Noel said something which I could not agree more with. “Steve Almond has opened my eyes to a type of writing that I thought was a no-no in college—writing without worrying what others will think, and writing in unconventional ways.” I read and watch and listen and devour media. It goes in. It goes out. And then I need more. I’m constantly seeking new experiences and ways of presenting story or feeling or emotion and every time I discover something composed in a way opposite of the conventional methods- I lose control. Right now, I’m reading a collection of Hellboy comic books. Hellboy is this big red demon guy who appeared in two feature films directed by Guillermo Del Toro but I didn’t know much about him. Before reading him I thought he was your standard comic book fella. 23 or so pages with a good arc but nothing special. I could never have been more mistaken. The creator, writer, and main illustrator, Mike Mignola takes risks in his collected compositions. Hellboy shows up in 5 page and 10 page short stories which elicit interest from my father due to their dense historical references. He fights baddies like the best of Marvel and DC’s big name heroes- but the art- the art is the most spectacularly unique thing I’ve come across in weeks. It’s blockish and jarring. It’s not overwrought with the style which consumes today’s comic industry, it’s something different. Something special. It’s Mike Mignola. He tells his stories and draws his pictures. No one else’s. That’s just how Almond won our hearts. By being Steve Almond. Is that the ticket to true creation, innovation, and elation? Not being Bill Shakespeare. Not being Akira Ifukube. Not being Isaac Assimov or Stan Lee. Just being Andrej? Just being Andy? Is it really and truly as simple as me just being me? You just being you? Yep, now I gotta pee and write a bunch more blog response.
Steve Almond is a good read, because, as most people have said on the blog, he has a certain degree of reality. You can feel Almond on the paper, as if you would know what it's like to hang out with this guy. The sad part is that we probably don't know what he's like because of these essays. And some people who love his writing may hate his guts if they met him in real life. Steve Almond on paper may not actually be Steve Almond, as most of us on paper are not who we really are in life. The thing that links writers is that they feel they have something to say. Either to themselves or to the world. But we have something to say that can't quite make it out in real life, so we have to put it on paper, cement it in posterity, and hope that....well, who knows what a writer hopes for when he writes. Bukowski wrote one time that real writers should have the words simply pour out, cause they are unable to contain them. I don't believe that that is how every writer functions, or how every real writer functions. But what is writing without a little piece of ourselves interjected into it. It is simply a form of entertainment, and as hollow as most big movies they release these days. They have very little reality in them, they have very little of the writer, because focus groups and keeping mass consumption always in the forefront of the artistic process absolutelty sucks the life out of the art. This gets back to the audience question. When you write for an audience, are you not writing yourself out and writing them in?
Rereading the blogs from this post showed a majority for beauty is showing the ugly. I get it and agree with it still. But I liked the point that was brought up about how we know Steve Almond is being completely honest. Yes I do think it’s a cynical thought, but I’ve been thinking: if we’re studying how to create honest, beautiful writing through the use of language tools (ellipsis, footnotes, conjunctions, etc.) then didn’t Almond do the same thing? Thus leading to his success as a writer. So I guess what I’m saying is that yes, we need to be honest, but we also need to know stylistically how to form our honesty. Or is that cheating? Is it any less honest? Like how telling half-truths is really lying. Perhaps not. I think it’s more like vantage points at the scene of an accident: everyone tells the truth, but everyone saw it happen differently. That’s how our lives and writing are. Honesty doesn’t have to equal everyone’s idea of beauty, it just has to be real and your audience will see it.
When I first started reading Almond this semester I had a lot of "Oh no he didn't say that." and "Oh snap. Tell me how you really feel Almond" comments running through my mind. His harsness and ugliness was apparent the first few pages we read. But after reading the blogs again, I really like what Aly Fronk said about Almond having layers. Sometimes Almond was a jerk, sometimes a romantic, and sometimes kind of too into himself like Morgan would say...lol. None the less, he was naked for his readers.
In the same way that Almond was naked, we all were. I instantly think about the times that Dr. P nudged people with a polite smile or stare down to read about their deepest darkest secrets and life lessons. (I'm not going to say names...I feel that would be kind of rude.) But some topics addressed were divorce, heart break, addiction, and the death of the love ones. I guess expressing the ugliness we share really does humanizes us all.
I think that was part of th reason why it was hard for Dr. P to let us go the last day of class. Through reading each other's ugliness and writing about our own ugliness we became human for everybody.
I agree with Zeke's last statement. We are at our best when we are real, and that is what Steve Almond did for his reader throughout the book. He stayed true to himself and didn't hide behind anything. And the same goes for everyone in the class. No one tried to crouch in the corner. Three years ago, I would have probably thrown up if I was asked to share my writing with anyone. And it wasn't even because it was so real. It ties withthe Pauses blog. I just didn't want to hear criticism. I wanted to assume everyone would think it was dainty and amazing without their actual opinions. What a stupid made up bubble. I am not sure what popped it, but it is gone. It feels amazing. I love reading others works. It makes me feel more in tune with those around me. I always thought I was so different from everyone. My makeup made me stand out. Not really though, we all looked the same underneath. Just like Steve, just like Dr. PD. I love that feeling.
Now that I’ve read pretty much all of Almond’s book I have decided that maybe he’s not embracing his flaws as much as I thought when I first wrote this blog’s comment. Yes, he does break the rules and he does it flawlessly. Between his footnotes, which are hysterical, and his funny situations and dialogue, he is truly one of a kind. It’s so neat the way he incorporates his own life experiences in order to make a broader point. But do the things he says reek of defect? Not really. I mean, yes, he is a baby daddy for that short period of time and things like that, but I don’t see him walking around with a peg leg and a hunchback and talking about how awful it is for children to run from him. I have no doubt that he is being honest, but at the same time - I feel like he expresses the misgivings in his life that aren’t hard for him to express, which is probably why he does it so well. He’s not really giving up some deep dark secret, but rather is touching on things that aren’t that hard for him to talk about. Granted, I don’t know him personally, so I could be way off, but it seems like it’s all there to be entertaining, thoughtful, and fun. Or maybe, he disguises the emotional interior so well that we don’t know he’s being sentimental, which could very well be the case. I go back to what my first comment says in that it’s all about having that over-confidence to man-up and break the rules once in a while. And he’s got that for sure.
I have to be completely honest, I don't have the first clue as what to write in response. I re read the blog and everyone's responses, and I feel like it's all be said. Steve is a genius. Point. Blank. The End. I see a writer's audience as a fairly new bf/gf. You are past the point of like but not quite in love. yet.
Every time you write to them, you let them see a little bit more of what makes you special. You let them see your flaws, your talents, and everything in between.Relationships are based on honesty, or at least an ideal relationship is based on honesty, and it is my belief to be honest from the beginning. Let it all hang out, for lack of a better phrase, and if they like it then yall were meant to be and if not, there is someone else out there that's better suited for the real you. At least you can look back and have no regrets and say you gave it your all.
I have to agree that writing ugly is best. Writing with the ugly stuff is what people want to read. People want to read the real stuff, the raw stuff. Just like the entire world has a fascination with ripping off the band-aid and with staring at a car crash… we want to see what is real, what is gruesome about real life. Nobody wants to read the pleasant, polished stuff. People want to see the ugly side, they want to see what is bad about your life, so that they can feel better about theirs. Or even so that they can escape theirs, if even for a few minutes. I do stick with what I said in the original blog. Writing ugly is hard because as human beings, it is in our nature to hide our flaws. We don’t want people to know that we mess up. We want people to believe that we are perfect all of the time. So, writing the truth isn’t always easy. I agree with what Noel said. Steve Almond has opened my eyes to a new type of writing. A type of writing that isn’t usually allowed in college. However, this type of writing does allow you to express your feelings better. It allows you to be free. It allows you to break free from the traditional constraints of writing and write without thinking of anything else except your writing and the way you feel.
I agree with Ferrell and Zeke, Almond says things that I never expected to be written in a book, but if it isn’t in his own voice why would he write it? That’s something that I really took to heart this semester.. be yourself. Don’t try to be someone else in your writing, use your own voice.
It feels so good, so exhilarating to write as myself rather than hiding behind a stylized illusion of myself. Before I began this class I would have never shared writings that I wrote in my true voice, why would I it was embarrassing.
Somehow, I guess through being in a setting where everyone was putting themselves on the line.. Everyone feeling the same anxiety as I was, they opened me up. Opened me up and allowed me to be me without any fear or disapproval.
If I had to pick any one portion of this course as my favorite it would be the allowance that is made for students to truly express themselves by developing their own… true voice.
AlyFronk said, “Is it more beautiful to admit the ugliness we make?” I believe that we should admit the ugliness in our writing…that ugliness brings out who we really are. It says that we are not afraid to make mistakes and learn from them. This ugliness is part of our writing just like the beautiful parts. The ugliness is just as important, if not more important, that the beautiful writing. Sometimes I like to think of the ugliness as writing that we have worked even harder to achieve. We must first write ugly stuff in order to get to the pretty stuff. It’s like what Aly said about layers. I think the ugly stuff comes first in order to reveal a beautiful piece of writing.
When I first started reading Almond, I was reading parts of it with my mouth wide open. I was thinking, “Is he really allowed to write like this?” I guess I was surprised because I’ve never seen any writing like his, especially in a college classroom. I was very impressed that Almond could let himself run wild in whatever he wrote. To say the least, his book is the only one that I did not sell back to a bookstore this semester. It means so much to me to know that Almond’s type of writing has a place on the bookstands… and now it has a place (rather it will have a place) on my bookshelf when I move back home this weekend.
As I look back at this blog, it’s not my response that I find myself taking a closer look at – it’s Dr. P’s post. As a read it a second time, my eyes caught on to a phrase that I think I missed, or skipped over for lack of understanding, the first time around.
It goes…
“I share my story, my thoughts, and my politics with my students. It put me at personal risk. Yet, aren't I asking the same of you? To write yourselves into being?”
It’s the last idea that gets me – “write yourselves into being.” What?? I’m pretty sure I am already being. At least, that’s how I would have read this line about 5 weeks ago. But, I get it now. This, to me, could be like the bow that ties this whole class together. So much of what we’ve talked about this summer has been for the purpose of defining ourselves, our voices – and, before we have found that, who are we anyway? So yeah, we’ve kind of written ourselves into being. I like it.
This brings me back to the ugliness thing. Is it more beautiful to admit it? Well, yes, but it’s more than that – it’s necessary. If we are writing ourselves into being, how can we leave out our humanity, our flaws? We can’t. I think a lot of us, but I will only speak for myself, have found that before this class we were writing ourselves into being someone else.
Love Catherine Wright’s summation: “Realness earns my respect.” Solid.
I am now more confused than ever. I was drawn to Steve Almond like a shiny new penny. I thought he was a genius. I would have licked the bottome of his shoe if it meant I could write like him. But that goes against everything we have tried to achieve in this course, which is to be true, real, individuals. So yes, Steve is great. He writes eceptionally well, and I am sucked in everytime he puts pen to paper. Yet, I have a nagging buzz in the back of my mind. I can't formulate it perfectly yet, but it is sitting just there. I'm goign to try to explain it, but pardon my issues. Steve is educated. He probably had a teacher like Dr. P who drops knowledge out of thin air. He has had countless life experiences. But, and this is where I get stuck, he probably learned and perfected the same tricks and expressions that we are beginning to understand so is he really being real, or is he just being real enough? I am struck my what Meredith said. I was ready to give him a parade, but now I might just give him an encouraging hug. It all leads me to this question: Do we ever Really know when what we read is true? In conversation, you can see expression and feel how people speak the words. It is in "real time" if you will. you have to be present to have access. But with Steve, much like with this blog, what we wrote before may not be how we feel now. So which is real?
I, like many others, was at first a little taken back by Almond. He was vulgar and in-your-face, rude and explicit. Once the shock wore off... I loved it. It was so refreshing to have someone be real like that in a piece of literature that was actually good! I found myself unable to put it down. It was as if until I read it, I didn't know that kind of writing existed... and I don't think I did (especially not in a college classroom). But I think I learned more from his book than in any of my other writing classes. He taught us through example how to be real and just be us without worrying about what other people would think. I admit it was very difficult for me to try writing like that... but once I started it was a fun challenge. Our humanity is what helps us connect with the readers, and with each other. Besides... if you're fake your readers won't trust or believe you. Almond had no problem with that.
When I first met Almond, in reading of course, I thought he was, well, excuse my language, a selfish prick. He shared all of these crazy, wild, random stories, yet still lived this cynical life. I wanted to yell at him for saying some of things he said, but I knew deep down it would do no good. He's a grown man for goodness sakes. The true beauty of Almond didn't actually hit me until I read his chapter on the ugliness that middle and high school brought him. He was so real and relatable that I couldn't shun him anymore. He wrote of lost lovers that turned him down because of his looks and friends that were there even through the ugly duckling days. All of this writing was hideous, yet somehow breathtakingly beautiful.
I feel that when I first started writing in this class, I held back on the ugly details and tried to wrap the entire piece with a "pretty little bow" the whole time. Nothing was real to me and I knew it, yet I thought it would please others.
What Almond truly taught me was, screw what everyone else thinks. Write for yourself and love every minute of it.
It wasn't Almonds unabashed humor or offensive language that drew me to him. It was the way he flips it on your head and exposes the underbelly of emotion in those stolen sentences of sentiment. It's not that hard to be witty, or funny, or self-effacing. It's hard to be all of that and tender at the same time, in the same paragraph. His writing is astoundingly human. It's embodies the way that people find the strength to laugh at funerals. Because Almond really grasps that life isn't about the earth shattering moments like meeting Kurt Vonnegut, but rather about cooking lobster with friends. Almond never ties it off with a bow, but leaves you hanging blasted open with humor and emotion.
I remember I hated the story about his wife's pregnancy. I thought the way he wrote about her body was offensive and would hurt if I ever had a husband who paid more attention to my vomiting and tits than the fact I was harboring his child. It seemed to take away the beauty of pregnancy (but this is coming from someone whose never been there so I don't know if I really have a right to talk). But then there was that moment when he described her looking at her tummy and knowing he was an outsider. I take it all back. He's brilliant. I couldn't describe a moment like that if someone gave me 100 bucks. It's Almonds ability to turn you on your head and leave you hanging that makes me say - I'd rather not have the bow, we're good hanging.
Steve Almond. He feels like an old friend. A friend with enough “spark and vitality” (I think that choice of words came from the movie Rushmore) to remind me how okay it is to write the truth. And how necessary. There are subjects I’ve written or would like to write about that aren’t comfortable. What do I do? I put on a pair of rubber gloves and leave the most sanitized version of the story on the piece of paper. But my good friend Steve has shown me how pretty the dirt is. How playing around in all the filthy dirt brings the precious stones to the surface. In the papers we’ve written for this class I’ve tried to use some of Almond’s techniques to make some taboo subjects touchable. I love his rogue grammar techniques, his footnotes, his parentheses; but mostly Almond has shown me what wit is. Being witty is not the same as being disrespectful - wit (which, among SOOO much more I‘ve taken from this class) has taught me that painful subjects are nothing to cower from. As humans we connect so much more deeply with each other’s pain than we can with our gold-star achievements.
I can't really think of anything new and enlightening to say on this one. Technically this would be the 4th time I have posted about it.
But I will say this, I think that we can all agree with Laura. Steve is an old friend. He's one of us. I wish that we could invite him to one of our class sessions. 1) I think that he would enjoy hearing all of us praise him and 2) We all would love to hear first hand what he has to say about his craft.
This blog quite possibly stood out to me above all the others. The fact that we can see beauty in the flaws of humanity is something that I have never thought about before. I mean, I have always been taught that humans are sinful creatures… which we are, but I never took the time to think that the fact that we are sinful does not mean that we cannot also be beautiful. The quote about Lot’s wife in this blog really stood out to me. Yes, Lot’s wife disobeyed God by looking back to the city that had been her home for years, but who’s to say that I wouldn’t do the same. To me, that’s the beauty of it. I can’t blame Lot’s wife for looking back to the city that she knew and loved, because let’s be honest… most of us would have. This sense of humanity is what links us all together, and in a way… it’s what is beautiful. We all have imperfections, yet what fun would life be if we were all perfect?
These imperfections seen in throughout humanity are the imperfections that I now believe we should let show in our writing. We should lean forward to our readers “without our makeup on”… let them see the real us. I have come to learn, mostly through this class, that writing what is real to us is what makes our writing relatable to others. Why would someone want to read my writing when all I talk about is how perfect I am, and do all I can to take all the imperfections out of my writing? They wouldn’t. People can’t relate to that. People don’t want to feel inferior when reading the writing of other. Letting our readers see the real us, (I think) is the most effective way to really reach our audience.
I agree with Noel when she says that Steve Almond opened up her eyes to a style of writing that she thought was a no-no in college. I have always been taught that traditional essays are the way to go in college. Turning in writing that is similar to that of Almond’s to one of my previous professors would not have gone over so well. But I do feel that this type of writing does have its place in the academic world. Yes, we should know how to write research papers and traditional essays, but we should also know how to express ourselves in our writing. Of course, I will have to teach my future students the boring stuff, but it is now also a goal of mine to allow them to really express themselves in their writing. Once their scholarly days are over, it will be their personal writing that means the most to them, not the fact that they can write a kick-butt research paper.
I felt this blog lent itself to complete openness. To write whatever we wanted about Steve, nice or not. I first wrote about writing with or without our makeup on and the humanity in both, as well as the humanity of Lot's wife. But I've decied that my final blog about ole Steve requires something much more honest. And although you'll never read this, Steve, this is for you....
I'd probably hate you as a person.(You'd also probably hate me.) I know I shouldn't hate, and that's a curse word in the Southern vocabulary. But I do. I hate some people, just as some hate me. (I'm sorry, mother.)Steve, I've never ever met you and probably never will, by your writing made me hate you. You're a smartass Democrat without much reason to be such. You rant about problems in America and defile her as a whole without so much as an miniscule ideal of how to deal with such "problems" let alone fix them. You blame veryone for everything except yourself. You cuss like a sailor. And although I sometimes find a curse word necessary to get a point across (sorry again, mother) what you do is downright ridiculous. You put down Christianity yet embrace Jewish ways (FAITH INCLUDED) all while being an atheist. You're narcissistic, vain, whiny, and so DAMN annoying! But most of all, I hate you because I'm still compelled to read your work beacause it's so freaking good.
I think Stevie's work is somewhat that "real fiction" we coined last night. In a way, his wit can come off as insecurity, its his way of dealing with things- which, is fine-- but maybe we aren't understanding the real Steve. When we write-- we're writing our real thoughts and actions and emotions, but I get the feeling that its all fiction. Once its written down, it becomes a story and we are able to twist it through our emotion to the way we want it to be heard.
His style is incredible-- the style to me is fearless and really ballsy. He doesn't give a shit if you love him or hate him-- he's letting it all out there and that part is definitely real... the words however, could quite possibly be the fiction... I think we need to be careful when we write to not stray from the realness, because that's what moves our audience. We become understood.
Reading Steve Almond enhanced my writing. And that is an understatment. It was like going back to square one. He has such command of his voice I never once questioned that he knew what he was talking about. It was the perfect balance between the profane and the sacred. The "Tesla Matters, Dude" article really touched me. It was so raw and truthful and in a way it embodied "hair metal" (I'm not a hair metal guy, but he MADE me, no no no he FORCED me to like hair metal). He is very good at making the personal seem universally relatable.
He waxes in the lude but he shines in the beautiful. His endings are toxic. They get in you. I found myself reading with the thought in mind that I am going to be changed by the last sentence. And almost every single time this was the case. Simple and breath taking. But then I enhale and read the next chapter.
In a discussion the other night, outside and under the stars (a plastic solo cup of Maker’s Mark and ice in my hand), I found myself discussing V for Vendetta (a very cool graphic novel and a great movie. If you haven’t seen it I highly recommend it, but be prepared for lots of blood). In leaving the party at about 12:30, I got home and instead of going to bed I pulled out my copy of V for Vendetta and watched it again. One moment that stood out to me in that movie is when Evey says, “My father was a writer. You would've liked him. He used to say that artists use lies to tell the truth, while politicians use them to cover the truth up.”
Bear with me, I’m going to do some quoting, but it’s going somewhere (I promise.)
Eponymous said, “The sad part is that we probably don’t know what he’s like because of these essays… Steve Almond of paper may not actually be Steve Almond, as most of us on paper are not who we really are in life.”
And then BrittanyMaclain built on that when she said, “So I guess what I’m saying is that yes, we need to be honest, but we also need to know stylistically how to form our honesty. Or is that cheating? Is it any less honest? Like how telling half-truths is really lying.”
I think Almond is an artist. While he might not be “using lies,” how can we be SURE that he’s giving us the truth? That his words are warranted? We can’t. Yet we feel, as we read him, that he is being truthful and that is what matters the most. That we, as readers, in the end of it all, realize that the ultimate goal of Almond’s work is to tell the truth, whether he does that by using lies, half-lies, or the truth, it does not matter. In the end the message is just as important as the way in which he delivers the message.
In my first post back in early July I talked about how Almond is always real in his writing and even though he may not come across as likable, he still is real with his audience and doesn't shy away from his true voice.
At the beginning of this class I'll admit I only wrote to please others...and that was totally the opposite of what I should have been doing. Through Dr. P and Almond (Yes, I hated him at the beginning of class because I thought he was a prick, but he really did help me understand the larger picture) I learned not to just try to please everyone in my writing.
I feel like through every blog post that Dr. P put up we took gradual steps to improve our writing and she taught us to understand why we were doing it as well. Each blog post has allowed me to unlock that being...almost like peeling back a layer of onions. Each post gets deeper and deeper and reveals our true voice and self.
So even though I still think Almond is a prick...I thank him and Dr. P for teaching me to step outside that comfort zone and to write for myself and no one else.
Pauses: I dont like em. But I guess they are pretty useful in writing and in casual conversation. They normally indicate when something is going pretty badly, like Luke mentioned, or when a situation calls for some instant hilarity. Nothing is funnier than an awkward pause, or someone not being able to remember what they were talking about the second before. Maybe thats just me though. Pauses are a great way to creep people out too. If I were to tell someone I didnt know that I loved hanging out at schools to stare at the kids they would more than likely sock me straight in the face. But if I finished that sentence with a pause and then added that it reminds me of my little cousin who is around that age, It would still be pretty weird but less likely to get me punched right in the kisser. And if you know me, you'll know that I love not getting punched in the mouth. Audience: More like flaw-dience. An audience is always going to nit-pick and dissect every little thing about a story whether they like it or loathe it. I suppose it just comes with the territory of writing a book, or a paper. I'm going to be honest: I am really proud of that pun I just made. The audience is going to offer the best criticsm and some of the least helpful advice as well. You cant win when dealing with your audience, just ask Thomas Pynchon. For instance, when me and my friends go to see what Jigsaw is up to, the Saw-dience will decide what parts of the movie were stupid and what parts are so stupid they were hilarious.
Noel said something which I could not agree more with. “Steve Almond has opened my eyes to a type of writing that I thought was a no-no in college—writing without worrying what others will think, and writing in unconventional ways.”
ReplyDeleteI read and watch and listen and devour media. It goes in. It goes out. And then I need more. I’m constantly seeking new experiences and ways of presenting story or feeling or emotion and every time I discover something composed in a way opposite of the conventional methods- I lose control.
Right now, I’m reading a collection of Hellboy comic books. Hellboy is this big red demon guy who appeared in two feature films directed by Guillermo Del Toro but I didn’t know much about him. Before reading him I thought he was your standard comic book fella. 23 or so pages with a good arc but nothing special.
I could never have been more mistaken. The creator, writer, and main illustrator, Mike Mignola takes risks in his collected compositions. Hellboy shows up in 5 page and 10 page short stories which elicit interest from my father due to their dense historical references. He fights baddies like the best of Marvel and DC’s big name heroes- but the art- the art is the most spectacularly unique thing I’ve come across in weeks. It’s blockish and jarring. It’s not overwrought with the style which consumes today’s comic industry, it’s something different. Something special. It’s Mike Mignola. He tells his stories and draws his pictures. No one else’s.
That’s just how Almond won our hearts. By being Steve Almond.
Is that the ticket to true creation, innovation, and elation? Not being Bill Shakespeare. Not being Akira Ifukube. Not being Isaac Assimov or Stan Lee. Just being Andrej? Just being Andy? Is it really and truly as simple as me just being me?
You just being you?
Yep, now I gotta pee and write a bunch more blog response.
Steve Almond is a good read, because, as most people have said on the blog, he has a certain degree of reality. You can feel Almond on the paper, as if you would know what it's like to hang out with this guy. The sad part is that we probably don't know what he's like because of these essays. And some people who love his writing may hate his guts if they met him in real life. Steve Almond on paper may not actually be Steve Almond, as most of us on paper are not who we really are in life. The thing that links writers is that they feel they have something to say. Either to themselves or to the world. But we have something to say that can't quite make it out in real life, so we have to put it on paper, cement it in posterity, and hope that....well, who knows what a writer hopes for when he writes. Bukowski wrote one time that real writers should have the words simply pour out, cause they are unable to contain them. I don't believe that that is how every writer functions, or how every real writer functions. But what is writing without a little piece of ourselves interjected into it. It is simply a form of entertainment, and as hollow as most big movies they release these days. They have very little reality in them, they have very little of the writer, because focus groups and keeping mass consumption always in the forefront of the artistic process absolutelty sucks the life out of the art. This gets back to the audience question. When you write for an audience, are you not writing yourself out and writing them in?
ReplyDeleteRereading the blogs from this post showed a majority for beauty is showing the ugly. I get it and agree with it still. But I liked the point that was brought up about how we know Steve Almond is being completely honest. Yes I do think it’s a cynical thought, but I’ve been thinking: if we’re studying how to create honest, beautiful writing through the use of language tools (ellipsis, footnotes, conjunctions, etc.) then didn’t Almond do the same thing? Thus leading to his success as a writer.
ReplyDeleteSo I guess what I’m saying is that yes, we need to be honest, but we also need to know stylistically how to form our honesty. Or is that cheating? Is it any less honest? Like how telling half-truths is really lying. Perhaps not. I think it’s more like vantage points at the scene of an accident: everyone tells the truth, but everyone saw it happen differently. That’s how our lives and writing are. Honesty doesn’t have to equal everyone’s idea of beauty, it just has to be real and your audience will see it.
When I first started reading Almond this semester I had a lot of "Oh no he didn't say that." and "Oh snap. Tell me how you really feel Almond" comments running through my mind. His harsness and ugliness was apparent the first few pages we read. But after reading the blogs again, I really like what Aly Fronk said about Almond having layers. Sometimes Almond was a jerk, sometimes a romantic, and sometimes kind of too into himself like Morgan would say...lol. None the less, he was naked for his readers.
ReplyDeleteIn the same way that Almond was naked, we all were. I instantly think about the times that Dr. P nudged people with a polite smile or stare down to read about their deepest darkest secrets and life lessons. (I'm not going to say names...I feel that would be kind of rude.) But some topics addressed were divorce, heart break, addiction, and the death of the love ones. I guess expressing the ugliness we share really does humanizes us all.
I think that was part of th reason why it was hard for Dr. P to let us go the last day of class. Through reading each other's ugliness and writing about our own ugliness we became human for everybody.
I agree with Zeke's last statement. We are at our best when we are real, and that is what Steve Almond did for his reader throughout the book. He stayed true to himself and didn't hide behind anything.
ReplyDeleteAnd the same goes for everyone in the class. No one tried to crouch in the corner. Three years ago, I would have probably thrown up if I was asked to share my writing with anyone. And it wasn't even because it was so real. It ties withthe Pauses blog. I just didn't want to hear criticism. I wanted to assume everyone would think it was dainty and amazing without their actual opinions. What a stupid made up bubble.
I am not sure what popped it, but it is gone. It feels amazing.
I love reading others works. It makes me feel more in tune with those around me. I always thought I was so different from everyone. My makeup made me stand out. Not really though, we all looked the same underneath. Just like Steve, just like Dr. PD. I love that feeling.
Now that I’ve read pretty much all of Almond’s book I have decided that maybe he’s not embracing his flaws as much as I thought when I first wrote this blog’s comment. Yes, he does break the rules and he does it flawlessly. Between his footnotes, which are hysterical, and his funny situations and dialogue, he is truly one of a kind. It’s so neat the way he incorporates his own life experiences in order to make a broader point. But do the things he says reek of defect? Not really. I mean, yes, he is a baby daddy for that short period of time and things like that, but I don’t see him walking around with a peg leg and a hunchback and talking about how awful it is for children to run from him. I have no doubt that he is being honest, but at the same time - I feel like he expresses the misgivings in his life that aren’t hard for him to express, which is probably why he does it so well. He’s not really giving up some deep dark secret, but rather is touching on things that aren’t that hard for him to talk about. Granted, I don’t know him personally, so I could be way off, but it seems like it’s all there to be entertaining, thoughtful, and fun. Or maybe, he disguises the emotional interior so well that we don’t know he’s being sentimental, which could very well be the case. I go back to what my first comment says in that it’s all about having that over-confidence to man-up and break the rules once in a while. And he’s got that for sure.
ReplyDeleteI have to be completely honest, I don't have the first clue as what to write in response. I re read the blog and everyone's responses, and I feel like it's all be said. Steve is a genius. Point. Blank. The End.
ReplyDeleteI see a writer's audience as a fairly new bf/gf. You are past the point of like but not quite in love. yet.
Every time you write to them, you let them see a little bit more of what makes you special. You let them see your flaws, your talents, and everything in between.Relationships are based on honesty, or at least an ideal relationship is based on honesty, and it is my belief to be honest from the beginning. Let it all hang out, for lack of a better phrase, and if they like it then yall were meant to be and if not, there is someone else out there that's better suited for the real you. At least you can look back and have no regrets and say you gave it your all.
I have to agree that writing ugly is best. Writing with the ugly stuff is what people want to read. People want to read the real stuff, the raw stuff. Just like the entire world has a fascination with ripping off the band-aid and with staring at a car crash… we want to see what is real, what is gruesome about real life. Nobody wants to read the pleasant, polished stuff. People want to see the ugly side, they want to see what is bad about your life, so that they can feel better about theirs. Or even so that they can escape theirs, if even for a few minutes.
ReplyDeleteI do stick with what I said in the original blog. Writing ugly is hard because as human beings, it is in our nature to hide our flaws. We don’t want people to know that we mess up. We want people to believe that we are perfect all of the time. So, writing the truth isn’t always easy. I agree with what Noel said. Steve Almond has opened my eyes to a new type of writing. A type of writing that isn’t usually allowed in college. However, this type of writing does allow you to express your feelings better. It allows you to be free. It allows you to break free from the traditional constraints of writing and write without thinking of anything else except your writing and the way you feel.
I agree with Ferrell and Zeke, Almond says things that I never expected to be written in a book, but if it isn’t in his own voice why would he write it? That’s something that I really took to heart this semester.. be yourself. Don’t try to be someone else in your writing, use your own voice.
ReplyDeleteIt feels so good, so exhilarating to write as myself rather than hiding behind a stylized illusion of myself. Before I began this class I would have never shared writings that I wrote in my true voice, why would I it was embarrassing.
Somehow, I guess through being in a setting where everyone was putting themselves on the line.. Everyone feeling the same anxiety as I was, they opened me up. Opened me up and allowed me to be me without any fear or disapproval.
If I had to pick any one portion of this course as my favorite it would be the allowance that is made for students to truly express themselves by developing their own… true voice.
AlyFronk said, “Is it more beautiful to admit the ugliness we make?” I believe that we should admit the ugliness in our writing…that ugliness brings out who we really are. It says that we are not afraid to make mistakes and learn from them. This ugliness is part of our writing just like the beautiful parts. The ugliness is just as important, if not more important, that the beautiful writing. Sometimes I like to think of the ugliness as writing that we have worked even harder to achieve. We must first write ugly stuff in order to get to the pretty stuff. It’s like what Aly said about layers. I think the ugly stuff comes first in order to reveal a beautiful piece of writing.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first started reading Almond, I was reading parts of it with my mouth wide open. I was thinking, “Is he really allowed to write like this?” I guess I was surprised because I’ve never seen any writing like his, especially in a college classroom. I was very impressed that Almond could let himself run wild in whatever he wrote. To say the least, his book is the only one that I did not sell back to a bookstore this semester. It means so much to me to know that Almond’s type of writing has a place on the bookstands… and now it has a place (rather it will have a place) on my bookshelf when I move back home this weekend.
As I look back at this blog, it’s not my response that I find myself taking a closer look at – it’s Dr. P’s post. As a read it a second time, my eyes caught on to a phrase that I think I missed, or skipped over for lack of understanding, the first time around.
ReplyDeleteIt goes…
“I share my story, my thoughts, and my politics with my students. It put me at personal risk. Yet, aren't I asking the same of you? To write yourselves into being?”
It’s the last idea that gets me – “write yourselves into being.” What?? I’m pretty sure I am already being. At least, that’s how I would have read this line about 5 weeks ago. But, I get it now. This, to me, could be like the bow that ties this whole class together. So much of what we’ve talked about this summer has been for the purpose of defining ourselves, our voices – and, before we have found that, who are we anyway? So yeah, we’ve kind of written ourselves into being. I like it.
This brings me back to the ugliness thing. Is it more beautiful to admit it? Well, yes, but it’s more than that – it’s necessary. If we are writing ourselves into being, how can we leave out our humanity, our flaws? We can’t. I think a lot of us, but I will only speak for myself, have found that before this class we were writing ourselves into being someone else.
Love Catherine Wright’s summation: “Realness earns my respect.” Solid.
I am now more confused than ever. I was drawn to Steve Almond like a shiny new penny. I thought he was a genius. I would have licked the bottome of his shoe if it meant I could write like him. But that goes against everything we have tried to achieve in this course, which is to be true, real, individuals. So yes, Steve is great. He writes eceptionally well, and I am sucked in everytime he puts pen to paper. Yet, I have a nagging buzz in the back of my mind. I can't formulate it perfectly yet, but it is sitting just there. I'm goign to try to explain it, but pardon my issues. Steve is educated. He probably had a teacher like Dr. P who drops knowledge out of thin air. He has had countless life experiences. But, and this is where I get stuck, he probably learned and perfected the same tricks and expressions that we are beginning to understand so is he really being real, or is he just being real enough? I am struck my what Meredith said. I was ready to give him a parade, but now I might just give him an encouraging hug. It all leads me to this question: Do we ever Really know when what we read is true? In conversation, you can see expression and feel how people speak the words. It is in "real time" if you will. you have to be present to have access. But with Steve, much like with this blog, what we wrote before may not be how we feel now. So which is real?
ReplyDeleteI, like many others, was at first a little taken back by Almond. He was vulgar and in-your-face, rude and explicit. Once the shock wore off... I loved it. It was so refreshing to have someone be real like that in a piece of literature that was actually good! I found myself unable to put it down. It was as if until I read it, I didn't know that kind of writing existed... and I don't think I did (especially not in a college classroom). But I think I learned more from his book than in any of my other writing classes. He taught us through example how to be real and just be us without worrying about what other people would think. I admit it was very difficult for me to try writing like that... but once I started it was a fun challenge. Our humanity is what helps us connect with the readers, and with each other. Besides... if you're fake your readers won't trust or believe you. Almond had no problem with that.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first met Almond, in reading of course, I thought he was, well, excuse my language, a selfish prick. He shared all of these crazy, wild, random stories, yet still lived this cynical life. I wanted to yell at him for saying some of things he said, but I knew deep down it would do no good. He's a grown man for goodness sakes. The true beauty of Almond didn't actually hit me until I read his chapter on the ugliness that middle and high school brought him. He was so real and relatable that I couldn't shun him anymore. He wrote of lost lovers that turned him down because of his looks and friends that were there even through the ugly duckling days. All of this writing was hideous, yet somehow breathtakingly beautiful.
ReplyDeleteI feel that when I first started writing in this class, I held back on the ugly details and tried to wrap the entire piece with a "pretty little bow" the whole time. Nothing was real to me and I knew it, yet I thought it would please others.
What Almond truly taught me was, screw what everyone else thinks. Write for yourself and love every minute of it.
It wasn't Almonds unabashed humor or offensive language that drew me to him. It was the way he flips it on your head and exposes the underbelly of emotion in those stolen sentences of sentiment. It's not that hard to be witty, or funny, or self-effacing. It's hard to be all of that and tender at the same time, in the same paragraph. His writing is astoundingly human. It's embodies the way that people find the strength to laugh at funerals. Because Almond really grasps that life isn't about the earth shattering moments like meeting Kurt Vonnegut, but rather about cooking lobster with friends. Almond never ties it off with a bow, but leaves you hanging blasted open with humor and emotion.
ReplyDeleteI remember I hated the story about his wife's pregnancy. I thought the way he wrote about her body was offensive and would hurt if I ever had a husband who paid more attention to my vomiting and tits than the fact I was harboring his child. It seemed to take away the beauty of pregnancy (but this is coming from someone whose never been there so I don't know if I really have a right to talk). But then there was that moment when he described her looking at her tummy and knowing he was an outsider. I take it all back. He's brilliant. I couldn't describe a moment like that if someone gave me 100 bucks. It's Almonds ability to turn you on your head and leave you hanging that makes me say - I'd rather not have the bow, we're good hanging.
Steve Almond. He feels like an old friend. A friend with enough “spark and vitality” (I think that choice of words came from the movie Rushmore) to remind me how okay it is to write the truth. And how necessary. There are subjects I’ve written or would like to write about that aren’t comfortable. What do I do? I put on a pair of rubber gloves and leave the most sanitized version of the story on the piece of paper. But my good friend Steve has shown me how pretty the dirt is. How playing around in all the filthy dirt brings the precious stones to the surface. In the papers we’ve written for this class I’ve tried to use some of Almond’s techniques to make some taboo subjects touchable. I love his rogue grammar techniques, his footnotes, his parentheses; but mostly Almond has shown me what wit is. Being witty is not the same as being disrespectful - wit (which, among SOOO much more I‘ve taken from this class) has taught me that painful subjects are nothing to cower from. As humans we connect so much more deeply with each other’s pain than we can with our gold-star achievements.
ReplyDeleteI can't really think of anything new and enlightening to say on this one. Technically this would be the 4th time I have posted about it.
ReplyDeleteBut I will say this, I think that we can all agree with Laura. Steve is an old friend. He's one of us. I wish that we could invite him to one of our class sessions. 1) I think that he would enjoy hearing all of us praise him and 2) We all would love to hear first hand what he has to say about his craft.
If only...
This blog quite possibly stood out to me above all the others. The fact that we can see beauty in the flaws of humanity is something that I have never thought about before. I mean, I have always been taught that humans are sinful creatures… which we are, but I never took the time to think that the fact that we are sinful does not mean that we cannot also be beautiful. The quote about Lot’s wife in this blog really stood out to me. Yes, Lot’s wife disobeyed God by looking back to the city that had been her home for years, but who’s to say that I wouldn’t do the same. To me, that’s the beauty of it. I can’t blame Lot’s wife for looking back to the city that she knew and loved, because let’s be honest… most of us would have. This sense of humanity is what links us all together, and in a way… it’s what is beautiful. We all have imperfections, yet what fun would life be if we were all perfect?
ReplyDeleteThese imperfections seen in throughout humanity are the imperfections that I now believe we should let show in our writing. We should lean forward to our readers “without our makeup on”… let them see the real us. I have come to learn, mostly through this class, that writing what is real to us is what makes our writing relatable to others. Why would someone want to read my writing when all I talk about is how perfect I am, and do all I can to take all the imperfections out of my writing? They wouldn’t. People can’t relate to that. People don’t want to feel inferior when reading the writing of other. Letting our readers see the real us, (I think) is the most effective way to really reach our audience.
I agree with Noel when she says that Steve Almond opened up her eyes to a style of writing that she thought was a no-no in college. I have always been taught that traditional essays are the way to go in college. Turning in writing that is similar to that of Almond’s to one of my previous professors would not have gone over so well. But I do feel that this type of writing does have its place in the academic world. Yes, we should know how to write research papers and traditional essays, but we should also know how to express ourselves in our writing. Of course, I will have to teach my future students the boring stuff, but it is now also a goal of mine to allow them to really express themselves in their writing. Once their scholarly days are over, it will be their personal writing that means the most to them, not the fact that they can write a kick-butt research paper.
I felt this blog lent itself to complete openness. To write whatever we wanted about Steve, nice or not. I first wrote about writing with or without our makeup on and the humanity in both, as well as the humanity of Lot's wife. But I've decied that my final blog about ole Steve requires something much more honest. And although you'll never read this, Steve, this is for you....
ReplyDeleteI'd probably hate you as a person.(You'd also probably hate me.) I know I shouldn't hate, and that's a curse word in the Southern vocabulary. But I do. I hate some people, just as some hate me. (I'm sorry, mother.)Steve, I've never ever met you and probably never will, by your writing made me hate you. You're a smartass Democrat without much reason to be such. You rant about problems in America and defile her as a whole without so much as an miniscule ideal of how to deal with such "problems" let alone fix them. You blame veryone for everything except yourself. You cuss like a sailor. And although I sometimes find a curse word necessary to get a point across (sorry again, mother) what you do is downright ridiculous. You put down Christianity yet embrace Jewish ways (FAITH INCLUDED) all while being an atheist. You're narcissistic, vain, whiny, and so DAMN annoying! But most of all, I hate you because I'm still compelled to read your work beacause it's so freaking good.
I think Stevie's work is somewhat that "real fiction" we coined last night. In a way, his wit can come off as insecurity, its his way of dealing with things- which, is fine-- but maybe we aren't understanding the real Steve. When we write-- we're writing our real thoughts and actions and emotions, but I get the feeling that its all fiction. Once its written down, it becomes a story and we are able to twist it through our emotion to the way we want it to be heard.
ReplyDeleteHis style is incredible-- the style to me is fearless and really ballsy. He doesn't give a shit if you love him or hate him-- he's letting it all out there and that part is definitely real... the words however, could quite possibly be the fiction... I think we need to be careful when we write to not stray from the realness, because that's what moves our audience. We become understood.
Reading Steve Almond enhanced my writing. And that is an understatment. It was like going back to square one. He has such command of his voice I never once questioned that he knew what he was talking about. It was the perfect balance between the profane and the sacred. The "Tesla Matters, Dude" article really touched me. It was so raw and truthful and in a way it embodied "hair metal" (I'm not a hair metal guy, but he MADE me, no no no he FORCED me to like hair metal). He is very good at making the personal seem universally relatable.
ReplyDeleteHe waxes in the lude but he shines in the beautiful. His endings are toxic. They get in you. I found myself reading with the thought in mind that I am going to be changed by the last sentence. And almost every single time this was the case. Simple and breath taking. But then I enhale and read the next chapter.
In a discussion the other night, outside and under the stars (a plastic solo cup of Maker’s Mark and ice in my hand), I found myself discussing V for Vendetta (a very cool graphic novel and a great movie. If you haven’t seen it I highly recommend it, but be prepared for lots of blood). In leaving the party at about 12:30, I got home and instead of going to bed I pulled out my copy of V for Vendetta and watched it again. One moment that stood out to me in that movie is when Evey says, “My father was a writer. You would've liked him. He used to say that artists use lies to tell the truth, while politicians use them to cover the truth up.”
ReplyDeleteBear with me, I’m going to do some quoting, but it’s going somewhere (I promise.)
Eponymous said, “The sad part is that we probably don’t know what he’s like because of these essays… Steve Almond of paper may not actually be Steve Almond, as most of us on paper are not who we really are in life.”
And then BrittanyMaclain built on that when she said, “So I guess what I’m saying is that yes, we need to be honest, but we also need to know stylistically how to form our honesty. Or is that cheating? Is it any less honest? Like how telling half-truths is really lying.”
I think Almond is an artist. While he might not be “using lies,” how can we be SURE that he’s giving us the truth? That his words are warranted? We can’t. Yet we feel, as we read him, that he is being truthful and that is what matters the most. That we, as readers, in the end of it all, realize that the ultimate goal of Almond’s work is to tell the truth, whether he does that by using lies, half-lies, or the truth, it does not matter. In the end the message is just as important as the way in which he delivers the message.
In my first post back in early July I talked about how Almond is always real in his writing and even though he may not come across as likable, he still is real with his audience and doesn't shy away from his true voice.
ReplyDeleteAt the beginning of this class I'll admit I only wrote to please others...and that was totally the opposite of what I should have been doing. Through Dr. P and Almond (Yes, I hated him at the beginning of class because I thought he was a prick, but he really did help me understand the larger picture) I learned not to just try to please everyone in my writing.
I feel like through every blog post that Dr. P put up we took gradual steps to improve our writing and she taught us to understand why we were doing it as well. Each blog post has allowed me to unlock that being...almost like peeling back a layer of onions. Each post gets deeper and deeper and reveals our true voice and self.
So even though I still think Almond is a prick...I thank him and Dr. P for teaching me to step outside that comfort zone and to write for myself and no one else.
Pauses:
ReplyDeleteI dont like em.
But I guess they are pretty useful in writing and in casual conversation. They normally indicate when something is going pretty badly, like Luke mentioned, or when a situation calls for some instant hilarity. Nothing is funnier than an awkward pause, or someone not being able to remember what they were talking about the second before. Maybe thats just me though. Pauses are a great way to creep people out too. If I were to tell someone I didnt know that I loved hanging out at schools to stare at the kids they would more than likely sock me straight in the face. But if I finished that sentence with a pause and then added that it reminds me of my little cousin who is around that age, It would still be pretty weird but less likely to get me punched right in the kisser. And if you know me, you'll know that I love not getting punched in the mouth.
Audience:
More like flaw-dience. An audience is always going to nit-pick and dissect every little thing about a story whether they like it or loathe it. I suppose it just comes with the territory of writing a book, or a paper. I'm going to be honest: I am really proud of that pun I just made. The audience is going to offer the best criticsm and some of the least helpful advice as well. You cant win when dealing with your audience, just ask Thomas Pynchon. For instance, when me and my friends go to see what Jigsaw is up to, the Saw-dience will decide what parts of the movie were stupid and what parts are so stupid they were hilarious.