged you, or conversely, what did you find easy?


I plop down nightly to do homework in the same place that my family plays and relaxes in.  Our living room is the hub of our lives. It's my two year old's playroom, my husband's entertainment area, and for the last year-and-a-half, my study room. 


Nightly, after tucking my daughter in bed, I tromp down the stairs, through our dinky dining space and into the dinky living room.  After plucking up blocks, and balls, and books off of the tan, unpadded carpet (rental grade for this rented space), I sit down on the right side of the olive green micro-suede couch, where my pink Dell is perched on the arm with my textbooks on the antique walnut end table next to it.  I stare across the room at the black rectangle of turned off television, constantly convincing myself that the work needs to be done before relaxation can happen. The yellow plastic school bus seems to ram itself into the red wooden barn in the toy basket.   Some nights, my husband sits on the other end of the couch, where his white Mac and textbooks mirror my own set-up.  Between us accumulate stacks of paper, sweatshirts, and forgotten story books from the course of the day.  If I sit back just far enough, I can't see through the dining space to the stack of dishes in the kitchen sink that will just have to wait until tomorrow, but can still see my little one's art easel and her masterpiece production of the day.  All good reminders of why I sit here studying, working, and writing.




This is a very personal place for me. As mentioned, we do everything right here or within sight distance of the living room.  I'm exposed to this area for hours and hours everyday, and it's just plain old commonplace, and hard to see any differently than I usually do.  I'm not great at writing exercises in general.  It's hard for me to get passionate about assigned topics, so that's always a hang-up for me, but having been sick and home from work all week, I've had a lot of time to sit and look at this space. 


Another issue for me is always that feelings are more pronounced to me than physical details, which I think probably showed through here more than I'd hoped.

Solace

This week has been tumultuous for me.  Dealing with morning sickness all day, a three course-load term, my two-year-old, work, church responsibilities, and a dinner party this week have had me absolutely out of my mind.  Friday night spent doing homework is not what I've been looking forward to all week.  But, here I sit tonight reading the excerpt from the first chapter of Gretel Ehrlich's The Solace of Open Places, and this is the most relaxed I've been all week.

Ehrlich does a fantastic job of making me feel and understand what it is like to live Wyoming.  I can see it, and hear it, and feel it's culture.  I know how it's changed the author, and just by reading the essay, I'm convinced that living in Wyoming would change me too.  This piece is definitely seen through the "I."  I really like that about it.  We get good facts about Wyoming, and those are important to know to be able to understand actually what the state is like.  But their main purpose in this piece, in my opinion is to give context to the sights, sounds, and feelings that Wyoming gives.

I'm a sucker for place essays.  Every one I read has me putting a new city, state, or country on my bucket list of places to visit.  So, reading this essay has again set the bar high for me.  I have to admit, however, this essay was a bit different for me.  I've never read this short of a piece on an entire state and been able to get a true idea of what it is like.  This is giving more to think about, as I've not chosen my place/location to write about.  But now I'm a little more aware that whatever place I choose does not have to be predictable.

Aside from the bearing on my writing this piece may have, The Solace of Open Places has again reminded me the power of literature and writing.  I hope that I can take that with me as I draft my place/travel essay this week.

Zinnser and What He Did For Me

The most intriguing thing I read in our Zinnser text (though I thoroughly enjoyed the assigned sections), was his suggestions about writing a memoir. I really liked the suggestion of sitting down everyday and writing a few pages about a memory and building it into a memoir.  It's something I will work on after graduation.  If it doesn't end up a complete piece, then at least I'll have had a whole lot of practice.

Zinnser gave me permission this week.  Permission to let go of the intense stories I so desperately want to tell about my life, and to start with something not-so-heavy but not-so-light either.  The reading helped me to look at my life, at the little situations that happen in it, and see what major things have sprouted from them. With this essay, I started writing about a few different topics before I settled into my final idea.  The first idea was about the last day my father was alive.  This proved too much for a thousand words, and just felt too heavy for what I wanted to do.  The second idea was about my daughter being swapped with another baby at the hospital after her birth.  The problem was with that that I'd written a blog post about it a year ago, and everything just seemed far too factual, and like I had very little opportunity to make it very creative.  It certainly had immediate and long-term implications for my life, and is a piece that I'd like to work on again, but just isn't something I felt that I could finish in two weeks.

I finally ended up with doing exactly what Zinnser suggested.  I picked a random memory out of my mind and went with it.  The memory was plucking a beautiful wooden sick call cross out of the abyss that was the basement in my childhood home when I was sixteen.  As I wrote the piece, I realized that the cross/crucifix had played a part and especially mirrored my spiritual journey.  That memory has stuck in my head forever, and through this piece, I now understand why.  I hope that after this is work-shopped (to death if need be!) that it will be a decent finished piece that I can store inside that crucifix for my daughter to read one day, as someday I hope it will be hers.

This is exactly what Zinnser's father did for him, and I'm looking forward to using his suggestions to do it for my daughter.

Non-Fiction and What I Have to Say

A few terms ago, I took a Popular Fiction course in which we read Stephen King's On Writing.  Reading about non-fiction as a form of literature in Zinsser's On Writing Well reminded me of a section in King's book.  King wrote:

"I have spent a good many years since - too many, I think -being ashamed about what I write.  I think I was forty before I realized that almost every other writer of fiction and poetry who has ever published a line has been accused by someone of wasting his or her God-given talent.  If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it, that's all."

I appreciate what both Zinsser and King have to say about the various forms of writing.  "Ultimately every writer must follow the path that feels most comfortable.  For most people learning to write, that path is non-fiction," writes Zinnser. Non-fiction, Science Fiction, poetry, etc. are all valid writing styles. They can all be literature. Zinnser's statement about learning to write in the most comfortable manner was helpful to me. No matter how I've tried or pined,  I certainly am not a poet or a fiction writer, but I do love to write.  Non-fiction is my medium.  It allows me, as Zinnser says, to write what I know. Recently, I've found myself being somewhat disappointed that what I have to write about, what I know right now is motherhood, marriage, and my faith...and not much more.  I live work, school, church, and home life, even my hobbies have taken a backseat.  It is encouraging to read two well-respected  authors say not to be discouraged or embarrassed at what I have to say, but just to say it effectively and as well as I can.

That being said, I'm extremely excited to have an opportunity to practice the craft of non-fiction and work to hone my skills.  I'm hoping that while writing this term, I will find a direction and a voice I'd like to write in for my own projects.  It is difficult as a working mother to find time to write, and I'm grateful for this opportunity to spend eight weeks  learning to better write pieces of non-fiction.  Ultimately, I think writing non-fiction would be a great way to make a supplemental income while exploring subjects that I find interesting.

I am terrified, of course, that I will find that I have nothing to say.  Either nothing original to say, or nothing to say originally.  So, while my great big hope is that I will hone my skills enough to write for profit (and fun, of course), my first hope is that I can figure out something worthwhile to say.