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.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Saturday, January 15, 2011
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.
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.
Monday, January 3, 2011
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.
"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.
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