Do-it-yourself Muse

First, start with a mirror.

A few small musings

• I've always wondered why serious writers shy away from writing about sex, as a rule. I know there are exceptions, but one just doesn't see much of it. It seems to me, and to Emily Maguire, that such an important part of our lives shouldn't be neglected in literature.
• And John Humphrys argues that proper grammar and punctuation should be preserved in the interests of communication and clarity:

Language is more than a tool for expressing ourselves. It acts as a mirror to our world, reflecting back to us the way we live. It reflects our attitudes about the way we see things and how we are seen by others: in public life; in politics and commerce; in advertising and marketing; in broadcasting and journalism. Yet the prevailing wisdom about language seems to be that "anything goes".

Word by word, we are at risk of dragging our language down to the lowest common denominator and we do so at the cost of its most precious qualities: subtlety and precision. If we're happy to let our common public language be used in this way, communication will be reduced to a narrow range of basic meanings.

• And it's official: we all look the same. No. Really. It's official.

Succinct

Wired Magazine asked writers to write stories in six words. Distilled prose at its best...

(Bonus: More entries at Metafilter.)

The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest

Occasionally I like to browse the present and past winners of this contest. The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest is an annual contest of bad writing, with the entries consisting of single sentences of some of the most horrible writing...

I don't usually mention my perverse love for reading these entries, but I just had to share a statement made by Michael Quinion, editor of one of my truly favorite websites, World Wide Words. I subscribe to his wonderful newsletter on language and in the July 22 issue, he had this to say about the contest:

I've always been ambivalent about the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for Bad Writing. He wasn't that awful a writer and doesn't deserve such mockery. Admittedly, he wrote floridly, as did many authors of the nineteenth century, but we don't point the finger of accusation at Dickens, whose pages are often at least as enpurpled. To mock decidedly bad writing, it should be renamed the Dan Brown Da Vinci Code Bad Fiction Contest. Trying to outdo him really would be a challenge.

Heh. I guess I'm not the only one who is still mystified why Dan Brown is so popular.

Oh... and I highly recommend subscribing to the newsletter, especially if you love the English language.

Have a Happy New Year, anyhow...

For those of you who know how much I disliked The Da Vinci Code, you'll also know that this scares me.

Let's just hope the writing is at least good. Note to Dan Brown: it takes more than a little research and a lot of made-for-TV plot twists to make a good book. Please learn how to write.

Since I seem to have a theme going

Anne Ishii has posted her Finger in the Throat Report #7.

Come one, come all, down to my digestive system, as I consume this very lovely work of asianica, which I am using to coin a new genre of fiction: Phonetic Asianica, or Phonetica for short.

Phonetica is self-explanatory. It's when a writer chooses to represent his/her characters phonetically. When Yummee from Fan Tan says she likes being pushed around, it reads "I rike-ee beeng pushed alound." When the complimentary hooker in Lost in Translation visits Bill Murray's hotel room, and wants to convey a desire to have her pantyhose ripped off her legs, it reads: "Lip it! Lip my hose!"

Funny? Yes. Relatable? oh, I'm sorry, rerataber? iyessss. Always applopliate? Possibry not.

I was laughing so hard by the end of this article, I had people peering into my office wondering if I was okay.

Maybe white men shouldn't write about Asia.

(via Bookslut)

Useless research

I've stumbled across some odd, useless and obvious "studies" done in the name of serious science, but I've finally found one that is obvious as well as apt!

Now I know my profession has a less-than-exciting reputation, but I have never felt the need to justify it. Heck, I can easily get a job almost anywhere. But it's funny how so many accountants get defensive about the work they do.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales provided a robust defence of its members.

A spokesman said: "The area of tax accountancy is anything but dull. Our members get to work in all sectors of the economy, including small businesses and the media and entertainment industries.

"Many of our members lead varied and interesting lives, taking part in activities such as trekking around the Alps for charity and being involved in local community projects, such as working in deprived areas. "

Some of them can even write...

An essay by a poet

I have mentioned before that I have a difficult time writing prose. I lack the organization and the sense of pacing to write much prose.

Vivé Griffith writes an amazingly beautiful essay in The Gettysburg Review that illuminates many of these feelings on why and how I write:

"I never learned how to tell a story. Try as I might, I can never quite place a beginning, a middle, an ending on things. I get confused, and my endings become beginnings, my middles endings. Or I forget what happened and make something up. Or I think I can see the full sequence, but I get impatient on the way there.

I have learned instead to create moments. I am in love with moments."

Her love of moments is illustrated in the the subject of the essay, her father. She uses her poet's sense of word-painting to give us a sad, sweet picture of him.

"Here’s the thing: my father uses my poems to sell timeshare. He sits across those cheap metal folding tables that seem to be a staple in every timeshare office and says, “Let me show you a poem my daughter wrote.”

What kind of poems sell timeshare?"

It is this sort of writing that sets my fingers itching to write. We'll see if it helps...

Intelligent Story-telling

I've been a fan of Umberto Eco for many years. I read The Name of the Rose (aside: a great list of SIPs for this book!) about 20 years ago while I was in college. It made for perfect summer reading. It was fine story-telling combined with amazing research and a fantastically imaginative intelligence.

I was also captivated by Foucault's Pendulum and The Island of the Day Before and a collection of essays called How to Travel With a Salmon and Other Essays. I still have Baudolino sitting in my pile of books to be read. And I know I'll have to run out and get The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana very soon.

I loved Foucault's Pendulum. I read it twice (the first time with a dictionary and an encyclopedia next to me) and ate up the complicated plot and twisted conspiracy theories. I am one of those who thinks The Da Vinci Code was a poor (okay, awful) substitute for Eco's amazing look into secret societies.

The Telegraph has a wonderful profile of Eco (who, I was surprised to learn, is 73 years old!) where he muses about his reputation as the thinking person's writer and his surprise at his fame.

On a side note: am I the only one who thinks The Da Vinci Code was a horribly written book? Most reviews I've read gush about what a page-turner it was and how astounding the premise was. I had already read the premise in Foucault's Pendulum and I barely made it through the book with my husband nagging me through it (he loved it). He actually ends Chapter 64 with "And then everything went black." Gah!

The Zen of Writing

Tom Robbins is my hero. He treats the English language with the perfect mixture of respect and playfulness.

I always thought if I wrote prose, I'd want to write like him. I don't do too well with prose because I tend to spend way too much time crafting before moving on to the next part. I can't get my pacing right when I do that. I approach writing prose like I do writing poetry.

So, imagine my surprise when I read about how Tom Robbins writes his novels. He crafts them one sentence at a time. No planning. No editing. Wow.

And, as I suspected, he considers words the most important part of writing. In an interview about writing, he states:

"Our world isn't made of earth, air and water or even molecules and atoms, our world is made of language," he says. "Can you imagine a school of architecture in which all the emphasis is on floor plans and roof lines but no attention is ever paid to the properties of stone and brick and lumber? Well our creative writing programs focus entirely on structure and generally ignore the inventory of words on which those structures have to be constructed. So that's one reason why so many of our novels are so verbally boring."

He also says this:

"Consider Shakespeare - most of his plots or characters were borrowed or stolen from other sources, though what made him great was his astonishing genius for language. Shakespeare's long shelf life is due primarily to his love for words and the manner in which he expressed them. If it weren't for his language, Shakespeare would have just been another pretty plagiarist."

Which is something I've always thought...

In any case, I highly recommend any book by Mr. Robbins.

Some random thoughts on poetry

Currently reading: The Art and Craft of Poetry by Michael J. Bugeja

This is possibly the best book I've ever read on how to write poetry. And I've read a lot. A lot of good practical advice without getting too technical, and lots of good ideas for inspiration without getting too new-agey and touchy-feely. Highly recommended.

National Poetry Month is over, but please don't stop reading poetry, or writing it.

I found an interesting review of Billy Collins' reading in North Carolina. It sounded exactly like what he did here. Perhaps that is the slight ennui I found behind his readings? Too much of the same thing?

And, finally... Isn't it bad enough there are so many good poets who can't get published, without rubbing our noses in this? I guess I can always re-educate myself...

Poetry as performance

Currently reading: Nine Horses by Billy Collins

I got to go see Billy Collins (U.S. Poet Laureate from 2001-2003) on Monday night at the university. When he was named Poet Laureate, I had already been a fan of his. I was thrilled his work was being recognized.

(Aside: I am not as impressed with the current Poet Laureate, Ted Kooser, but I confess I haven’t read many of his poems. I’ll give him a chance.)

Billy Collins is a marvelous entertainer. His verse is well-suited to being read aloud, and he knows just where to put pauses to make the audience laugh or sigh.

It was a much bigger crowd than I’d expected, but I was delighted to see a lot of teens and kids there. I was exposed to good poetry very early on and I was taught that poetry needn’t be stuffy, lofty, pretentious or incomprehensible. There needs to be more of this.

And maybe it was just me, but I felt a strange undercurrent of ennui in Mr. Collins. Was he tired of reading the same poems again and again? Was Reno just a backwoods hicktown beneath his notice? Or was it just my imagination?

But he did read a poem that I found practically perfect. He introduced it by saying that he’d found a love poem in a magazine and that he’d discovered that the poet had found what it is that women want: “They want to be compared to things.” I love this poem, but when I originally read it, I found it to be sweet, with a slightly wry twist. When he read it, people were doubled over in laughter.

He opens the poem with the first two lines of the love poem:

Litany

by Billy Collins

You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
- Jacques Crickillon...

You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass,
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.

However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is no way you are the pine-scented air.

It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general's head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.

And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.

It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.

I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley,
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.

I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman's teacup.
But don't worry, I am not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and--somehow-- the wine.




Billy Collins had this to say about this poem (and his poetry in general):

“I have said this before, but the perfect poem for me would be one in which the reader/listener could never be completely sure at any given point whether the poem was being serious or amusing, grave or droll. The closest word we have to describe that condition is irony. "Litany" and a few other poems of mine flirt with this state of being funny/serious. Most of them fail because they lose their balance and fall to one side or the other. Waiting on one side of this balancing act is sarcasm and on the other side, sentimentality. I am susceptible to both. Because "Litany" is a series of love poem conventions -- these traditionally enhancing comparisons of the woman to whatever -- we seem to recognize the familiar tone of the love lyric, but, of course, the poem is busy deconstructing (did I say that?) these conventions. Okay, making fun of them. Actually, that poem follows the movement of many Shakespeare sonnets -- it starts out being about the beloved and ends up being about the poet. What else is new?”

I highly recommend going to see “famous” poets read their work. I saw Marvin Bell read his poetry back in 1987 and it transformed my writing. If nothing else, it’ll make you want to write.

Do you read poetry?

Currently reading: Visible Signs: New and Selected Poems by Lawrence Raab.

I wish I could write like this. No one can end a poem like Raab:


A Crow
by Lawrence Raab


Here is the strict, abstract
light of winter. From a bare branch
a crow takes flight, rising
heavily, overcoming
the impossible. Snow
sifts from its branch.
A white shawl.
Thousands of separate flakes.
The bird has moved to another tree,
cawing harshly, though I can
barely hear it, with the windows
locked in place against
the cold. So the mind
remains at a distance
from its concerns,
its uncertain desires—
nothing to think of, or to say,
nothing truly seen until later.


He somehow inserts a wonderful inflection to his poetry. It is almost conversational. But then he’ll lend a magical insight or observation. It’s such a talent.

I know a lot of people who write poetry, but very few people who actually read it. I have always wondered who these writers think they will have as an audience, and how they expect to improve or diversify.

I know, I know... most poets will tell you, “I write for myself.” But as soon as you commit pen to paper, it becomes something else. It is “out there.” (For lack of a better phrase...) It is then owned by whoever reads and interprets it. All we can do, as poets, is attempt to convey.

I read this in an interview with Raab:

“I hope students signing up for a creative writing class in poetry are already interested in poetry. But frequently they're not particularly interested in reading poetry, only in writing it, which leads me to believe that they're not really interested in writing poetry, only in expressing themselves in some vague way. You learn by reading. You want to do what you enjoy experiencing. A good poem, I think, is one that you want, almost immediately, to reread. Not because you have to for a class, but because there's a richness there that draws you back. I try to find ways to get my students to experience that richness, the dazzling presence of it in great poems, the resonant possibility of it in their own work.”

Wow.

More of Raab's genius.