Out of the many testimonials we read from the Writing Life, Muriel Sparks spoke out with the strongest words for me. I enjoyed how she said she couldn't reread her past works because they each captured who she was at the moment she wrote it, someone she is not anymore. The point of her missive was that past all the rejection slips and egregiously painful works, we are storytellers in one form or another, speaking our stories from a demesne within our beings. It is the calling of a writer.
We all fantasize about that perfect job. We all crave that one place we could go day after day and do our work feeling like a little kid about to run into a playground while still getting paid for it. The Writing Life selection for last week seemed to touch on elements of the real tooth-grinding, white knuckled work it takes to clear the cacophony of ideas from the head of a writer onto paper. We scream when a plot won't twist to the music of the dialogue; we bellow in frustration when that setting won't pan out to a beautiful view of the last funeral of a withering family line. Our eyes are on a page, a screen, or a notebook; our hearts are in the words. I didn't ask to become a writer in this life, but the stories have my mind hostage. God bless the ditch-diggers!!!
Monday, September 27, 2010
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Nerd-gasms
It was late afternoon as I made my way to the third floor of the library. I sat near the center of the room at a table that was just as excited to see me as I was to be there. Searchengines and research...all old hat and tiresome. Cheryl Stiles was excited for us to be there and as she started up the title page for the citation software she briefly mentioned what it can do. At that moment, the cruel visceral wrath of fate jarred the neurons in my jaw, lips, and vocal cords to produce a series of sounds and enunciation that would echo through the rest of Cheryl's presentation:"I resist any computer aid to writing a citation because of where I work." Following that moment, Cheryl made it clear to incorporate that sentiment into her presentation with one quip after another meant to jibe at my distaste. Singled out? Not possible. I think she was standing on the grassy knoll. Her presentation was effective, entertaining, albeit painfully so, and informative. I was so pleased to discover the films on demand aspect of GALILEO. I left that room quickly, nursing the wounds of every dart thrown.
We reconvened in the bowels of the library, a dark demesne buried under tons of concrete, brick, steel, and books. The dark shadowy halls echoed the quiet, yet bemused, feel of every step. As I approached the Rare Book Room, I noted the often closed door standing gaping wide like the open arms of an old familiar friend waiting for an embrace. The dark wood-paneled walls stood in silent affirmation of the dignity and pride placed into each and every inch of the room. Miss Impey-Imes bubbled with excitement as she practically exploded into her presentation. She described each book, each piece of history, and each story locked in the walls and tomes with a zeal found in a 4-year old looking to share a new world with those around them. We began to share her awe, excitement, and delight as the rare tomes passed from hand to hand. The ancient pages showing the wear and tear of time and loving care. I held the beauty of writing in many glorious stages of our human history. Multiple Nerd-gasms.
We reconvened in the bowels of the library, a dark demesne buried under tons of concrete, brick, steel, and books. The dark shadowy halls echoed the quiet, yet bemused, feel of every step. As I approached the Rare Book Room, I noted the often closed door standing gaping wide like the open arms of an old familiar friend waiting for an embrace. The dark wood-paneled walls stood in silent affirmation of the dignity and pride placed into each and every inch of the room. Miss Impey-Imes bubbled with excitement as she practically exploded into her presentation. She described each book, each piece of history, and each story locked in the walls and tomes with a zeal found in a 4-year old looking to share a new world with those around them. We began to share her awe, excitement, and delight as the rare tomes passed from hand to hand. The ancient pages showing the wear and tear of time and loving care. I held the beauty of writing in many glorious stages of our human history. Multiple Nerd-gasms.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Questions, answers, and a mental appendectomy
How shall I start thee, let me count the ways. I have spent considerable time reading, rereading, perusing, defining, elaborating, and editing the interview handed down to me by the great muse of interrogation. My friend was very helpful in her responses and quite humorous. I don't expect a Pulitzer for this interview, but I feel it will be insightful to those who seek to publish in local news.
I have spent a little time thinking about the Prose readings in contrast to some readings for other courses: Plato, Cicero, Quintilian, Ramus, and Castiglione to name a few. It is interesting to see the overlap between rhetorical tropes from various dead guys come forward in Prose's examination of style. What does this mean for my aspiring career as a teacher? I feel privileged to be able to share these elements of style and graceful methods of writing with future impressionable (warp-able) young minds. For what is composition without a sense of composing with grace? It is an empty declaration of motives without persuasion, coherence, or voice. Somehow, my readings keep bringing me back to some of the first essays I read about education and composition by Adrienne Rich, Susan Griffin, Richard Rodriguez, and Paolo Freire. Even Janet Burroway's textbook Writing Fiction found its way off my shelf and into my lap one morning after reading for my PRWR6300 course. These connections to be drawn seem to form a web that slowly complicates itself into a latticework of indecipherable complexity that, according to Derrida, could take hundreds of years to unravel.
I have spent a little time thinking about the Prose readings in contrast to some readings for other courses: Plato, Cicero, Quintilian, Ramus, and Castiglione to name a few. It is interesting to see the overlap between rhetorical tropes from various dead guys come forward in Prose's examination of style. What does this mean for my aspiring career as a teacher? I feel privileged to be able to share these elements of style and graceful methods of writing with future impressionable (warp-able) young minds. For what is composition without a sense of composing with grace? It is an empty declaration of motives without persuasion, coherence, or voice. Somehow, my readings keep bringing me back to some of the first essays I read about education and composition by Adrienne Rich, Susan Griffin, Richard Rodriguez, and Paolo Freire. Even Janet Burroway's textbook Writing Fiction found its way off my shelf and into my lap one morning after reading for my PRWR6300 course. These connections to be drawn seem to form a web that slowly complicates itself into a latticework of indecipherable complexity that, according to Derrida, could take hundreds of years to unravel.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
A combination of interview questions and Prose (oh cripes another pun).
Let me begin with....wait....why should I be asking you to let me do anything, this is my blog and you must suffer through every written word like a Jehovah's witness strapped to a chair watching consecutive episodes of "Barney and Friends" for innumerable days straight. (no Jehovah's witnesses were harmed in the writing of this blog) Francine Prose has given a few gems for this blog tonight, starting with "details." Those tiny little gems that we see in the written work that spark the memory, captivate the attention, and remind us day after day that we read that work regardless of how much we want to sit in denial.
I speak of those tiny tricks authors place into their works that add a flavor to the story that Tums and Peptobismol will not remove long after digestion. There are many good examples of this idea: the "blue-within-blue eyes" of the Fremen people in Frank Herbert's Dune series, the black light-absorbing qualities of truly ordered metal in L.E.Modessit's Magic of Recluse series, and the unforgettable hairy feet of the hobbits in J.R.R.Tolkien's many fantasy tales.
The prose of Prose continues (and yes there is Ibuprofen to remove the pain of those puns) in her assessment of the two sections on Reading for Courage and Antoine Chekov. I must admit she had some interesting insights into the realms of writing with her pep talk on courage, but the Chekov section struck me as a die-hard fan screaming the name of her favorite toy from atop a skyscraper. Words are words and as easily as blacksmiths hammer out machinations of their labors, writers will produce a plethora of venues, genres, and imaginings from many worlds and genres. (and blacksmithing is NOT easy for you research impaired people)
With regards to our online posting of a history of writing, I can say that nothing strikes me more painful than being a publisher before Gutenberg graced us with his gift of mass production and mass media. The labor and intensity involved with producing a written work in the Greco-Roman periods makes me see the amount of dedication it took Plato and Cicero to record their treatises on rhetoric. All these musings aside, it is time to move on to the nitty-gritty.
Here is the official listing for my interview questions:
Interview Subject: Shannon Carey. Editor and assistant publisher of the Shopper, a local weekly newspaper for Knox County, Tennessee.
Due to scheduling issues, this interview will be conducted through email.
Interview Questions
1. How did you obtain your job with the Shopper?
2. How long have you worked for the Shopper?
3. What events in your life do you feel best prepared you for the work you do now?
4. What sorts of schoolwork or extracurricular activities that prepared you for work as an editor?
5. Do you have any sort of daily ritual that serves as a preparation to writing, or do you just sit down every day at a certain time and begin?
6. What are the most rewarding parts of your job?
7. What skills do you feel are the most critical to have for any editor?
8. What books or authors do you feel most impacted your approach to writing for the Shopper?
9. How has the change to being an assistant publisher affected your responsibilities?
10. What are some of your favorite feature articles and why?
11. What sort of material do you look for from any freelance writer?
12. Looking at the impact of Internet publication, how do you feel the online demand will affect the Shopper in the future?
13. Of the articles that you have written, what are some of your favorite and why?
14. What advice do you give to aspiring freelance writers? Editors?
15. What types of news do you feel are most relevant to your readers? Why?
16. Outside of journalism, what types of writing in other genres do you do?
17. What advice could you give others that you wish you had known before you began the work you do now?
While none of these questions are easy, simple, or trite, they do touch on elements that I wish to know as a freelance writer. I just hope my friend Shannon responds and forgives me in time.
I speak of those tiny tricks authors place into their works that add a flavor to the story that Tums and Peptobismol will not remove long after digestion. There are many good examples of this idea: the "blue-within-blue eyes" of the Fremen people in Frank Herbert's Dune series, the black light-absorbing qualities of truly ordered metal in L.E.Modessit's Magic of Recluse series, and the unforgettable hairy feet of the hobbits in J.R.R.Tolkien's many fantasy tales.
The prose of Prose continues (and yes there is Ibuprofen to remove the pain of those puns) in her assessment of the two sections on Reading for Courage and Antoine Chekov. I must admit she had some interesting insights into the realms of writing with her pep talk on courage, but the Chekov section struck me as a die-hard fan screaming the name of her favorite toy from atop a skyscraper. Words are words and as easily as blacksmiths hammer out machinations of their labors, writers will produce a plethora of venues, genres, and imaginings from many worlds and genres. (and blacksmithing is NOT easy for you research impaired people)
With regards to our online posting of a history of writing, I can say that nothing strikes me more painful than being a publisher before Gutenberg graced us with his gift of mass production and mass media. The labor and intensity involved with producing a written work in the Greco-Roman periods makes me see the amount of dedication it took Plato and Cicero to record their treatises on rhetoric. All these musings aside, it is time to move on to the nitty-gritty.
Here is the official listing for my interview questions:
Interview Subject: Shannon Carey. Editor and assistant publisher of the Shopper, a local weekly newspaper for Knox County, Tennessee.
Due to scheduling issues, this interview will be conducted through email.
Interview Questions
1. How did you obtain your job with the Shopper?
2. How long have you worked for the Shopper?
3. What events in your life do you feel best prepared you for the work you do now?
4. What sorts of schoolwork or extracurricular activities that prepared you for work as an editor?
5. Do you have any sort of daily ritual that serves as a preparation to writing, or do you just sit down every day at a certain time and begin?
6. What are the most rewarding parts of your job?
7. What skills do you feel are the most critical to have for any editor?
8. What books or authors do you feel most impacted your approach to writing for the Shopper?
9. How has the change to being an assistant publisher affected your responsibilities?
10. What are some of your favorite feature articles and why?
11. What sort of material do you look for from any freelance writer?
12. Looking at the impact of Internet publication, how do you feel the online demand will affect the Shopper in the future?
13. Of the articles that you have written, what are some of your favorite and why?
14. What advice do you give to aspiring freelance writers? Editors?
15. What types of news do you feel are most relevant to your readers? Why?
16. Outside of journalism, what types of writing in other genres do you do?
17. What advice could you give others that you wish you had known before you began the work you do now?
While none of these questions are easy, simple, or trite, they do touch on elements that I wish to know as a freelance writer. I just hope my friend Shannon responds and forgives me in time.
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