I've been writing a lot of poetry this year, and most of it tends to follow along the lines of a certain theme. These themes are not things I decided to write about, but after a time I noticed a similarity between my poems that I had not intended, like my subconscious mind made its concerns known through these poems. I think I've identified at least three broad themes in my poetry: shadows and light and the interplay between the two; the changing of seasons and individual seasons and the symbols/metaphors attached to them; and snow and ice. This last one could be wrapped up in the seasons, but it's not always necessarily about winter.
I deeply enjoy writing poetry, but I don't think I could ever teach it; it's just too personal and ambiguous. Have you noticed how NO ONE can agree on a single definition for poetry? Even poets can only give poetic definitions of it. It's very subjective, and I don't think it would be fair to teach my personal views to students. I would rather teach prose, since a) I've learned more about this than poetry in school and b) prose (except journals/diaries/) is generally written for the purpose of having other people read it. Myself and most other writers I know tend to just write poetry for their own satisfaction, only showing it to other poets or to close friends. It's like prose writing makes up the bricks of a house, and poetry fills up the cracks that prose is too dense and large to fill. Switching between poetry and prose keeps me balanced.
Poetry is personal for me: it's cathartic and useful for exercising my imagination. I might see leaves falling from a tree and think that it's sort of sad that the trees are losing their beauty, but then bare trees have a sort of spare beauty in themselves, and then I'd start thinking about decay and renewal and relationships and how there's a time for everything and then go write a poem about this vague idea. Afterward I'd feel better, as if I'd just had a good conversation with a friend where I let go of all these things on my chest. If the poem is good, that's good. If I still like it a week later but don't think it's as good as it could be, I'll try pruning it and nurturing it. If I come back to it and realize it's a piece of crappy writing spilled out in a blindly sentimental burst, then I'll just leave it, forget about it, or even delete it. It doesn't matter really, since I just write for myself and for whoever else might care to read it.
But prose is different. I--and most other people, I assume--write stories and novels for the purpose of being read by other people, and in some cases, to try and send a message to readers. A message about life, about relationships, about happiness, what have you. Or, most of the time, prose writers just have a ripping yarn in their heads that they're itching to pen down. Or, in rare cases, both things happen: a riveting tale with a careening plot AND deep characterization and psychological/philosophical messages. When I write a story, I try to pay really close attention to detail, and if a word doesn't fit I'll spend as much time as needed to find what I think is the right word. I really do want other people to read my stories, both to get their feedback and see if it's a good, realistic story and all that stuff.
Thing is, I know what themes dominate my poetry, but I'm still not quite sure about what themes are holding my stories together, or what themes/motifs I want to infuse in my stories. As a follower of Christ I'm really interested in the idea of grace--in the strictly Christian sense, that we receive totally undeserved love and favor from God and that He will do good things for us for no other reason than to show his love, and in the more secular/general sense, that good things, good turns of events, will happen to us seemingly for no reason and with no pattern--like a more benevolent version of fate. But grace isn't something so easy to write about without being religiously didactic, which I do NOT want AT ALL. Honestly I despise most Christian fiction because it's boring, predictable, filled with cliche 1-dimensional characters that exist solely to embody a virtue that no human can possibly possess to perfection. So, what sort of themes should I have in my prose? I don't know.
Perhaps I should just keep writing my stories and then see what comes out, like I did with my poetry. Shadows and light and seasons could certainly be themes in prose, but in general prose is about people and relationships. I, for one, have never read a story with no characters. Maybe that's where the difference between prose and poetry lies: poetry is about the individual poet and how he/she sees and interprets the world, and prose is about other people, and maybe humanity in general, and how they relate to each other within the world. Well, before my rambling becomes any more disjointed, I should stop and try doing something more productive. Good day, everyone.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Thanksgiving Eve random update
Well, I took my GRE this morning. I did badly on the math, but I expected as much. Got a somewhat-above-mediocre score on the verbal (570) which I am not happy about, but will take it for now. Even after studying and widening my vocabulary (which wasn't even narrow to begin with) a lot of the questions threw me off due to their tricky nature and use of words that I believe no living person uses. Argh.
I did better on the more intuitive questions, like the sentence completions and reading comprehension. I just don't use big old dead words very often. It's frustrating. As my friend Kristin, who's studying for her PhD in English at Ohio State University (I think) said, "The GRE is the most annoying pointless test ever." Well said.
I do feel a bit confident about the essays; I just hope the readers think I did a good job. I believe I addressed the issues coherently and with sound structure and arguments. *crosses fingers*
I was a bit depressed afterward, but then I remembered what everyone ever has been telling me about applying to MFA programs: the writing sample is the most important thing. Besides, the programs I'm applying to don't SEEM to have minimum GRE score requirements. It's time to continue polishing my prose and then pick which piece I want to submit. I'm quite nervous. That is all.
Hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving!
I did better on the more intuitive questions, like the sentence completions and reading comprehension. I just don't use big old dead words very often. It's frustrating. As my friend Kristin, who's studying for her PhD in English at Ohio State University (I think) said, "The GRE is the most annoying pointless test ever." Well said.
I do feel a bit confident about the essays; I just hope the readers think I did a good job. I believe I addressed the issues coherently and with sound structure and arguments. *crosses fingers*
I was a bit depressed afterward, but then I remembered what everyone ever has been telling me about applying to MFA programs: the writing sample is the most important thing. Besides, the programs I'm applying to don't SEEM to have minimum GRE score requirements. It's time to continue polishing my prose and then pick which piece I want to submit. I'm quite nervous. That is all.
Hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving!
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Trying Something Different
I've been having a lot of trouble staying focused on my writing tasks this semester. I partly attribute this to the fact that my writing for school leaves me barely any energy or motivation for personal writing, but then I realized two things:
1) My school writing assignments are creative in nature and should be sparking my interest just because they're creative and I have free rein, and
2) I've always been doing my writing the same way: on the computer, which also has internet access, all my music, and Instant Messaging on it.
So, I've decided to revert to writing by hand in notebooks my assignments--at least the rough drafts. I used to write by hand all the time in high school and earlier, and I wrote a lot more personal creative pieces back then, too. I think I've realized that by always using my computer to write, I've associated my writing with the impermanence and whimsically speedy activities of surfing the 'net, chatting with friends, and listening to music. When I wrote by hand, I had a much earthier, permanent, direct-link feeling between me, my hands, and what appears on the page. It's not so easy, especially with pen, to crank out a huge amount of words and then obliterate them all even faster than they were created. I write slower and more deliberately by hand, knowing that if I make a mistake or don't think carefully about what comes next that I'll have to laboriously erase or scribble out the text: no copy-paste fuction here!
So I've been working on short stories for class (now, toward the end of the semester, more full-blown stories are being assigned, rather than outlines or snippets) by writing them out in notebooks, alternating between pen and pencil, whichever I have with me at the time. I tend to deliberately use pen when I can tell I'm starting to get distracted; since pen is much more permanent, I have to concentrate harder to make sure what I write is what I mean to write. Of course, the stories have to make their way into the computer, since my professors don't accept hand-written anything; and well they don't, since my hand-written stories inevitably end up framed in doodles and peppered with scribbles, circles, arrows and marginalia (I love that word).
So I end up transferring the hand-written stories into Microsoft Word, which works well for my process since I end up editing them as I transfer them, so by the time they're all digitalized they're much nicer than they would have been if I'd written them on the computer in the first place. And even though it takes me twice as long to get them printed, they're much better for it. I think I've found a permanent method, as long as I can give myself enough time to do it properly.
And on paper I can doodle when I get bored....can't do that on the computer. If anyone saw my inked-up rough drafts they'd probably think I was a four-year-old. Well, time to get back to the grindstone. I have four more stories to write (!!) before Tuesday. I just hope they don't suck. Good night.
1) My school writing assignments are creative in nature and should be sparking my interest just because they're creative and I have free rein, and
2) I've always been doing my writing the same way: on the computer, which also has internet access, all my music, and Instant Messaging on it.
So, I've decided to revert to writing by hand in notebooks my assignments--at least the rough drafts. I used to write by hand all the time in high school and earlier, and I wrote a lot more personal creative pieces back then, too. I think I've realized that by always using my computer to write, I've associated my writing with the impermanence and whimsically speedy activities of surfing the 'net, chatting with friends, and listening to music. When I wrote by hand, I had a much earthier, permanent, direct-link feeling between me, my hands, and what appears on the page. It's not so easy, especially with pen, to crank out a huge amount of words and then obliterate them all even faster than they were created. I write slower and more deliberately by hand, knowing that if I make a mistake or don't think carefully about what comes next that I'll have to laboriously erase or scribble out the text: no copy-paste fuction here!
So I've been working on short stories for class (now, toward the end of the semester, more full-blown stories are being assigned, rather than outlines or snippets) by writing them out in notebooks, alternating between pen and pencil, whichever I have with me at the time. I tend to deliberately use pen when I can tell I'm starting to get distracted; since pen is much more permanent, I have to concentrate harder to make sure what I write is what I mean to write. Of course, the stories have to make their way into the computer, since my professors don't accept hand-written anything; and well they don't, since my hand-written stories inevitably end up framed in doodles and peppered with scribbles, circles, arrows and marginalia (I love that word).
So I end up transferring the hand-written stories into Microsoft Word, which works well for my process since I end up editing them as I transfer them, so by the time they're all digitalized they're much nicer than they would have been if I'd written them on the computer in the first place. And even though it takes me twice as long to get them printed, they're much better for it. I think I've found a permanent method, as long as I can give myself enough time to do it properly.
And on paper I can doodle when I get bored....can't do that on the computer. If anyone saw my inked-up rough drafts they'd probably think I was a four-year-old. Well, time to get back to the grindstone. I have four more stories to write (!!) before Tuesday. I just hope they don't suck. Good night.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Time keeps on running by
Well, I unintentionally took a week off from this blog. Time just got away from me I suppose. Last week was full of campus events and club meetings and extremely long reading and writing assignments. By the time I realized I hadn't posted anything, it was, well...today, at this moment.
Not to worry, though; I've been plugging away at my writing. It's been haphazard, though--some days I didn't write at all, other days I wrote a ton of stuff in under an hour, other days it took me hours to get a few good paragraphs. Maybe this is just how I work. At any rate I feel I've produced a good amount of valuable raw material. My creative writing class is upping the ante as the semester winds down: at this point I've written around 6 short stories in the past couple weeks. Admittedly, a couple of them are too short and rushed...but the kernels of interesting ideas are there, and now that the basics are on paper, I think I can work to expand them and make them better. Work on my long final project is slow going: I've got the (long) prologue down as well as chapter one. However, I'm extremely excited to finally be writing it. I've had the idea in my head for over a year, and this class and my independent study next semester give me the perfect opportunity to work on it, and not leisurely but as a necessity so I know it will get done.
The idea is sort of a mish-mash of elements from the Canterbury Tales and the movies 13 Conversations About One Thing and Little Miss Sunshine. A bunch of people--some closely related, others not so related to the rest--set off on a road trip across the country to go camping for a week. The core family that started the trip has their own reasons for going, and the seemingly random people that end up going with them all have their own reasons, and the family members that invited them have different reasons for doing so. In general, they all need a break from reality for a while. Throughout the trip, they all tell stories (a la Canterbury Tales) to pass the time on the road, at the hotel, when the car breaks down, etc. It's a story of relationships: how people aren't meant to live in isolation, and how by simply being near other people things tend to change. It's also about appearances/facades...how everyone has different masks they wear, why they choose those masks, and why and how they need to break. I still don't know how I'll end it, but am I really supposed to at this point? The journey is so much fun at this point that I think I'll feel sad when it's over.
This novella (or novel, depending on how long it ends up being) is also a great opportunity to put these last few years of learning to the test. I've come a long way in terms of understanding what characters are, what or who the narrator is, and different angles of perception and viewpoint in storytelling, as well as the technical methods of writing effective prose (which I would never have thought of without going through this program). Short stories are good for this, too, but for such a long piece there's way more room to toy around with stuff. It's really exciting, and I just hope the end product is something good, at least in my professors' eyes. This is still undergrad, so I know this isn't going to be the next Grapes of Wrath or anything, but I just hope that for me at this point in time it stands as a good testament to my best writing abilities.
I just have to keep plugging away and not get distracted. It's so easy for me to get distracted...I have what my friends have given the name of ADOS (attention deficit...ooh shiney!). So I think it's time to get off the 'net and continue being productive. Good night everyone.
Not to worry, though; I've been plugging away at my writing. It's been haphazard, though--some days I didn't write at all, other days I wrote a ton of stuff in under an hour, other days it took me hours to get a few good paragraphs. Maybe this is just how I work. At any rate I feel I've produced a good amount of valuable raw material. My creative writing class is upping the ante as the semester winds down: at this point I've written around 6 short stories in the past couple weeks. Admittedly, a couple of them are too short and rushed...but the kernels of interesting ideas are there, and now that the basics are on paper, I think I can work to expand them and make them better. Work on my long final project is slow going: I've got the (long) prologue down as well as chapter one. However, I'm extremely excited to finally be writing it. I've had the idea in my head for over a year, and this class and my independent study next semester give me the perfect opportunity to work on it, and not leisurely but as a necessity so I know it will get done.
The idea is sort of a mish-mash of elements from the Canterbury Tales and the movies 13 Conversations About One Thing and Little Miss Sunshine. A bunch of people--some closely related, others not so related to the rest--set off on a road trip across the country to go camping for a week. The core family that started the trip has their own reasons for going, and the seemingly random people that end up going with them all have their own reasons, and the family members that invited them have different reasons for doing so. In general, they all need a break from reality for a while. Throughout the trip, they all tell stories (a la Canterbury Tales) to pass the time on the road, at the hotel, when the car breaks down, etc. It's a story of relationships: how people aren't meant to live in isolation, and how by simply being near other people things tend to change. It's also about appearances/facades...how everyone has different masks they wear, why they choose those masks, and why and how they need to break. I still don't know how I'll end it, but am I really supposed to at this point? The journey is so much fun at this point that I think I'll feel sad when it's over.
This novella (or novel, depending on how long it ends up being) is also a great opportunity to put these last few years of learning to the test. I've come a long way in terms of understanding what characters are, what or who the narrator is, and different angles of perception and viewpoint in storytelling, as well as the technical methods of writing effective prose (which I would never have thought of without going through this program). Short stories are good for this, too, but for such a long piece there's way more room to toy around with stuff. It's really exciting, and I just hope the end product is something good, at least in my professors' eyes. This is still undergrad, so I know this isn't going to be the next Grapes of Wrath or anything, but I just hope that for me at this point in time it stands as a good testament to my best writing abilities.
I just have to keep plugging away and not get distracted. It's so easy for me to get distracted...I have what my friends have given the name of ADOS (attention deficit...ooh shiney!). So I think it's time to get off the 'net and continue being productive. Good night everyone.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Cosmetic Touchups vs. Ground-up Construction
Today I didn't write anything new. Instead, I spent my allotted hour touching up various small projects. Tightening a poem here, adding more characterization to a story there...that sort of thing. All in all about a dozen poems got facelifts and tummy tucks and a couple stories got a revitalizing spa treatment. Although I didn't write anything new or expand on as-yet unfinished poems and stories, I feel pretty good about the revisions I did on already finished work. It was like re-laying the mortar between the bricks in a flimsy wall, or stripping old paint off a house and applying a new coat. It was fun and relaxing.
I also sent a batch of recently finished poems off to Bateau Press. It was easy and enticing because they're one of the print journals that has adopted a snazzy online submissions manager. I feel pretty confident that the five poems I sent are my best work so far and that they represent the widest range of my interest in poetic forms: a couple free-verse poems and a couple tightly structured poems, including my first sestina--which I wrote last year and to which I've been applying continuous poetical TLC. I still haven't heard back from the Barn Owl Review yet (I sent a few poems over a month ago), and, honestly, I can't remember which poems I sent them. All I know is that they're not the same ones as I sent to Bateau. Not good, I know, which brings me to my next point.
In addition to my revisions, I also spent some time tidying up and organizing my computer files. Before this, all my text files were sort of strewn haphazardly in random corners of the general My Documents file. And as the essays, poems, and stories (and drafts) have piled up, the worse the clutter has gotten. So I finally set up a system of folders within My Documents for easy and quick access to all my poetry and prose, creative and academic, along with a Submission Tracker document (which I'll update continually with Active, Rejected, and Accepted Poetry and Prose submissions) as well as folders specifically to keep Word documents that contain specially collected poems meant for submissions to certain journals, so I'll never forget what I sent where, and when I sent it, and whether it's still under review, has been accepted or rejected. (I'm starting to accumulate a nice drift of poetry rejections.)
All in all I believe it's been a productive day, and these revisions and other considerations helped me to momentarily lower my constant stress level as the GRE date approaches as well as final project considerations, graduation requirements, and grad school apps. I'm still torn about whether I should pursue an MFA in Poetry or Fiction. I write Poetry on a more regular basis, but I'm still not at the level of understanding about it that I can say whether each poem is good or bad, and more often than not I'm not sure if a poem needs revision and much less HOW it should be revised. On the other hand, I write prose less frequently; but when I do, I slave over it, revising draft after draft and picking it apart word by word until I think it's much better than before, and even then I still think it isn't that good. I DO have lots more short story ideas, and I'm working on a novel this year for an Independent Study...I just need to get the motivation and creative juices flowing to write the stories. I'm leaning heavily toward fiction despite my recent burst of poetry.
I'm also making myself accept the idea that I may not end up going to grad school as soon as I want. Maybe my GRE scores won't be so good, or maybe my writing sample will still need some work, or maybe my undergrad transcripts won't be sent out in time (a flaw my school is notorious for). I'm still not sure exactly what I'd do in this situation...I've always wanted to do the Peace Corps; maybe that would be a good thing to do if I don't get accepted to grad school. Anyway, I guess I'll sleep on it...sleep always helps. It's like my second drug of choice, number one being coffee of course. Good night everyone.
I also sent a batch of recently finished poems off to Bateau Press. It was easy and enticing because they're one of the print journals that has adopted a snazzy online submissions manager. I feel pretty confident that the five poems I sent are my best work so far and that they represent the widest range of my interest in poetic forms: a couple free-verse poems and a couple tightly structured poems, including my first sestina--which I wrote last year and to which I've been applying continuous poetical TLC. I still haven't heard back from the Barn Owl Review yet (I sent a few poems over a month ago), and, honestly, I can't remember which poems I sent them. All I know is that they're not the same ones as I sent to Bateau. Not good, I know, which brings me to my next point.
In addition to my revisions, I also spent some time tidying up and organizing my computer files. Before this, all my text files were sort of strewn haphazardly in random corners of the general My Documents file. And as the essays, poems, and stories (and drafts) have piled up, the worse the clutter has gotten. So I finally set up a system of folders within My Documents for easy and quick access to all my poetry and prose, creative and academic, along with a Submission Tracker document (which I'll update continually with Active, Rejected, and Accepted Poetry and Prose submissions) as well as folders specifically to keep Word documents that contain specially collected poems meant for submissions to certain journals, so I'll never forget what I sent where, and when I sent it, and whether it's still under review, has been accepted or rejected. (I'm starting to accumulate a nice drift of poetry rejections.)
All in all I believe it's been a productive day, and these revisions and other considerations helped me to momentarily lower my constant stress level as the GRE date approaches as well as final project considerations, graduation requirements, and grad school apps. I'm still torn about whether I should pursue an MFA in Poetry or Fiction. I write Poetry on a more regular basis, but I'm still not at the level of understanding about it that I can say whether each poem is good or bad, and more often than not I'm not sure if a poem needs revision and much less HOW it should be revised. On the other hand, I write prose less frequently; but when I do, I slave over it, revising draft after draft and picking it apart word by word until I think it's much better than before, and even then I still think it isn't that good. I DO have lots more short story ideas, and I'm working on a novel this year for an Independent Study...I just need to get the motivation and creative juices flowing to write the stories. I'm leaning heavily toward fiction despite my recent burst of poetry.
I'm also making myself accept the idea that I may not end up going to grad school as soon as I want. Maybe my GRE scores won't be so good, or maybe my writing sample will still need some work, or maybe my undergrad transcripts won't be sent out in time (a flaw my school is notorious for). I'm still not sure exactly what I'd do in this situation...I've always wanted to do the Peace Corps; maybe that would be a good thing to do if I don't get accepted to grad school. Anyway, I guess I'll sleep on it...sleep always helps. It's like my second drug of choice, number one being coffee of course. Good night everyone.
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