Writer as Teammate.

I've found this course to be very helpful as an insight into the life of a professional nonfiction writer.  I think before I started this course I had a good idea of what that entailed, but after reading a selection of Zinsser's "On Writing Well" and submitting four short stories of my own, I have a deeper understanding of the working relationship between the writer and the publication that is choosing to use that piece to represent them. I especially liked that Zinsser explained the fights he's gotten into over what happens to his writing after he's been paid for them - he actually cared about the text that appeared under his name because that's all he was to the audience and he wanted to be portrayed accurately.  I was always under the impression that the writer had to do what the editor said or else they couldn't work.  This may well be the case sometimes, especially for newbie writers, but Zinsser painted editors in a different light even though he said himself that they have given him more trouble than they have helped him.  It’s encouraging to know that the writer does have some say in what gets printed because Zinsser is right about people reading a particular author simply for the way that the personality shines through on paper.  I’m even a bit interested now in a job posting that I’ve seen a few times in the local classifieds about a newspaper correspondent who reviews the local hot spots.  It’s definitely something I feel more confident that I could do after I’ve taken this class.

If given the choice between being a writer and having my work being criticized or being an editor and criticizing the work of others, I’d definitely choose being a writer.  While it’s easy for me to word negative criticism in a nice way, I don’t care for giving that negative criticism in the first place.  I’m the type of person that will avoid confrontation at all costs – even if that means pretending to like a person that I don’t in order to spare their feelings if there’s something about his or her personality that I just can’t get past.  Don’t get me wrong, I generally get along with everyone, but there have been one or two people that I just have to distance myself from or I’ll have a brain aneurism from reserving all of my snarky comments.  This being said, my least favorite part of workshopping was giving the peer reviews.  There were a lot of good essays this term, so I think I got lucky that I didn’t have to really give much negative feedback (and if I thought I would have to give too much for one essay, I’d just skip it). 

On Writing.

I used to write in high school for fun; just to see if I could.  I remember the first piece I sat down and wrote on my own that wasn’t a journal entry or a school assignment.  It was a fiction piece and it had nothing to do with myself.  From start to finish, I think it was ten pages handwritten and I completed it in one sitting.  I remember that as I was writing, it was as if a movie reel was playing in my mind – like I was dreaming while I was awake, which gave me the unique advantage of being in control of the dream.  It was entirely freeing.  It was my way of experimenting with reality and of seeing an outcome of some event without having to actually experience it, hurtful as it was.  After I was finished, I was especially shocked with how the story unfolded itself.  I had no outline for a story when I put pen to paper and what I came up with was a story with romance, intrigue, and a twist in the end that no one could have predicted.  The closest story I’ve read to it that I can think of is Richard Matheson’s “Somewhere in Time” (otherwise known as “Bid Time Return”).

It was about a boy and a girl who’d been in love since junior high.  They grew up together.  And after high school, the boy chose to stay in his home town and work while the girl chose to go off to college and experience what life had to offer.  She was much more free-spirited than the boy, who was somewhat conservative.  While at college, the girl made a new group of friends who introduced her to drinking and real parties; college life as we know it.  She stopped calling the boy and slowly they drifted apart, much to his dismay.  One night, she went out to a party with her friends and no one was designated to be the sober driver, so when it came time to go home, they went with the least drunk person to get behind the wheel.  As the boy was sleeping that night, he dreamed he was at the party with his girlfriend, following her around with her group of friends and trying to guide her although she was completely unaware of his presence.  He watched her get into the car with her friends and he watched the car crash into another car head on.  All of the passengers died in his girlfriend’s vehicle and when morning came, the boy never woke up from his dream.

I don’t know what exactly this story expressed about myself, but I’m sure a psychoanalyst would have a ball interpreting it for me (and I’d probably find some useful advice).  However, I do know that when I gave it to my brother to read, he loved it.  So, I then gave it to my best friend to read, who loved it as well.  Then, I began giving it to random classmates to read, and when they also enjoyed it, something sparked in me.  I wanted to write more – and I did – but after a while, the effect wore off.  I found something else to occupy my time.  I still have that ability to sit and free-flow words out when it’s something I’m interested in, however.  I’m able to become fully invested in what I have to say and I’m so grateful for that.  Now, if only I could focus that energy whenever I needed to.  My biggest problem with writing is starting.  It’s all downhill from there.

Literary Journalism.

While reading this week's assigned Zinsser chapter, I learned that a tape recorder is usually undesirable for these types of interviews because they make the person being interviewed nervous - especially if they don't know the writer well to begin with - and they have a tendency to malfunction.  It is suggested that a person take a pen and paper with them to an interview that way they can filter the important information from the conversation immediately.  If the person is talking to fast to record it by hand, Zinsser simply suggests asking him or her to pause and give the writer time to catch up.  It all sounds so simple, but it's brilliant!  I would rather be safe than sorry and this is the way to ensure that; just like writing problems out step-by-step while doing math equations.
 

So, here’s my practice conversation; My husband came home from class two days ago and showed me some “bug bites” that he woke up with, asking me if I’d been bitten at all while I slept.  I said that I hadn’t, so he quickly moved on to a new subject, forgetting about the bites as if they were insignificant now.  That evening, after he’d gone to his second class, he came back home with the right half of his upper lip swollen and I asked what happened. 

“I don’t know,” he said. “I looked in the mirror when I got in the car and noticed it. No one said anything to me in class, so I don’t know when it started.”

“No one said anything to you in class?” I said. “Then, it must’ve happened quickly.  What do you think is wrong?”

“I must be allergic to something I ate.  I can’t think of what it would be, though, because I haven’t eaten anything different today.  I mean, I took some of your cranberry pills.  That’s all I can think of.”

“Well, do you want to go to the hospital? You’re starting to look like Hitch from that Will Smith movie!”

“I know.  I don’t think it’s that serious, though.  I mean, I can breathe just fine and it doesn’t hurt.  I think I just wanna wait it out.”

“Okay.  Do you want to go get some allergy medicine?”

“I don’t want to leave the house looking like this. Would you mind getting some for me?”

“Sure.  I’ll just run to Albertson’s.  Do you want anything else?”

“No.  Thank you for doing this for me.  This really sucks!”

“I know; I’m sorry.  I wish we knew what exactly was wrong.  Alright, I’ll be back soon.  I love you.”

“I love you, too. Please hurry.”

I think this is one of the more enjoyable ways to write for me.  I really feel like the characters should be the ones to tell the story because they add another dimension to things – plus it’s more straightforward and I don’t have to fuss over grammar because I’m writing just the way the words were said.  I’m looking forward to turning in my paper!

Where I Write.

[[[     I don't like to be stuffed in a sound-proof room or confined in any other way when I write.  However, while it's true that any amount of noise can ruin my train of thought, I think I do a fine enough job of that on my own in complete silence.  So, when I write, I like to sit in my living room.  In order to be able to think in this space, I kick out anyone that's capable of making noise, which isn't difficult most days because the only other person living with me is my husband and two cats -- and they simply move into another room.  I like to sit on the couch, but not facing forward with my back against the cushions and my feet on the floor the way you're supposed to sit on a couch; I like to sit cross-legged with my back against the right arm so that I'm sitting "sideways" on the seat.  This way, the coffee table is to my right and I can easily set down or pick up the Coca-Cola I'm guaranteed to be drinking and, if I choose to take a break at any point, I can flick the flatscreen on to watch a quick half-hour episode of one of my many recorded television programs.

Usually, the living room is the cleanest room in the house.  This works out well for me because I'm easily stressed and distracted, so if I am surrounded by a mess then I use it as an excuse not to get other obligations completed.  Another added touch that is therapeutic about my living room is the color scheme.  The couch is green and the floors are beige with a black/brown/beige shag rug -- and all the wood furniture is a dark reddish brown color.  Earthy colors relax me and aren't too bright to distract me in any way.  To supplement these calming colors, I light about four or five candles to enhance the ambiance and fill the room with fragrance.  The combination of all of these effects are enough to put me in a writing trance!     ]]]

The most difficult part of writing this description was figuring out how to take myself out of it, which I know I didn't do a good job of completing.  I think that's because I was trying to answer two questions -- where I write and why I write there.  Perhaps the answer to the second question is unnecessary?  But, I didn't know how else to start the piece.  Further, while it's supposed to be about where I write, I didn't know how to describe it without sounding boring and without over-complicating it with additional interesting facts that make my writing space different from anyone else's.  I tried to accomplish this by writing about how I sit and what I drink, but those aren't facts about my space.  I hope I balanced it out so that it's a place piece rather than a personal essay, but I can't very easily tell with this one.

Writing About a Place.

For this week’s blog assignment, I’m choosing to write about Ehrlich’s “The Solace of Open Spaces” because it is an essay that I can currently relate to as I live in Montana.  First, however, I want to say that the assignment this week reminds me of Anthony Bourdain’s television show called“No Reservations” that airs on the travel channel, minus all of the exotic food he samples.  It’s a show that I’ve seen many times and I’ve often wondered why he loves to write about traveling so much as I find it to seem very daunting.  Perhaps this is because I feel like, being an outsider, there is a lot of pressure to do the place that has been traveled to justice.  It would be very rude to just barge in on a place expecting welcome arms and maybe even open homes only for these locals to receive a nice, healthy dose of insults and slander simply because the place is not the writer’s “cup of tea” or, worse, because he or she misunderstood the place and/or its inhabitants.

Anyway, I enjoyed reading “The Solace of Open Spaces” and from my understanding, it’s not a travel piece – it’s a place piece.  This seems more comfortable to me.  When the writer described the drifts of snow making it difficult to decipher the foreground from the background, I understood one hundred percent.  She says “This white bulk is sometimes dizzying, even nauseating, to look at” and I’m reminded of the time my husband and I drove home from Orofino, Idaho by way of US-12 at night while it was snowing. I had to close my eyes (despite the fact that I’d taken a Dramamine) in order to calm my stomach because it was the first time I’d experienced vertigo.  Something else that I liked about this piece, very quickly, is that it reminded me a bit of a James Herriot novel.  Toward the end of the excerpt from the first chapter, she describes assisting a friend as a midwife to a cow having trouble with labor.  I distinctly remember several short stories of this nature from Herriot’s novel “All Creatures Great and Small.”  It’s a great way to tie the “I” portion of the story in with the descriptive details of the land and I’ve taken note of that, although I have no similar experiences I could use.

The text doesn’t raise any questions for me this week because the writer does an excellent job of fully explaining herself.  Furthermore, I have met a handful of people that could probably describe similar situations to me and if they have and I had questions, I’m sure they answered them for me.  For example, my father-in-law is someone who’s very familiar with land and raising sheep and horses (no cows, yet, I don’t think) and whenever I have a question I can expect a full-length educational explanation from him, so he’s my go-to guy.  I didn’t think of this assignment as a possibility of turning into a journalism article, but it does seem like something that could work.  Since I can’t think of very many ways to turn a place I’ve been to or traveled to into a journalism piece (unless some famous crime or person happened to have occurred or been there), I think it’s safe to say that I see it as more related to the personal essay style than journalism.  It’s much easier for me to think of the assignment that way because it makes me more comfortable since that’s how I’ve been writing for the past few weeks and it’s a challenge enough as it is.  I still feel like I’m practicing my writing as we move from week to week, but hopefully by the end, I’ll feel more secure with my work and become confident in my presentation for the portfolio.

On Memoirs.

Okayyyy! This week's reading was more like it!  While I found the author to be standoffish and a bit conceited last week, this week I found him to be warm and extremely helpful.  At first, when I started reading the examples he provided in chapter fourteen as ways to draw the reader into the simple story of a memoir, I thought he was going to go on and on with his name-dropping lists again.  What I found, though, was wonderful insight and helpful excerpts to refer to when thinking about my own memoir.  I actually even think I'd like to do his short exercise of writing three to five pages a day on a single memory from my life and elaborate on it.  He's made an excellent case for getting a personal story down on paper for later generations to absorb and learn from.

This week's reading really hit home for me because about two and a half years ago, I lost my grandfather with whom I was very close.  In fact, he and his mother helped raise my brother and me while my mom worked two jobs as a waitress to support us by herself.  When he was young, he got ringworm -- and the cure for that fungus was radiation.  Unfortunately, this treatment gave him brain tumors that ate away at his short-term memory and then his long-term memory...then it took his life.  I was only twenty when he passed and I realized then that I knew almost nothing about his life or his mother's (my Nana's).  They only ever made short, biting comments about the past, but they always chose their words carefully and never divulged more than a few sentences.  If I ever asked questions, they'd just shake their heads and purse their lips, then move on to talk about something on TV (the TV was always on at their house).  Shortly after my grandfather passed, I spent the holidays with my grandmother (my mother's mother and my grandfather's ex-wife).  I asked her about his and his mother's life and she said they acted the same way around her, never really sharing much.  What she had come to the conclusion of, she shared, after the few glimpses into their lives she got, was that my great-grandmother's family was probably Jewish and got caught up in the holocaust.  My father had the same assumptions based on their style of language and certain behaviors.  This now feels like something I should look into as it was such a huge part of history and possibly such a huge part of my family's history.  It might explain a lot.

After reading chapter 24, "Writing Family History and Memoir," I was inspired to get an ancestry.com account and make a family tree.  The chapter says that as a child, you tend to dismiss the stories that your elders share with you and only when a person has a child of their own, and begins to feel maturity sneaking up on them, do they become interested in those stories again.  That's why, at twenty-three, I'd like to make the most of the life and stories that my family has left.  Further, I'd like to record my memories as they're happening rather than having to dig them back up and start from scratch years later.  These chapters have inspired me to take a deeper look at myself and at my family and record everything I know because it's the closest I can get to taking photographs and I'd love for my children's children to know and understand who we are.

Nonfiction as Literature.

Hello class (and anyone else that has happened to stumble upon this blog)!

This is my first blog, so I am a bit self-conscious about coming off as boring, but I'll just quickly shake it off and begin.  While I was reading chapter 11 of Zinsser's On Writing Well, I assumed the viewpoint of a radio show audience member rather than as one of the empowered women that Zinsser was interviewing with (because I automatically identified with the listener instead of the writer -- imagine that!).  First off, I have to say that most radio personalities irritate me to the core.  Something about their obviously fake perkiness and their overt-the-top commercial voices.  I'm not interested in hearing about the parties they went to the night before and how hungover they are at the current moment or what their pet's favorite outfit is and why.  That being said, I understood Zinsser's annoyance with the "strenuous joviality" of the host's demeanor right out of the gate.  On the other hand, I didn't care for Zinsser's banning of certain words and all of the awkward silences that he could have easily prevented by simply explaining what exactly it was that he did.  It didn't seem to me that he even felt he needed to introduce himself to those listeners who had no idea who he even was.  Who does he think he is, Cher?  If I turned on the radio and heard this interview, say on NPR, I'm sure I would have changed the channel within the first minute.

It seemed to me that the rest of the chapter was mostly comprised of lists, which I felt the author was using to further parade his credentials to the reader.  Honestly, I got tired of the name drops pretty quickly.  I can't say that his underlying point isn't true, though.  At least for me, anyway.  I have always enjoyed reading and when I was younger, I always had a fiction book by my side.  Nowadays, I am starting prefer non-fiction, mostly biographies and first-hand accounts of real-life situations, to made-up stories and I can identify with those book-club members that seemed to have an unquenchable thirst for knowledge.

All-in-all, despite the lists and decidedly boring radio show story that this chapter divulged, I'm going to keep an open mind about the rest of the book (and put this single chapter behind me).  Hopefully I didn't come off as too critical or negative this week because that certainly wasn't my intention.  I'm simply coming from the perspective of an almost complete writing innocent and in this chapter, Zinsser didn't seem to be reaching out to my demographic.  Perhaps he wasn't aware that his book would be made into a textbook of sorts and thus not read in chronological order.

I look forward to future opportunities to express myself openly ...and learn a little bit along the way! ;)