More than an essay
When I started writing group, when I started writing all together those many months ago, I knew that I had a particular destination in mind. My group didn’t know it, so it was nice to hear them tell me that I should be heading in that direction anyway.
So far, in three of our four group assignments, I’ve written about a single year of my life, my last year in Fredericksburg, Virginia. It’s a town that I could have sworn had some kind of spooky energy flowing through it. Now, I’m not so sure it wasn’t my spooky energy that drew me to a year so filled with drama.
Each story has been around the same length, and each has focused on a single thing. The adorable apartment where I lived for that first year. My friend Heather. And my birthday just after I arrived. And there are so many more stories to tell. With each assignment comes another essay, with each essay a different voice or style or focus, so creating one cohesive piece still feels a little distant. But more than ever it feels possible.
Especially after last week, when I wrote and recited the story of holding the keys to my friend Anne’s car in my hands just hours before she died in a drunk driving accident. My group, though they were curious about the personal side of the experience, asked some provoking questions about the process of writing the story. As usual, they were in awe of my ability to tell the truth about my life in writing and share it publicly (which continues my craving for some non-fiction writing peers). But more than anything, what they were starting to hear was the beginning of a collection.
What they heard was more than an essay; it was a chapter in a book. They wanted to hear more, and to help to find the thread that would tie that more together.
Two of the other writers in the group also wanted to expand on past pieces, so our assignment this month is to write what we want. Instead of a prescribed style or prompt, we have a prescribed duty: we each have to write every week and collectively report on how much we’ve written so that none of us can have the excuse of “I did this at the last minute”, a common favorite for when we’re feeling uncertain about a given piece.
Hopefully blogging about it first counts as some time clocked in on the process. But to be safe, I’ll have to find some way to get myself started before the first check-in later this week. Like the little sticky note on my computer says, “don’t just sit there, write!”
When the words don’t come
What does it take to keep going once I’ve started writing? Is there any guarantee that this time will be different than the 50 other times I’ve started a journal or book, only to abandon those endeavors weeks or months or maybe just days later? So far, the writing has been working out. Writing group is a help, although the composition of the group has dramatically changed, and it feels a little less about writing and more about hanging out now. It was our targeted focus on our writing process that made the first few sessions together so inspiring. But what I don’t need is coffee klatch. I’m determined to take this as seriously as I can.
Maybe I need a group filled with people I don’t know. But in the meantime, how do I let life, and my job, and relationships not get in the way of actually sitting down and putting words on the page?
It’s been a while since I finished my last piece for writing group. And I’ve had a hard time even setting aside time to think about my next. My job’s been crazy, my life is perpetually busy – but that was true at the beginning of this process. Is it a 5 month slump? I wonder if I could look back on all of my failed attempts at being a regular writer in the past and find the average length of time those attempts have lasted. It would probably be about 4 months.
So, here it is – the test. It actually feels a little like my relationship with Jack. When we made it past 4 months, I knew it would last forever. Could that be the same for my life as a writer?
I hope so. Even lamenting my lack of writing by writing about it feels promising. What else can I do? Write some more, obviously. But even as I’m sitting here at my office desk, I’m eyeing my brightly colored Post-It notes and…done! A hot pink note to myself on my keyboard reading: Don’t just sit there —WRITE! Maybe egging myself on will help.
Then, I’ll need to figure out if this group, productive though it is, is the right group for me – a lonely non-fiction writer in a world of women with unending imaginations. Many of the questions that I still have, that I had from the beginning of this project about how far I can take non-fiction, will never be answered by this group, because from the start they admitted that they’re afraid of non-fiction, and would rather take out their real life feelings in a made-up world.
So, I guess I’ll just have to do it. Maybe I’ll go back to my own non-fiction writing prompts in between group assignments. I know a few other writers, maybe there’s a non-fiction writing group I can join. I want to be challenged by other writers, pushed. And, knowing what I want should be the key to getting there.
When enough is enough
I used to think that to be able to write, a person had to be totally suffering. You know what I mean – the sad alcoholic eating pie alone for dinner and then getting into a fist fight later on in the night. And I did some pretty good suffering, relatively speaking, during my early days as “a writer”.
I also got very little written.
And, I think I’m proving that theory wrong pretty much every day these days, since I’ve been writing more than ever before and I’m about as happy as a person can get, relatively speaking. I’ve still got issues, but they’re everyday normal person issues, not Hemingway-type issues. And the fact that I’m so happy in spite of them makes them count even less.
So, the new theory is, well-adjusted = good writing. Or at least writing.
The less misery I gather around me, the more free I am to write. And I have been actively letting go of the misery. Are there people and incidences at my job that bother me? YES. But I’ve been practicing detaching myself from those things and people and I’m happily getting through my day. I call it “being a book”. Like a book, I’ll be there to give you the information I have, but also like a book, it doesn’t affect me one way or the other what you choose to do with that information.
It’s very freeing. It’s how I feel about people in general who take up a lot of energy. I’m here if you want to see me, but I’m not going to go out of my way to let you suck me dry. And voila! A happier life. And one spent taking up far less time for a low return on my investment.
Sound lazy? Or cold maybe? It could be, but the people in my life that remain in my life get even more love and attention and it’s of a higher quality. Including me. Finding myself as a writer, trite though it may seem, did involve finding myself first. Suffering might make for a good story told in a bar to a group of suffering people, but I’m looking forward to what feels like the next step in this evolution – a good story. Period.
The Big Reveal: Writing Group Tonight!
So, tonight is the first official meeting of our writing group. Our numbers have grown from 3 to 4, our stories are written and printed out, snacks have been procured. We are ready.
Here’s the breakdown on the membership:
P wrote a novel, started working with a professional editor, quit her 9-5 (ish) job in part to finalize the book, and then shelved it for a year. She hasn’t written anything since.
H does not really identify as a writer, although she’s a great story teller and hilariously funny. She is also the catalyst for the group, having approached D one day saying that she believed she had a story in her.
D, like P, is a real writer. She’s hidden her talents away for about the past 10 years, satisfying the itch with ad copy and other marketing-type writing. She loves short stories, and is bringing her favorite to read to us tonight before we begin reading our own.
And then there’s me. Harboring elaborate fantasies of being a writer for as long as I can remember. Crafting dark poetry in my early teens and long, drunken, scribbled journal entries in my 20′s. After graduating from college I took a road trip, intended to be the great female on-the-road buddy story that turned into an incredible solo experience instead. Following that I spent a year trying to turn it all into a book. Unsuccessfully. And since then I’ve become the master of talking points and press releases, carefully shaping other people’s realities into quippy soundbites.
My cohorts – P, D, H – are all fiction writers, so tonight I’m putting it on the line with my non-fiction peak into what could be a new start to the book I never wrote. Or just one excercise in a bunch of disconnected exercises. Either way, it’s given me a sense of thrill, to have immediate human reaction to something I’ve written. To be writing with great intent. To attempt to have a beginning, a middle and an end to an actual story.
So, for all of us there, the shy, the rusty, the un-inspired, the unfulfilled, the journey begins!
Write what you know: Feminism and Marriage
That’s the age old advice, right? Write what you know. I recently had dinner with a good friend who is very into social media, and is working to establish herself as an expert in the field. I already respect her opinion in general, but when it comes to using blogs or Twitter or any other such tool, she’s my go-to person for advice.
After a particularly impassioned rant about how the modern wedding culture in America should be viewed as empirical proof that feminism is still a necessary philosophy in our country, she said, without hesitation, “You should blog about that!”
Yes, but. “It was just a rant,” I argued. And I’m not a feminist scholar, just a practitioner. And don’t we have enough people with opinions filling up the internet? I never wanted to be a commentator; I want to be a recorder of experience.
That was nearly a week ago, and I’ve been stewing over it ever since. In my “real” life, I don’t necessarily share the stories that I’m working up the courage to write about, but I certainly do not hesitate to share my opinions. And I am definitely familiar with what it’s like to try to maintain feminist principles while getting married in today’s society.
Honey, it is hard. Take this conversation for example.
Me: Jack and I are getting married
A female acquaintance: How exciting! What will you wear?
Me: Um, I don’t know. We don’t even know when it’s going to be. NOT a white dress, if that’s what you mean.
Acquaintance: Oh? So, an ivory dress, then?
Me: Um, no.
Acquaintance (without a hint of irony): Cream?
What really gets me going, however, are the reality TV shows about weddings, specifically, brides. The compulsive need for the brides on these shows to be the princess alone is disturbing. But the truly troubling thing, the thing that makes my inner feminist twitch every time, is the unwavering belief that each woman’s sum value is dramatically affected by her ability to be the happiest, prettiest, best little entertainer ever on that single day, a day that is directly tied to her joining up with a man while wearing essentially the same dress as every other woman who did it before her.
Me: Jack and I decided to get married.
Acquaintance: That’s wonderful! How did he ask you?
Me: He didn’t ask me, we decided together.
Acquaintance (disappointed and a little confused): Oh.
Without fail, how I was asked and what I will wear are the two things other women most want to know about my pending nuptials. For the first three months we were engaged, I compulsively typed “feminist” and “wedding” into Google. The results were not helpful. In fact, there really was not a lot of support for those two ideas sharing space in a positive way. Except for the website indiebride, where I lurked for months to come.
And the biggest topic of conversation there: how does one feminist fight back against the charge of society, led by her mother and her aunts (why are there always those aunts!?). Traditional moments seem to sneak into otherwise non-traditional ceremonies – sure your dress might be red, but your father is still giving you away. The final answer seems almost always to be elopement, the total escape from societal norms.
So, for the feminist brides out there – you are not alone. You are not wrong to want to wear a jean skirt and get married in your living room. Good for you for asking your partner what it means to him and, instead of secretly slipping pictures of the kind of ring you want under your beloved’s pillow, going out and buying the ring yourself!
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to send a list of my friends to the woman who is throwing me a bridal shower, because no matter how hard you fight against it, tradition will find a way to rear its head. (Although she did promise that my feminist principles would be observed and some of my feminist principals present.)
One Quick Question
A few days ago, my friend Denise and I were talking about our wayward youths. It’s sometimes hard for people who meet me now to believe me when I talk about the crazy things I’ve done and learned from. (My theories about why that might be – and the crazy things themselves – are other topics for another time.)
Denise commented that she’d like to go back 20 years knowing what she knows now. She wondered how differently things could have turned out. “Wouldn’t you like to know what it would be like to be able to go back?”
Well, I wouldn’t. The only thing I could think of doing differently if I could do it all over again was not let my sister’s friends convince me I had to be in a different dorm my Freshman year of college. It’s the only decision I ever really let someone else make for me, and I wonder what my college life would have been like if I’d accepted my first living assignment. But that’s life, and I wouldn’t want to change it.
Nevertheless, the question kept needling at me. If Denise had so many things she’d do differently, what about other people I know? So, I opened up my email contacts and clicked on about 40 email addresses, representing a diverse cross-section of people my life, and asked them all this:
What would you do differently in your life if you had the chance?
I asked for a sentence or a story, something funny or serious, whatever my respondents felt covered the answer for their own personal situations.
So far, I’ve heard back from about 10 people, and it’s been incredible. Each person has had an extraordinarily clear idea of what they would do differently if they could. And it’s fascinating to see. Now, of course, I want to know about the people who didn’t answer and why. Is the answer too personal? Do they, like me, not have something they would change?
The problem with starting this project is that now that I’ve had a taste of what people are saying, I only want more. Story crack. I can’t get enough.
And thanks to the richness of the responses, I want to honor them in a great and interesting way. Have I found my direction? My topic of choice as a writer that goes beyond me and my life? We’ll see… in the meantime, here’s a taste:
Taken up Spanish instead of German in high school, and continued it in college. Everyone should know Spanish, as it is our de facto second language.
I think that I would have had another child. We love our kids so much that I wish we had at least one more.
I would have realized how wonderful and perfect I am much earlier and not have wasted all those years believing the voices in my head.
What about you? Want to be a part of my project? What would you have done differently?
Voices
I have a million voices in my head. They have to be there – it’s my job. Some writers have the luxury of representing themselves in their writing, or a character of their choice, but as a communications director in charge of public and media relations, my voice is never my own.
I am my boss’s voice, I am the Senator’s voice, I am the voice of the volunteer, the CEO, the agency head. In press releases, I never give the people I quote the option to come up with what they will say. I write the quotes for them, and let them “approve”. But it’s amazing how often I hear back, “That’s exactly how I would have said that!”
See? Even there the voice wasn’t my own.
When I realized several years ago that I had accomplished the goal of being a professional writer I was so pleased with myself. When people asked me what I did for a living I happily declared, “I am a Writer.” Dream come true.
And as a professional writer, I am totally confident in how I write, what I say, how I can compel people to make a phone call or donate money or support a candidate or program or idea. As long as the voice I’m writing in is not my own. And neither is the story.
I will write your speeches and your letters and your websites and your call scripts. I even love writing other people’s cover letters for job applications, I really do. I know what words you would and wouldn’t use, what words your specific audience wants to hear, specifically from you.
With all of these voices inside my head, spilling out onto the page, how could I not be uncertain about the way my own voice will emerge? What words would I never use? What’s my tone? What would people want to hear from me?
The advice I most often give to people struggling to find their own words is “Just tell the truth.” So, I’m starting there.
