Finding Your Voice

     

       If you want to be a writer, you cannot simply read. You need to return to what you've read and think about and reflect on that reading, because it is only through the process of reflecting that we can truly discover our writer's voice.

      We discover that if we write enough, our writing takes on a unique personality. Sometimes that personality reflects who we are in our public lives. Sometimes it is a very different voice. Sometimes our writing voice explores that part of us that our friends rarely see. I know that this is true with me.

       For most of my writing life, (which started my junior year in high school) I kept my writing mostly to myself—different entirely from the more public writing we do in our blogs. After I published my first book of poetry, even my closest friends seemed surprised that I wrote as much poetry as I did; but, I know that when I started to prepare my poems for publication, I also prepared for them to be "public," and it did affect and shape the way I wrote when I realized there were real people that wanted to read what I wrote. It both energized and scared me.

Don't Do It

My bus on the fourth of July, 2013!

    I was eighteen and designing a production line for making stepladders at Fitchburgh State College—the only college I could afford, and probably the only place that would have me. I remember thinking, ‘Man, this ain’t no life for me.’ I barely had a working idea of what life meant, but I was pretty sure it meant I didn’t have to do something without any meaning or purpose—and I certainly didn't want to spend my life designing a better stepladder.’

     But, what did I want to do? Did I have the courage to even make a change in my life? If I had read The Odyssey, I might have known what to do; I might have known that I was on a heroic journey and that my call to adventure was the churning confusion in my gut, and I might have known to look for a helper and an amulet to get me over the threshold—that no quest is real until you realize that you cannot go it alone.

Redefining Literacy

 My life is the poem I could have writ,

But I could not both live and utter it

~Henry David Thoreau

   The common man goes to an orchard to taste the fruit. The rich man man learns how to plant his own orchard. The poet, however,  grows an even better fruit and gives it all away; for in its perfection no person could afford to buy these apples that never bruise or fall or wilt in the heat. It is an apple that gives more than sustenance—it is an apple that gives life itself.  For the true poet, his or her life is the vessel of humanity, and in their words they carry the collective dreams, haunts, wonderings, visions, and perceptions that lifts any who read or hear out of the muck of existence and into a more transcendent experience—an uncommon experience of common life.

     Educators, psychologists, social scientists, and pundits love to decry the scourge of illiteracy by assuming that simply knowing how to form vowels into sounds and words and reading them implies "literacy," even if knowing how to read has little in common with being a "literate" person. A literate person simply appreciates the power of words shared between hearts, and souls, and minds. The insights of one truly thoughtful person outweighs the benefits of a reading a pile of supercilious and self-aggrandizing opinion pieces or trolling through the detritus of a hundred shallow websites. I have met a good many people who do not avidly read but whom I still consider to be very literate; for to be literate,  you have to be thoughtful and reflective enough to question, churn, mull, and distill your own subtle thoughts towards a universal clarity and to create something out of that insight. For there to be true literacy, there has to be discernment, discipline, and doggedness. For the wise but unread sages of the past—and to a lesser degree—the present their lives were and are the creation or legacy left behind to inspire, inform, and enlighten.  Neither Jesus, or Buddha, or Black Elk, or Mohamed set out to "write a book." Each of them simply lived their lives in concert with the wisdom of their thoughts. To think that reading literature is the only gateway to wisdom and understanding is utter classist deceit and intellectual arrogance.  It is thoughts put into words and actions that defines literacy.

Keeping a Journal

Writing, then, was a substitute for myself: if you don't love me, love my writing & love me for my writing. It is also much more: a way of ordering and reordering the chaos of experience. 

― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

  

   I don’t always practice what I preach, especially when it comes to the simple, unaffected, and ordinary “journal entry.” Much of my reticence towards the casual journal entry is the public nature of posting our journal writing as blogs that are more or less “open” to the public. It is hard for me as a teacher of writing to post an entry that I know is trivial, mundane, and perhaps of no interest to my readers—but that is precisely what I need to do if I am to model the full spectrum of the writing process. Keeping a journal is more than a search for lofty thoughts amidst the detritus of the day; it is a practice that keeps our wits and writing skills honed for a coming feast by rambling through the meat of the day and drifting and sailing to whatever port is nearest to my pen. Writing is always an odyssey, and so I have to let my mind go and journey (journal) where it will.

Avoiding Digital Damnation

 

"But it was only a facebook posting!"

   As teachers, it is critical that we teach our students how to leverage the power of the web to create, cultivate, and curate positive digital footprints in and out of the classroom; moreover, as mentors and role models, we need to do the same. We need to put into action best practices, wise pedagogy, and a well-rounded understanding of the implications, promises, and potential to show thoughtful leadership and take control and realize the dynamic and transformative possibilities of our presence not the web.

     Someone is not just looking for you; they are searching for you, and you are only one one casual wtf, questionable photo, or stupid posting away from your judgement, and hence your character, being questioned by an admissions committee, potential boss, or anyone else casually (or intently) searching your name on the web—and it is going to happen! The irony here is that the only thing worse than a questionable digital presence is no presence at all. While there is some nobility in being off the grid, there may also be precious little else to set your particular genius and passion apart from the masses that are arrayed beside, before and behind you. 

Five Rules for How to Tell a Good Narrative Story

How to Tell a Good Story

Call me Ishmael

~Herman Melville

     We are born to tell and listen to stories of all kinds, but the most popular and pervasive of these is the narrative story—a story which retells an experience you have had. Every time someone asks you: “how was school? how was your trip? did you catch anything? what do you like about him? “was it a good game”? … and you answer with more than a grunted single-word response, you are telling a narrative story and YOU are the narrator. The only difference between a narrative story and a fictional story is how much you can play with the truth. The art of the story is the same.

     Of course, some people tell better stories than other people, but why? The answer is probably because they tell more stories or they read more stories. They are not satisfied with the single grunt because they love and want to recreate the moment as vividly and compellingly as possible, and by the process of elimination and addition they have figured out how to tell a good story. Good storytellers know what goes into a good story, and, just as important, they know what to leave out. They know that a good story, well told, brings great satisfaction to them as the tellers and writers and to their audience as listeners and readers.

Who Exactly Are You Speaking To?

Your Audience & Your Voice

       Imagine you are cooking dinner and your stove catches on fire. No problem, because you bought a new fire extinguisher the other day, and it's hanging on the wall right next to the stove. You grab the extinguisher and quickly read the instruction label. It reads: "My fascination with fire extinguishers began when I was a young child--early in 1963 as I recall..." I doubt you will think to yourself, "Wow, this will be really interesting to read!" You might rather the instructions read: "Point extinguisher at the fire, pull the metal pin, and squeeze the black handle." The basic concept of writing well is pretty simple-- know your audience and the reason you are writing. Know just this and you have gone a long way towards defining the style, tone, and content of what you need or want to write. You need to know and understand that when you write, you are putting your words into the hearts and minds and imaginations of real people. So talk with your audience while you write to them.

       Many well-meaning teachers and schools have done a pretty good job of killing the joy of writing by neglecting the natural origin and evolution of writing. You probably write a paper, hand it in, get a grade, and, more than likely, it is then buried in a sheave of other papers in the recesses of your backpack. These written works are handed in to a machine and spit back at us with a reptilian calculus and moral detachment. Words are meant to be heard and read, not damned with little praise or created in a vacuum. Even the greatest literary works are never finished; they are abandoned to a world where the writer hopes a willing ear will listen. If our focus is on imperfection, how can we ever look in the mirror? 

Rambling

     Nothing in my life is interesting….

     Baloney.

     You are the inescapable you. Your mind is bursting with images, ideas, memories, fears, desires, hopes and wonderings. Everyone of which is uniquely and miraculously your own. If you can "recreate" who you are, then your readers will understand who "they" are—because they are as human as you are. “Fitz’s Day at the Beach” might sound boring if all I told you was that I went to the beach. Whoopdee doo—why should you care that I went to the beach? You shouldn't care...unless I care. If going to the beach means nothing to me, then a lame attempt on my part to describe my apathy surely won't engage my readers. (Though it might satisfy the homework requirements.)

     So then, write about something you care about. If it is even remotely important to you, you will be able to make it important to others as well. That is the power of art, and our art lives in the power of words. To find something you care deeply about might actually require some work—and so we ramble away in our journals searching for a place to begin; searching for an experience that hits you with that "oh yeah, that was cool" kind of feeling. A ramble is a way of creating a stepping off place to a more complete piece of writing—a piece of writing that is crafted as close to perfection as you can make it.

The Silver Apples of the Moon

Stories are a communal currency of humanity.

― Tahir Shah, In Arabian Nights

    

The most powerful and enduring connection we share as a human race is our desire and need to share stories. We engage in the art of storytelling more than most of us ever realize; whether we are describing our kids’ soccer games, critiquing the latest HBO series, telling a ribald joke, or remembering a long lost friend, event, memory, book, or experience. We listen to stories in songs, in long-winded meetings, in late night BBC broadcasts or self aggrandizing talk radio, on long car rides, and in intimate conversations with friends and lovers. We tell stories for reasons that are so deeply embedded in our psyche and DNA that storytelling is a natural and intuitive response to almost any situation. Sometimes, when stuck with a rather boorish person, we wonder why the sam hill that person insists on telling insipid stories; but, most of the time we listen, reflect, and respond—usually with stories of our own. It is out of this verbal give and take—our personal and cultural oral tradition—that we reflect and grow and expand the range of our limitations. It is our way to “shuffle off our mortal coil” while still alive. Through stories we live outside and beyond the confines of our short sojourn on earth, but while we are here and struggling through the vicissitudes of everyday life, it is stories that feed our roots and spread our canopy upwards into an infinite sky.

Nurture Passion

   

Every kid should know whittlin'

     How about we all take the bull by the horns and make this blog thing work! Your job this week is to do something with your blog that is powered by the passion that is in you. Passion is the one thing you have some control over. There are plenty of smarter, more gifted, and more interesting writers out there than me or you--but there shouldn't be a more passionate writer. For better or worse, your blog is you--as my blog is me, and until you want a better you and I want a better me, readers will find another place to go.