Because I am Such a Serious Writer.
Jul. 8th, 2012 10:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
in_the_blueI'm putting off working on stuff by letting myself get distracted by the Red Sox and the entire internet.
And this meme, courtesy of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
scribble_myname:
Comment to this post saying "FIVE!" and I will pick five things I would like you to talk about. They might make sense or be totally random.
Then post that list, with your commentary, to your journal. Other people can get lists from you, and the meme merrily perpetuates itself, hopefully for the rest of eternity!
(I don't really care if you say "FIVE" or let me know some other way. Just for the record.)
I got the following list of things to talk about:
1. literature
2. friends
3. favorite beverage(s)
4. "real" life
5. photography
Literature. For those who don't know, I graduated college with a B.A. in English, concentration on Literature. My personal focus was actually Irish literature because of my unbridled affection for James Joyce & William Butler Yeats. It's a niche market, I know, and along the way I developed an equally great affection for American authors like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Flannery O'Connor and Louise Erdrich and Ray Bradbury, all of whom I strive to emulate in different ways. Because really, what is writing besides the most prodigious sort of theft?
I didn't come by my degree in English easily. My older sister is a writer, has always been a writer, is published, and I know I've talked before about the no-compete clause in my family. Because she wrote, I was told to do something else. But but but, I said then and say now, there's more than enough creativity to go around. So when I went off to college it was for a different love, teaching. I was going to be a kindergarten teacher if it killed me. When I went to college for orientation, one of the first things I heard was oh, how traditional, a woman going into early childhood education, you really should pick something else, poor girl. It made me feel bad from the start, although I stayed with my major for a couple years before switching. Then I bobbled back and forth and finally realized that the classes I loved best and had the most fun with -- where I'd taken the most electives and had the most credit -- were all in the English department. I had no qualms about switching to it or to sticking with it. My favorite classes were the tiny Irish Lit seminars with five and six students where the teacher didn't mind if I argued symbolism in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (my teacher's theory: seaweed is green so it must represent Ireland; my theory: sometimes, seaweed is just seaweed and sometimes authors just describe the scene).
I was told by a friend this week that she wanted to be more outspoken and sure of herself, like me. I was flattered and impressed, and in thinking about it, I have to credit my English Lit major with giving me the ability to have faith in myself and in voicing my opinions. It taught me how to present my case, to be persuasive, to write about things in ways that make sense. What it didn't really teach me was how to be a good creative writer. That's something I think I do well, and it's also something I stumbled on by myself. Once I got past the whole non-compete clause in my family (after I graduated from college), I decided to experiment with writing and see if I could do it. I wrote a lot of garbage, a lot of crap, but along the way I never stopped reading. I read everything I could get my hands on, three and four books a week. Found voices I liked (I still have the biggest crush on Lipsha Morrissey), voices I didn't like, but always kept writing. Little stories, poems, novels that I never want anyone to read, ever, the end. And fanfiction, which is a whole different beast.
I used to be braver about submitting my stuff. I'm not that great with rejection. But in my dreams I can see myself as a contributor to the vast amount of literature already out there. I know I can write in a clear and accessible and passionate way, and I have all the literature that's out there to thank for it. I'm also lucky to live in the gorgeous Pacific Northwest, which is a little bit of a hotbed of writing. Now I just have to stick my neck out and do something, take a leap of faith, and get going. Then I can inflict my own brand of literary fiction on all of you.
I'll cover the other stuff a topic at a time. Thanks, M!
And this meme, courtesy of
scribble_myname:Comment to this post saying "FIVE!" and I will pick five things I would like you to talk about. They might make sense or be totally random.
Then post that list, with your commentary, to your journal. Other people can get lists from you, and the meme merrily perpetuates itself, hopefully for the rest of eternity!
(I don't really care if you say "FIVE" or let me know some other way. Just for the record.)
I got the following list of things to talk about:
1. literature
2. friends
3. favorite beverage(s)
4. "real" life
5. photography
Literature. For those who don't know, I graduated college with a B.A. in English, concentration on Literature. My personal focus was actually Irish literature because of my unbridled affection for James Joyce & William Butler Yeats. It's a niche market, I know, and along the way I developed an equally great affection for American authors like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Flannery O'Connor and Louise Erdrich and Ray Bradbury, all of whom I strive to emulate in different ways. Because really, what is writing besides the most prodigious sort of theft?
I didn't come by my degree in English easily. My older sister is a writer, has always been a writer, is published, and I know I've talked before about the no-compete clause in my family. Because she wrote, I was told to do something else. But but but, I said then and say now, there's more than enough creativity to go around. So when I went off to college it was for a different love, teaching. I was going to be a kindergarten teacher if it killed me. When I went to college for orientation, one of the first things I heard was oh, how traditional, a woman going into early childhood education, you really should pick something else, poor girl. It made me feel bad from the start, although I stayed with my major for a couple years before switching. Then I bobbled back and forth and finally realized that the classes I loved best and had the most fun with -- where I'd taken the most electives and had the most credit -- were all in the English department. I had no qualms about switching to it or to sticking with it. My favorite classes were the tiny Irish Lit seminars with five and six students where the teacher didn't mind if I argued symbolism in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (my teacher's theory: seaweed is green so it must represent Ireland; my theory: sometimes, seaweed is just seaweed and sometimes authors just describe the scene).
I was told by a friend this week that she wanted to be more outspoken and sure of herself, like me. I was flattered and impressed, and in thinking about it, I have to credit my English Lit major with giving me the ability to have faith in myself and in voicing my opinions. It taught me how to present my case, to be persuasive, to write about things in ways that make sense. What it didn't really teach me was how to be a good creative writer. That's something I think I do well, and it's also something I stumbled on by myself. Once I got past the whole non-compete clause in my family (after I graduated from college), I decided to experiment with writing and see if I could do it. I wrote a lot of garbage, a lot of crap, but along the way I never stopped reading. I read everything I could get my hands on, three and four books a week. Found voices I liked (I still have the biggest crush on Lipsha Morrissey), voices I didn't like, but always kept writing. Little stories, poems, novels that I never want anyone to read, ever, the end. And fanfiction, which is a whole different beast.
I used to be braver about submitting my stuff. I'm not that great with rejection. But in my dreams I can see myself as a contributor to the vast amount of literature already out there. I know I can write in a clear and accessible and passionate way, and I have all the literature that's out there to thank for it. I'm also lucky to live in the gorgeous Pacific Northwest, which is a little bit of a hotbed of writing. Now I just have to stick my neck out and do something, take a leap of faith, and get going. Then I can inflict my own brand of literary fiction on all of you.
I'll cover the other stuff a topic at a time. Thanks, M!
