Holidailies offers a prompt today, asking for new iconic figures for the holidays if one is tired of Santa.
I won't go all Yes, Virginia on my readers, but I have a button that reads SANTA LIVES! And he does. He's peeking over my monitor at me right now. That is the very wee Santa finger puppet who lives in my office, along with Capt. Jack Sparrow, Buddha, Cobra Bubbles (from Lilo & Stitch), and Ned Flanders (a burger toy). Ned has since departed this mortal coil, actually. And somewhere around here is a felted lab mouse with a very pink tail. There are other toys too: the Night Bus from Harry Potter, done in Lego; a handful of "intelligent" toys for executives and a handheld Yahtzee game. But my favorites are the little people who work with me.
I shall never tire of characters. In the same way that I wrote about the stories earlier this week, I feel as passionately about characters. Natalie Goldberg, a guru of mine, poses a writing task for practice: Describe everything about a person that you can in one sentence.
Today, on my walk with my dog, I saw a man in a brown coat, tennis shoes and a black hat, carrying the newspaper still in its plastic bag while he walked two small dirty white dogs who seemed very excited to be going anywhere.
As I was musing, my dog sniffed the air, trying to see what they were up to, but they were too far away. I imagined little story capsules for this man and his dogs...
A woman was waiting for him inside the house, a bit impatiently because she wanted to drink her coffee and read the paper but he insisted on walking the dogs before he brought it in. She thought that her coffee might get too cold, and it would all be ruined unless he came in before three minutes had passed.
***
The man, whose name is Sidney, lost his wife a year ago, and he really only enjoys the Sunday morning walk with the dogs. The rest of Sunday is one long lonely time, punctuated by phone calls from his daughters who both live far away now.
***
The dogs were rescued from his neighbor's house last week where there had been a fire. The owners were still in the hospital, and the man was beginning to enjoy walking them. Even after the neighbors came home, he planned to walk their dogs. Or maybe get his own dog.
***
Etc. No, I can never get tired of Santa. Whether he's a jolly old elf, a bad enabler for wanton consumerism, a corruption of "the reason for the season," or a magical realism coyote trickster who brings coal, switches or Barbies, Santa is a perfectly good icon and I'll keep him, thank you.
Besides, he really likes the cookies and brandy I set out for him every year.
December 13, 2009
December 12, 2009
Writing Essentials
Writing is not about the words or the art or the stories, really. That’s reading. When you sit and read what someone has written, you are carried away by the beauty of the words, the engine of a great plot (or even a bad one), and the other world you occupy for just a while.
But writing itself? The essentials really boil down to this: the chair, the keyboard, the retreat.
Everything else is distraction.
Let’s define our terms. The chair: that place from which you apply pen to paper, fingers to keyboard. It might be standing up, as we hear reports of Hemingway having done. (That might explain his simpler sentence structure.) It might be a mahogany desk and carved matching chair, a camp stool in Africa, or a spare dining room chair pulled up to a card table.
For me, it’s a really uncomfortable broken-down office chair that wants replacing. It squeaks. I have a Herman Miller Aeron chair in my Amazon shopping cart, but what is the guarantee that even a $600 chair won’t end up killing my back after three hours of sitting? A chiropractor told me that, after 45 minutes, ANY chair is going to be bad for you.
But the chair is that object that you keep your butt in so that you can continue to put words on a page. That's the only way I know for writing to get written.
The keyboard: The writing instrument, really. These days, it’s a keyboard. My fingers fly faster this way, and tap out words almost as fast as I can think them. I have a typewriter that got me started about 40 years ago, and every now and then, I tap on it. If I had to do that now, I think it would cause sudden and permanent carpal tunnel. I also have writing instruments called pens. My favorites are Uniball pens in purple and blue. It says “waterproof” but they are not.
Of course, you must connect the keyboard to a computer, or the typewriter and pen to paper, but these days, paper just doesn’t matter. I’m not sure I could make the cognitive switch to a Kindle or Sony reader, but that day is coming, sooner or later. I still write and imagine the feel of my book in my hands. But paper or screen, it matters not to me.
Finally, the retreat. By this, I mean the quiet house, the silenced cell phone, the kids occupied at something or out of the house so that the whispers from the Muse can get through. But also, the distractions must be minimized to keep one from checking email or seeing if Amazon has dropped the price on a box of pens or a new keyboard (because I need both). However, it cannot be too quiet. Birds outside the window, the pacing border collie wishing for a walk, the steady hum of the spin cycle. These are happy noises that keep the words coming....
Now that this writing is done, it’s time to tend to folding the laundry, putting away the dishes and walking the dog. But perhaps there will be more writing later today... unless I succumb to the thousand distractions conspiring to keep me from chair, keyboard and retreat.
But writing itself? The essentials really boil down to this: the chair, the keyboard, the retreat.
Everything else is distraction.
Let’s define our terms. The chair: that place from which you apply pen to paper, fingers to keyboard. It might be standing up, as we hear reports of Hemingway having done. (That might explain his simpler sentence structure.) It might be a mahogany desk and carved matching chair, a camp stool in Africa, or a spare dining room chair pulled up to a card table.
For me, it’s a really uncomfortable broken-down office chair that wants replacing. It squeaks. I have a Herman Miller Aeron chair in my Amazon shopping cart, but what is the guarantee that even a $600 chair won’t end up killing my back after three hours of sitting? A chiropractor told me that, after 45 minutes, ANY chair is going to be bad for you.
But the chair is that object that you keep your butt in so that you can continue to put words on a page. That's the only way I know for writing to get written.
The keyboard: The writing instrument, really. These days, it’s a keyboard. My fingers fly faster this way, and tap out words almost as fast as I can think them. I have a typewriter that got me started about 40 years ago, and every now and then, I tap on it. If I had to do that now, I think it would cause sudden and permanent carpal tunnel. I also have writing instruments called pens. My favorites are Uniball pens in purple and blue. It says “waterproof” but they are not.
Of course, you must connect the keyboard to a computer, or the typewriter and pen to paper, but these days, paper just doesn’t matter. I’m not sure I could make the cognitive switch to a Kindle or Sony reader, but that day is coming, sooner or later. I still write and imagine the feel of my book in my hands. But paper or screen, it matters not to me.
Finally, the retreat. By this, I mean the quiet house, the silenced cell phone, the kids occupied at something or out of the house so that the whispers from the Muse can get through. But also, the distractions must be minimized to keep one from checking email or seeing if Amazon has dropped the price on a box of pens or a new keyboard (because I need both). However, it cannot be too quiet. Birds outside the window, the pacing border collie wishing for a walk, the steady hum of the spin cycle. These are happy noises that keep the words coming....
Now that this writing is done, it’s time to tend to folding the laundry, putting away the dishes and walking the dog. But perhaps there will be more writing later today... unless I succumb to the thousand distractions conspiring to keep me from chair, keyboard and retreat.
December 9, 2009
Why I Teach
This is why I teach, because of moments like this.
I’m sitting here reading finals. I asked two essay questions. One posited some rather sweeping and outlandish proposals for “improvements” around the campus. Fewer parking spaces, reduction in tech support and access, etc.
The other prompt asked students to reflect on their writing selves - their process, their self-discoveries, how writing will help them in the future.
All of them are up at arms about the proposed changes. They are hanging on tooth and nail to keep their campus/college accessible, functional and NOT put up any more barriers to education. This is a demographic that has to fight traffic, the demands of home and work, the stigma of failure at other institutions, the delay of finishing college to come every day and get an education. They are PASSIONATE about keeping the opportunity to learn. I am moved.
One student is freakishly smart, making me wonder why he’s here. There’s a story, but I don’t need to know it. “Mark” is funny and tells me that I have saved his writing from being too dry and academic. He doesn’t need to erect that wall between his thoughts and his personality anymore. His paper made me laugh out loud. Truly.
Another student "Callie" relates the therapy she discovered, when at age 10, she witnessed her father fall into the Grand Canyon on a family trip. In therapy, she started journaling and now wants to pursue a writing career. No, she MUST pursue that career.
I slag on students, I roll my eyes, and some of them do fluffy and silly things that are entertaining. “The Teacher’s Lounge” is a figurative and sometimes real place where we vent and cackle because it is a little bit like M*A*S*H sometimes. We laugh so we don't cry or beat our heads on the desk. This semester (with hamthrax, the usual complement of grandparent death, and late late papers) has been a long strange trip, but sitting here, reading finals, moved to tears is not exactly where I thought I would end the semester.
The privilege of associating with these funny, broken and tender souls, when they finally shyly reveal themselves, is worth the weeks of frustration. My time with them is over, but I hope I said or did something so that their time with me is not over. The privilege of being an influence is very very special, and not something I take lightly. It is an honor, and I will gladly go into the classroom again in five weeks, ready to take up arms against student ditziness and stupidity, hoping there’s at least one or two Callies and Marks in the crowd.
I’m sitting here reading finals. I asked two essay questions. One posited some rather sweeping and outlandish proposals for “improvements” around the campus. Fewer parking spaces, reduction in tech support and access, etc.
The other prompt asked students to reflect on their writing selves - their process, their self-discoveries, how writing will help them in the future.
All of them are up at arms about the proposed changes. They are hanging on tooth and nail to keep their campus/college accessible, functional and NOT put up any more barriers to education. This is a demographic that has to fight traffic, the demands of home and work, the stigma of failure at other institutions, the delay of finishing college to come every day and get an education. They are PASSIONATE about keeping the opportunity to learn. I am moved.
One student is freakishly smart, making me wonder why he’s here. There’s a story, but I don’t need to know it. “Mark” is funny and tells me that I have saved his writing from being too dry and academic. He doesn’t need to erect that wall between his thoughts and his personality anymore. His paper made me laugh out loud. Truly.
Another student "Callie" relates the therapy she discovered, when at age 10, she witnessed her father fall into the Grand Canyon on a family trip. In therapy, she started journaling and now wants to pursue a writing career. No, she MUST pursue that career.
I slag on students, I roll my eyes, and some of them do fluffy and silly things that are entertaining. “The Teacher’s Lounge” is a figurative and sometimes real place where we vent and cackle because it is a little bit like M*A*S*H sometimes. We laugh so we don't cry or beat our heads on the desk. This semester (with hamthrax, the usual complement of grandparent death, and late late papers) has been a long strange trip, but sitting here, reading finals, moved to tears is not exactly where I thought I would end the semester.
The privilege of associating with these funny, broken and tender souls, when they finally shyly reveal themselves, is worth the weeks of frustration. My time with them is over, but I hope I said or did something so that their time with me is not over. The privilege of being an influence is very very special, and not something I take lightly. It is an honor, and I will gladly go into the classroom again in five weeks, ready to take up arms against student ditziness and stupidity, hoping there’s at least one or two Callies and Marks in the crowd.
December 8, 2009
The Stories
I am wrapping up teaching a course on Myths today. And I want to try and wrap up the perplexing course material for them. I already know I will fail, and that the one very mouthy student will tell me I'm wrong, or "that depends on your belief." I have said over and over that the urge to form language, to communicate and to transmit ideas and stories is deeper than religion, belief or even conscious thought. We dabbled in Jung, but again, "that's just his opinion."
What I see, though, is that we are hungry for stories. HUNGRY. Turn on the TV and see hundreds of shows during a week that are stories - ongoing, long, slow, quick, one-episode, mini-series, feature-length, dramatic, funny, intriguing, "real" and fictional. Look at the bookshelves in the airport: magazines, books and newspapers loaded with stories. Tales of people in other places and other skins. In fact, it is an embarrassment of riches. We are story-laden, media-heavy in modern culture.
Something must be missing when the mass quantity of stories does not satisfy us. We continue to seek out new stories, new twists on the old plots, new characters for whom the same old story is playing out. (I'm thinking of a particular athlete whose story of infidelity is all over the news, even NPR. STILL. After a week.) Replace the main character in that story with a politician? with a desperate housewife? with a car salesman? Pretty much the same story, heard on E! News, talk shows, Oscar-winning feature movies and the headlines of the tabloids. And yet we listen, we rubberneck, we gawk and we stop to listen, or to read the headlines or the entire article (if we’re waiting at the dentist’s office).
Why? Why are we so obsessed with stories? What is missing?
My belief, based on a little reading and a little life experience, is that we are indeed missing the vital cultural components to properly absorb the "meat" of the myth. In the same way that rice and beans complement and provide a "complete" protein (remember Diet for a Small Planet?), too many stories and not enough deep structure cause cravings and even dysfunctional consumption of our stories.
Even Joseph Campbell talks about this quest for stories, the desire to tell and hear the stories, even to re-enact the major tropes of human culture in our own lives. The hero quest, the revenge story, the creation/flood/recreation motif. He writes about the "monomyth" that guides all of human striving. Clifford Geertz (and others) called it "deep structure" and Jung called it “the collective unconscious.”
True, we have plenty of stories but if we are not skilled enough to read the purpose and structure of these stories, if we cannot derive meaning from them a satisfying way, or learn to live, to pursue a proper practice, we will continue to binge and purge ourselves on stories.
Will the stories ever end? Will we ever get our fill? Not likely – without the rituals, taboos and prescriptions from our ancestors' time, we might understand our lack and supplement our stories with academic knowledge, but we won't be able to digest the moral fiber and make it a part of ourselves.
Campbell’s answer to those who wish to understand, to know the meaning of life: “Follow your bliss.” This cryptic answer is not satisfying and does not provide that key to why we crave stories so much. But it does however suggest that simply by doing our own lives, by creating our own story authentically, we will be participating in the mythmaking, in the storytelling, rather than consuming the easy-to-chew but ultimately unfulfilling vicarious stories of others.
Follow your bliss. Write your own ticket. Make your own kind of music. Do it “your way.” Or else, continue to live an attenuated, mediated, voyeuristic, shallow life. (Next piece of homework? finding the thinkers who have written about this “hell in a handbasket” view of media.)
When it's all said and done, however, we do still have the stories. Charlotte's Web. Black Beauty. Sophie's Choice. War and Peace. The Exodus. To Kill a Mockingbird. There are truths in our stories, and we cherish the capacity of these books (and retellings on film) to teach us and improve us. But only if we move from consumer to participant. One does not have to write in order to participate, but critical reading and active digestion of the stories might also be a way to "follow your bliss."
For now, following my bliss as a writer involves clearing away the fog and clutter, and getting to the real nugget of my novel.
And that is something I hope to get to... on Saturday, when the semester is over. For now, it's time to give a final or two.
What I see, though, is that we are hungry for stories. HUNGRY. Turn on the TV and see hundreds of shows during a week that are stories - ongoing, long, slow, quick, one-episode, mini-series, feature-length, dramatic, funny, intriguing, "real" and fictional. Look at the bookshelves in the airport: magazines, books and newspapers loaded with stories. Tales of people in other places and other skins. In fact, it is an embarrassment of riches. We are story-laden, media-heavy in modern culture.
Something must be missing when the mass quantity of stories does not satisfy us. We continue to seek out new stories, new twists on the old plots, new characters for whom the same old story is playing out. (I'm thinking of a particular athlete whose story of infidelity is all over the news, even NPR. STILL. After a week.) Replace the main character in that story with a politician? with a desperate housewife? with a car salesman? Pretty much the same story, heard on E! News, talk shows, Oscar-winning feature movies and the headlines of the tabloids. And yet we listen, we rubberneck, we gawk and we stop to listen, or to read the headlines or the entire article (if we’re waiting at the dentist’s office).
Why? Why are we so obsessed with stories? What is missing?
My belief, based on a little reading and a little life experience, is that we are indeed missing the vital cultural components to properly absorb the "meat" of the myth. In the same way that rice and beans complement and provide a "complete" protein (remember Diet for a Small Planet?), too many stories and not enough deep structure cause cravings and even dysfunctional consumption of our stories.
Even Joseph Campbell talks about this quest for stories, the desire to tell and hear the stories, even to re-enact the major tropes of human culture in our own lives. The hero quest, the revenge story, the creation/flood/recreation motif. He writes about the "monomyth" that guides all of human striving. Clifford Geertz (and others) called it "deep structure" and Jung called it “the collective unconscious.”
True, we have plenty of stories but if we are not skilled enough to read the purpose and structure of these stories, if we cannot derive meaning from them a satisfying way, or learn to live, to pursue a proper practice, we will continue to binge and purge ourselves on stories.
Will the stories ever end? Will we ever get our fill? Not likely – without the rituals, taboos and prescriptions from our ancestors' time, we might understand our lack and supplement our stories with academic knowledge, but we won't be able to digest the moral fiber and make it a part of ourselves.
Campbell’s answer to those who wish to understand, to know the meaning of life: “Follow your bliss.” This cryptic answer is not satisfying and does not provide that key to why we crave stories so much. But it does however suggest that simply by doing our own lives, by creating our own story authentically, we will be participating in the mythmaking, in the storytelling, rather than consuming the easy-to-chew but ultimately unfulfilling vicarious stories of others.
Follow your bliss. Write your own ticket. Make your own kind of music. Do it “your way.” Or else, continue to live an attenuated, mediated, voyeuristic, shallow life. (Next piece of homework? finding the thinkers who have written about this “hell in a handbasket” view of media.)
When it's all said and done, however, we do still have the stories. Charlotte's Web. Black Beauty. Sophie's Choice. War and Peace. The Exodus. To Kill a Mockingbird. There are truths in our stories, and we cherish the capacity of these books (and retellings on film) to teach us and improve us. But only if we move from consumer to participant. One does not have to write in order to participate, but critical reading and active digestion of the stories might also be a way to "follow your bliss."
For now, following my bliss as a writer involves clearing away the fog and clutter, and getting to the real nugget of my novel.
And that is something I hope to get to... on Saturday, when the semester is over. For now, it's time to give a final or two.
December 7, 2009
Holidailies
I'm trying something new for this blog - it's a writing practice that might prove to be fruitful. But if not, then I'm dropping it in favor of my early Saturday morning writing session.
Holidailies is a group of bloggers who write each day of the holidays. There are some fantastic and interesting writers – some who inspire me, some who teach me, some who struggle with the same stuff I do.
My writing goal for December is to crack through the block I have. After NaNo, I realized that my characters are still bodies moving through space. They haven't yet come to inhabit themselves like humans. I feel like what I have is an elaborate character sketch with the promise of a plot. This is not a good feeling.
Of course, the goal also is to push past the procrastination and downright laziness, colored by my moody depression. I call it that because it does come and go like a mood, rather than a clinical cloud of deep grey fog.
Bust out the red and green and gold; stock up on the scented candles; and keep a pair of warm socks handy (my feet get cold in this office) because the holidays are coming, and I hope the Writing Santa brings me something lovely.
Edited to add: Welcome to the new readers from Holidailies! You can follow me on Twitter jcmaxwell and also Facebook J.C. Maxwell, where I occasionally say or post something worth reading.
Holidailies is a group of bloggers who write each day of the holidays. There are some fantastic and interesting writers – some who inspire me, some who teach me, some who struggle with the same stuff I do.
My writing goal for December is to crack through the block I have. After NaNo, I realized that my characters are still bodies moving through space. They haven't yet come to inhabit themselves like humans. I feel like what I have is an elaborate character sketch with the promise of a plot. This is not a good feeling.
Of course, the goal also is to push past the procrastination and downright laziness, colored by my moody depression. I call it that because it does come and go like a mood, rather than a clinical cloud of deep grey fog.
Bust out the red and green and gold; stock up on the scented candles; and keep a pair of warm socks handy (my feet get cold in this office) because the holidays are coming, and I hope the Writing Santa brings me something lovely.
Edited to add: Welcome to the new readers from Holidailies! You can follow me on Twitter jcmaxwell and also Facebook J.C. Maxwell, where I occasionally say or post something worth reading.
October 31, 2009
Insomnia
Can I turn this insomnia into a novel? It would certainly make good use of the time during National Novel Writing Month, in which I am participating again this year.
The day before, though, I am just rattling around in my own head, filled with anxiety about my two jobs, filled with dread about my parenting, and (so typical for a NaNo writer) wondering how I can turn this inner turmoil and personal life crisis into word count.
But first things first: I am going to get a new keyboard, going to set up another computer in the office, and liberate my laptop semi-permanently from the desk. I do have a dual hookup box thingey, where I used to have the lad's PC and Mac sharing the same monitor, but he stopped using the Mac a while back, and I took the computer when the laptop was in the shop.
Make no mistake: the laptop is on its last months of service. I may have to take it in as the mouse and touch pad are sorta hosed.... hmmm, it started after the last "fix" now that I think of it.
I will also spend a good deal of time cleaning house this weekend, in advance of starting to write at midnight Nov. 1. Either this will provide a "clean slate" for novel writing, OR it will remove certain procrastination objects from my sight.
However, all of this busyness comes at a price, and all of this insomnia exacts its own pound of flesh (but in reverse). I'm overweight-er than ever, and desperately in need of a vacation from "crunch time" at two jobs. One job will let up around Dec. 5th, and the other not until Jan. 23.
So, yeah, I'm pretty insane right now, and doubly so because I'm taking on NaNo yet again. The fourth year for me. Mind-boggling! I'll be following Julia Cameron's rubric of three pages a day, and also walking my dog daily. That's the extent of my plan. Perhaps it's diabolically simple, or perhaps it's just simple.
The day before, though, I am just rattling around in my own head, filled with anxiety about my two jobs, filled with dread about my parenting, and (so typical for a NaNo writer) wondering how I can turn this inner turmoil and personal life crisis into word count.
But first things first: I am going to get a new keyboard, going to set up another computer in the office, and liberate my laptop semi-permanently from the desk. I do have a dual hookup box thingey, where I used to have the lad's PC and Mac sharing the same monitor, but he stopped using the Mac a while back, and I took the computer when the laptop was in the shop.
Make no mistake: the laptop is on its last months of service. I may have to take it in as the mouse and touch pad are sorta hosed.... hmmm, it started after the last "fix" now that I think of it.
I will also spend a good deal of time cleaning house this weekend, in advance of starting to write at midnight Nov. 1. Either this will provide a "clean slate" for novel writing, OR it will remove certain procrastination objects from my sight.
However, all of this busyness comes at a price, and all of this insomnia exacts its own pound of flesh (but in reverse). I'm overweight-er than ever, and desperately in need of a vacation from "crunch time" at two jobs. One job will let up around Dec. 5th, and the other not until Jan. 23.
So, yeah, I'm pretty insane right now, and doubly so because I'm taking on NaNo yet again. The fourth year for me. Mind-boggling! I'll be following Julia Cameron's rubric of three pages a day, and also walking my dog daily. That's the extent of my plan. Perhaps it's diabolically simple, or perhaps it's just simple.
October 16, 2009
Months and Months Ago
.... meanwhile, back at the ranch, Bess is trying to tame the wind.
I started teaching half-time, three classes, three preps AND I'm editing - with the workload increasing without check by anyone but my guilt. And thus, I haven't had one moment to write for myself.
Another thing happened and then didn't happen (a relationship), and that sapped my energy and ambition for writing, or any creativity at all. Which was a red flag. I don't know if it's possible, but I seek the kind of relationship where I am encouraged and inspired to hit the studio/keyboard/sewing machine, rather than feel burdened with yet another thing to schedule.
It's a combo of all these things NOT one in particular. And it's just life. As Joseph Campbell says, "work and family in themselves are a form of meditation." I just wish I didn't always feel so tired.
Tired to the point of insomnia and anxiety. Isn't that ironic!? So tired that you cannot get rest. Ha ha, big cosmic joke.
However, National Novel Writing Month is coming, and I believe it suits me. It suits me to try (essayer) and even if the exercise is simply to carve out the creative space, then it's good.
I've been sewing lately, creating a sea tapesty from marine quilting fabrics, using new (to me) products (WonderUnder, stabilizers, etc.), so again, this has helped me get to the creative zone.
I hope to be posting more as the novel progresses and the whining mounts.
I started teaching half-time, three classes, three preps AND I'm editing - with the workload increasing without check by anyone but my guilt. And thus, I haven't had one moment to write for myself.
Another thing happened and then didn't happen (a relationship), and that sapped my energy and ambition for writing, or any creativity at all. Which was a red flag. I don't know if it's possible, but I seek the kind of relationship where I am encouraged and inspired to hit the studio/keyboard/sewing machine, rather than feel burdened with yet another thing to schedule.
It's a combo of all these things NOT one in particular. And it's just life. As Joseph Campbell says, "work and family in themselves are a form of meditation." I just wish I didn't always feel so tired.
Tired to the point of insomnia and anxiety. Isn't that ironic!? So tired that you cannot get rest. Ha ha, big cosmic joke.
However, National Novel Writing Month is coming, and I believe it suits me. It suits me to try (essayer) and even if the exercise is simply to carve out the creative space, then it's good.
I've been sewing lately, creating a sea tapesty from marine quilting fabrics, using new (to me) products (WonderUnder, stabilizers, etc.), so again, this has helped me get to the creative zone.
I hope to be posting more as the novel progresses and the whining mounts.
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