How far am I willing to go? I wish I could say that I was like Abby and that I poured every ounce of my soul into my writing. But the truth is, I don’t. I would probably never be as brave as Dr. P. and write something that I knew my professor wouldn’t like. I depend too much on acceptance, and acceptance starts with an A. Well, I guess there was one time where I decided to write what I wanted to write in a class. I had asked my teacher to look over my work and see if it was okay. She said that she thought it could be a little different , that I could change some parts up. But I was proud of what I had written. I thought I was right. So, I turned the work in anyway. And what happened might you ask? I made an A in the class. Crisis adverted. Bullet dodged. What would I have done if my teacher had totally hated it and I had gotten a bad grade. I don’t know. I probably would have groveled and given her the sad puppy face until she let me do the assignment. Maybe pushing the limit is what some people want you to do. Maybe my teacher was proud that I had stood behind my idea, that I had gone against the grain and wrote something that I believed in, even when I knew she didn’t agree with me. I don’t think that any of my warrants necessarily allowed me to defy my teacher. I think it was just something random that I felt strongly about.
We have a term for shooting matches, it's called collateral damage. (To get just a little nerdy for a second) In Battlestar Galactica Colnol Tye uses a suicide bomber to try and take out the traiterous president Gaius Baltar, but instead takes out 30 humans who were on the cylon police force and GB did not show. Tye held to the end that they were all traitors anyway who deserved to die, and he would do it again just for a chance to kill Baltar. If you look at such things from this revolutionary stand-point, the lives lose their meanings to go for the higher meaning. The destruction of percieved evil must be sought out through the destruction of innocent compliance. But in the end was Tye even on the right side? He may have believed that he was right, but is it possible to prove that to the other side? This theory falls apart when looking at the pluarlity of life. Any righteous action we may take usually falls apart under heavy scrutiny. There is no absolute right or wrong, and the choices we make usually affect many more than intended. But that is life in a big sloppy handbasket. Life is static without risks, and sometimes people need to be sacrificed so that we can acomplish what we believe in. The question is how far are you willing to go for what you believe in? And do you believe in it enough to let those invisible faces become part of that collateral damage?
Last time, I talked about a warrant like a driver’s license – permission to hit the road, while still abiding by all the speed limits and stopping at all crosswalks. A driver’s license doesn’t give you permission to harm innocent pedestrians.
Looking back on our past blogs, I see ties between this blog and the first blog, the one about pauses. The pause blog took on a new meaning when I read about the whole darn shooting match because I realized that the whole darn shooting match could usually be prevented with a simple pause.
Stop for a second. Think. Then write.
A pause is a chance to reconsider, to collect yourself and process your emotions so that you don’t spew out words uncontrollably like an agitated Coke bottle. As I began to work on my Letter to Me paper, my mind flooded with possibilities. I could change history. I could let it all out about everyone that ever did me wrong, and then maybe I my past self would be able to prevent it all. But, what would be the point? What would my past self think of me?
Would anyone benefit from reading that paper?
I love the quote (I’ve heard it from so many places that I have no idea who actually came up with it, but it wasn’t me), “Leave every place better than you found it.” I want this to shape my writing. I want to leave my readers better than they were when they picked up the paper.
Yeah. All that and then some. I want to inspire and encourage, and I can’t do that if I write selfishly, for the mere purpose of releasing my pent up emotions.
I love Abby’s powerful declaration:
“I want to go as far as I can possibly go with a good piece of writing and in order to do that I must put every ounce of soul I have into that block lettered beauty.” I need to remember this – you can’t inspire someone without putting your soul into it.
In my mind, all roads eventually lead to Godzilla. eponymous, you just got me there. So at the end of Godzilla, on a one million dollar budget, the film slaps America in the face. Full out swing. It stings. It draws blood. Got the rings turned palm-side. The story is a spine-tingling response to the risks of nuclear war. Godzilla/ Gojira is created by a nuclear blast and wreaks havoc and all that good stuff which we know him for. The cool explosions that made him appealing to movie goers. The awesome monsters- which kept bringing me back to the Akron Public Library to check out the VHS cassettes under my dad’s account- only after I read the titles. And I was a stupid ass kid. Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla took forever to read, even after my father helped out through the G-o-d-z-i-l-l-a___v-s-___M-e-c-h-a part of it. But I fought (and he helped) and eventually I could read not only Godzilla’s title but also the entire groundbreaking literary work by P.D. Eastman-- Go Dog Go. What I didn’t originally recognize about Godzilla (and what brings me back to the point) is the significance of the sacrifice by the eye-patched scientist in the film’s closing sequence. He has created a method to remove the oxygen from water, effectively separating that pesky O from those two Hs. It is how he slays the beast that is wreaking havoc on the Japanese nation. After seeing that Godzilla has been executed by his de-oxygenating techniques- the scientist promptly cuts his life line. He ensures his destructive weapon will die with him rather than allowing it to be used for dark means- such as- the destruction of humanity. (A classy fuck you to the use of nuclear weapons) He was willing to go the distance for what he believed in. What’s your limit?
I think Almond shows that we are free to go anywhere we want with our warrants, stray bullets be damned. But he also shows use how easy it is to lose sight of the original aim and get caught up in a whirlwind of conflict fueled by nothing more than contempt or rebellion.
Say you’re struck with this passionate feeling about a subject (or whatever). You feel it would be blasphemous to sit quietly while this monster dances around in front of you. It is your vigilante duty to share your brilliance with as many people as you can. But then you’re forced to pause for a moment, maybe to tie a shoelace, and your passion’s baby floats through your head, a little more slowly than when it was hurled into your arms. The ghost of Christmas future comes to you, and you see what could happen if you blaze on - the wreckage is great. Would you feel compelled to back down once you realize you could inflict harm onto a few (or many) bystanders? Or would you grab another pen and notebook for ammunition?
Maybe this is where temperance comes in. True, we can do anything we want with a warrant we believe is ours. But maybe while lying the shoelace, you can decide whether what you’re about to do is actually likely to accomplish anything worthwhile. Or, no matter how well-meaning you were at the start, if you seem to have misplaced the warrant along the way and just as you turn around, you see it explode like a land mine and any initial goals you have are shattered in the wreckage. I guess having the foresight to consider the possible consequences of trigger-happy haste - except that foresight can be so coy, so evasive. It turns into a guessing game. Sometimes we guess right, other times we guess wrong, horribly wrong. So I’m still not quite sure how quick to action is prudent. I do believe that if the matter is deserving, it is imperative that we, as writers, attack full-force.
How far can our warrants take us? Or, how far are we willing to go?
Looking back, I totally went too far while writing my first essay. I found this out when I asked my husband to proofread it. He says he’s a slow reader, but I could tell from the grimaces and huffs that something was off. “It just sounds like a rant with incorrect grammar mechanics.” Aha! Almond achieved!! But explaining my assignment didn’t help: “That doesn’t matter. I just don’t agree with what you said.” The comment didn’t hurt as much as the arms-length look mildly tried to hide.
My worldview change was caused by one of my brothers, Matt – a Marine halfway through his service who wanted out and was not treated with the best care in regards to his new choice. Being the little sister I am and considering the ridiculous heart-wrenching details of his situation, needing an outlet for my frustration is an understatement. James saw right through this “essay” and saw me for what I was. My “warrant” or what I thought was my warrant had backfired on my audience (intended or not). This also led to what Dr. P referred to as “surface” writing, which I totally agree with. I had chosen an emotional perspective, but only ranted rather than diving into what was really there. In a way, it was good for me because I got out a lot of shit (but unfortunately did not revise as well). What it taught me was that I shouldn’t let my emotions get in the way of my warrant or really let it run wild. My limited perspective of the military and politics (and my feelings of strange solidarity with Almond) coupled with raw emotion led to me losing sight of my warrant and my point to the essay. I see now that a warrant does not give you license to say whatever you want- no matter how justified you feel. The most important part is being able to realize when you’re drifting down the river of denial…and to make sure you’ve still got your paddles handy.
When I first wrote this blog I focused a lot on the idea of procrastination and how it hinders most college student's writing because we like to take the easy road out. After reading other post, I notice a theme dealing with passion for writing. Being passionate does give our writing that extra spice but our passion can cause stray bullets that harm others. I know Dr. P said something in class awhile back about how her grandmother said you don't know what type of cave a bear goes to at night. It kind of puts things in perpsetive. It is true that we all RANT like Almond. We all want people to hear how crappy our day was or how the economy sucks, but I feel like we have to be careful. It's like the Spiderman quote "with great power comes great responsibility." I don't know if any of this makes sense. I kind of feel like I am rambling....
I guess I am saying that passion is a good thing and it is okay to rant at times....But we should seek a balance.
Reading the post again makes me think about how it is easy for us to be creative for Essays and formal pieces. Even though we do have more paramters for Essays, we can still allow our passion and creativity to shine. Harder Yes? But I guess that's one of the challenges. Allowing your warrants to show through parameters.
Why would you think about leaving this blog out? We all get trigger happy. I take things to the extreme probably more often than is healthy (my Johnny Depp obsession would be a good example. Good news though, I am currently three years clean and only watch What's Eating Gilbert Grape in moments of pure weakness). Pulling the trigger on writing is not as easy as I ever thought it would be when I was younger and thought English wouldn't be hard. Then Dr. Silverstein (I don't care if I shouldn't say his name) ripped a paper to shreds because it held no literary significance. Was I pissed? Of course. Was he right? Definitely. Because I had no idea what I was doing, No one has taken the time to show me how to really craft an argument. I was going off a series of brain farts and a pot of coffee the night before the paper was to be turned it. I didn't care about the topic, and I didn't care about the class. I didn't push myself at all. Now, I really put myself in my writing. I am working on finding a way to sound intellectual and write my own style at the same time.
In my last blog I touched on what we talked about in class about caring what people think vs. not caring at all. I’ve started writing more without caring what people think and instead just getting out whatever I want to say no matter the consequences, which is good. It’s taught me to jump into the shooting match instead of being the docile damsel in distress on the sidelines waving a handkerchief and wondering which cowboys going to save me. Now I’m Calamity Jane (pew pew). Whats that have to do with warrants? Well now I don’t think about them as much. I just assume that if I’m writing about something I want to write about then I have the warrant to do it. So I agree with my statement that warrants don’t really take us anywhere. They’re just that extra push in the right direction - a little voice saying, “Yeah! There you go! That makes sense!” So is it better that I’ve started writing, say shooting first and asking questions later? With no thought whatsoever to warrants? I think it’s gotten me to be less timid in worrying about baring my soul. As long as I appear confident and nonchalant in what I’m saying then I can say whatever I want.
Take life by the balls and just run with it. That is one piece of knowledge I have gained recently.
I don't know if this 'don't give a shit' attitude is stemming from my mother's constant demand that I stop wearing dark fingernail polish, regain my high school physique, and cut my hair into a 'nice' teacher bob, but I can GUARANTEE you that is not happening anytime soon.
I am done worrying about the little things and learning to stand up for myself and what I believe in. Granted, I am still deciding on what I believe in and don't believe in, so that mode of defense is a work in progress, but as far as my warrants go, they are worth fighting for.
Now, I am not stupid enough to believe that I can use curse words and crude humor in pieces of writing that will be anywhere close to a middle/high school setting, but just because they stick me in a classroom with pubescent teens doesn't mean I have to stop being me.
What warrants come down to is the little pieces that make me 'me' and I will always be willing to fight for those individualistic qualities that matter.
Stray bullets… yeah we’ve all been hit by a few in our lives or at least shot off a volley of rounds that hit unintended targets, that’s what I call stickin’ your foot in your mouth. I’ve done it so many times I ask people directly if I’ve inadvertently offended them in some way… you know…just to make sure.
I believe that this blog was one of the most important, it lets us know that the words we say don’t always hurt the one their intended to affect, sometimes there’s that kid… that Tyler, sitting on the sidelines sucking in every word we say and taking it all to heart.
We’ve all been on both sides of that situation, I don’t know if I was supposed to come away with this or not but now I really try to think about what I write before I write it… I don’t want to offend my reader or anyone else for that matter. But in today’s world how can you not offend some people with the simplest argument?
This is probably the biggest problem I have. My answer to the question "How far are you willing to go?" is... not far enough that I could possibly get hurt. I don't know exactly what I'm scared of. It doesn't even really make sense to me... but something always keeps me from pouring my soul into my writing. I can blame it on academia all day, but the truth is... it has to be something in me that keeps me from doing what I want with writing. We're taught that grades are everything. Having that 4.0 gpa to get into college or grad school is crucial. So we strive, and we stress, and we work ourselves to the freaking bone trying to get those A's... even if it means sacrificing a little of ourselves along the way (or a lot). But you can't expect to change the world with academic shit. So what do I write for? Shouldn't it be more about me learning how to write well... how to write something great that could affect people in ways unimaginable? YES. It should. So, the question becomes... how do I break free from this cookie cutter way of writing? I'm still figuring that out.
When I read Abby’s post about putting every emotion into every piece of writing, I asked myself, “Do I do that?” I don’t think I put too much emotion in my papers because I more focused on the content and getting it correct. I would like to be like Abby and put more emotion into my papers. Many times, I just want to write my paper, check for grammatical errors, and move on to the next one. This technique does not allow much room for emotion, though. I probably need to put more emotion into each paper so that I can get more out of it myself.
I do know that when I begin teaching, I want my students to put emotions into papers. High school and middle school students have more opportunities, in my opinion, to put emotion into their papers. They aren’t critiqued as much on papers as college students. I remember that many of my high school teachers were just proud that we actually wrote something…and it was legible and made some sense. But I want future students to do more than simply writing legibly or sensibly on a piece of paper—I want them to actually take pride in the work and make something out of it.
Noel... After looking back at your comment from the original posting, I can honestly say you are awesome and carry promising words of wisdom. I mean, how could I not see that writing is all about sucking it up and taking a few bullets to the chest, even it leaves me with a few writing wounds!
As a writer, I have to constantly tell myself, like John Wayne, to saddle up and keep going! Don't worry about what other people think of your writing. You are the ultimate creator and eventually your writing will show the masterpiece your hands have made. Telling myself not to worry often makes me feel better, but still leaves me with constant worries of will it get shot to hell and back? And if it does, will I be able to press on?
One of my favorite bands is playing on Pandora right now as I blog away. The Shins? Some might have heard of them. To sum up their awesomeness, I will leave you with a quote that fits this shooting match perfectly...
"The worst part is over, now get back on that horse and ride!"
We are all stuck by how far we are willing to go. I am not going to lie, I lacked a little inspriation for this blog. I was stuck. I didn't just want to repeat what everyone else said, and I was annoyed with my previous post. So I took a break. Here is what I came up with... Not a damn thing. Maybe my break wasn't long enough... regardless, I carry on, and here is what I want to tell y'all. That song "Mustang Sally" keeps playing over and over in my head. One problem: I only know 3 words... Ride Sally Ride. So I looked up the lyrics. Weirdly, they fit. It talks about going do fast, riding so long, that you miss out on things as they come pass you by. I think this is like our warrants. We fly past, fly through everything, get to the end, look back and go ohhh crap. I was so focused on getting out I didn't enjoy it while I was here. How far, and how fast are we willing to ride to get our point across, and at what cost to others are we willing to stick it to the man. In a non-literary, totally random parallel, Dane Cook (the comedian) does this thing he calls the sufu or super f'you. Not just the middle finger goes up, but the ring finger as well. Granted this is comedy, but it created a controversy. He tried for the joke, but offended many many people in his wake. How far is simply too far? I guess, honestly, we don't know until we cross it.
Rachel and I had similar stories to tell and she addressed me personally by saying, “But let’s face it. If we could go back, we’d do it again”.
Uh, totally dude.
Maybe that’s my problem. I never learn from my mistakes. I guarantee if I found myself in a similar situation where my honor (academic or otherwise) was being questioned I’d go all Bruce Lee on their asses. Damn the consequences and bystanders who may be in the way. Oops. There I go again thinking of only myself. Well, shit.
Dad always liked to say to me, “those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it”. I think he liked to think he came up with that. Try Santayana, Daddy-o. Anyways, I’m the doomed one in this statement. Even as the young Catholic girl I was (disregard all naughty fantasies…) I would always confess the same sins in Confession. Lying, fighting with my brothers and sister, being an all around bitch to my parents. You know, average teenaged stuff. A priest told me one time that if you confess a sin, you receive absolution for that sin. BUT (here’s the kicker) you have to be truly sorry. The only way you are truly sorry is if you don’t commit the sin again. No repeat offenders. Then, you aren’t forgiven.
Yeesh, why can’t double jeopardy apply here?
I guess I haven’t changed much because I still find myself repeating the same mistakes over and over again. So I wonder if I am truly sorry for my actions. Probably not, huh? That’s what it would seem like anyway.
Add that to my warrant. Doomed-to-repeat-past-mistakes and never-sorry.
I should put that in my personal ad. Don’cha wanna date me?!
AlyFronk, you crack me up. Keep on doin' what you're doin' because it works.
I'm not one to let bullets fly. I mean, I drop a fuck here and there in my writing but thats not really getting too crazy. I wish I could though. I wish I could saddle up and just go all out guns blazing with this blog. But deep down I think y'all would all think I'm completely nuts. Which I probably am (we all are), I guess I'm just not as comfortable with it as Almond is. I'm too cautious, too apologetic and too afraid to let it all fly. Let's not even get into collateral damage, because I can't even address my own mistakes after I sequester them in the distant memory of my recollection, much less when they're related to others. I don't want collateral damage, I don't want damage at all. I want to play it safe (water guns anyone?) But that's shitty writing. You know it and I know it. That's how Clifford the Big Red Dog came into existence. I don't want to write a Clifford. (Not that there's anything wrong with him, I just want to play with the big kids) I'm want to be like Hurston. She definitely wasn't reserved, in fact she let it fly. Screw small town America she said- I'm going to do something big. And you can't do it unless you saddle up and let the guns go blazing.
But let's get real here, I don't have the harlem renaissance floating my artistic aspirations. I have Facebook and a neglected blog. My, my what weapons. In a time where economical crises devalue our vocation it's difficult to write in a way that truly moves people like it used to. Do we want to shoot em' up if it was all for nothing? I guess it depends on how good your aim is.
Courage. Courage is the word that stood out to me throughout the time I spent thinking about this blog. During my past year of school, I have learned that courage has a lot more to do with writing than I ever thought… especially when it comes to my personal writing. If you really think about it, when we make our writing available for others to read, we are allowing ourselves to be vulnerable. We are opening ourselves up to criticism and rejection when our writing is no longer just ours. I have never liked to share my writing with anyone. I would turn papers in to the teacher and that was the extent of it. Writing has never been one of my favorite things to do, and I’m sure one of the reasons for that is my fear of someone else reading it. Although I have always been timid when it comes to my writing, the idea of sharing writing as being a form of courage has never crossed my mind. I began to really think on this subject after reading this blog, and throughout the rest of the course. I now see that there is no doubt that one most definitely has to be courageous when it comes to sharing his or her writing. When your writing is out there, and you are no longer the only one reading it, there is almost certainly fear (unless you are not human). All of us are scared when a piece of ourselves is subject to ridicule and criticism from others. Because of this, writing takes courage. Like the words of John Wayne, “courage is being scared to death, and saddlin’ up anyway”.
I could really relate to Meredith’s outlook on this blog. She talks about how that when a writer cares to much the writing come off as too safe. This is a problem that I can relate to in my own writing, and it is one that I will continue to work on. Worrying too much about if my writing is error free is definitely a fault of mine. I have to admit that I am sometimes jealous of my classmates’ writing. Some of them are completely comfortable opening up and letting others see into their very soul… or so it seems. Unfortunately, it doesn’t come that easily for me. I think that I am actually afraid of allowing others to see too much. Allowing people to get to know me through my writing is a skill that I have yet to master. Once again, this is where courage comes in. I now see that it takes courage to be a good writer, and it is well worth the risk.
I'm not sure that I've learned anything about shooting matches since writig this blog, except that I will probably never change. I will always be the girl who fires first and asks questions later. I'll be ground checking everyone I come across for my entire life, most likely. And honeslty, I kind of like that about myself. I'm never the girl that lets others "run over her." Nope, never been accused of that. But I have often been accused of being a bitch. I find that's what makes my writing unique, makes me unique. Gives me a warrant to both love myself and hate myself, because being the bitch isn't always fun. And in the end, although no one really wins shooting matches, they sure do make for some damn good writing.
I think I missed the whole shooting match part of this. But thinking about it now, I’m picturing my writing on one side palming a hand pistol and my audience targeting it through the magnified crosshairs of an assault rifle. If you picture this correctly, my writing is soon to die (I guess that explains why I didn’t choose to develop this idea sooner). Eh…fear, and rightly so. We talked about audience in the first post, and it seemed like a big deal at the time. We tied our bows neatly at the end of each little blip and we made sure we edited correctly so things came off “right.” And then I said audience is irrelevant. These days I’m thinking id show up to the match unarmed. What’s the point in pointing a gun at an audience anyway? “You will like what I write or else!” Yeah…good try. All I need to do is write something and show up to the match. The more shots they fire, the more chances I have to recover, write harder, and show up to the next match. Ooooohh…a push. One day I’ll take every bullet, and be that much stronger for living to tell about it.
Writing is such a neat, twisted animal. I can sit here in my apartment typing, nay pulverising my keyboard with ideas that I'm sure will take your breath away. Shooting matches are fun in writing, you can formulate and write a debate and let it sizzle when you're done. Hot and itchy like a sunburn.
But my god. At work today I got into a shouting match about what is the better dish: pie or cake. I said pie due to its diversity in range. Not only can you chow down on Key Lime and Pecan pie for desert you can also eat pie as a meal Chicken Pot Pie and my personal favorite Shephard's Pie. It's the flexability of the dish that I was hitting on. My coworkers (I was outnumbered-majority rule doesn't work in mental institutions-)countered with cake can be flexable just look at the fruit cake. "The fruit cake are you fucking kidding me?!" I found myself saying. Short story, somewhat shorter: I had to dismiss myself to the other room because they claimed victory in the debate. (we also debated is Sno-Biz a good thing-answer: yes it is one of the things that allows me to still believe in a god).
But what was it? It was a shooting match. Basically as a writer I can do that from the comfort of my writing nook (an office chair), without the blood pressure and without the red face. Ain't writing great? And erotic (we were all thinking it).
Most of the time I don’t feel like John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, or Steve Almond… instead I always felt like one of those townspeople in Western movies, running and ducking for cover when the bad guy and the good guy are standing off on Main Street, hands tickling the air about their holstered guns. I would peer out between the shuttered windows of the salon, shaking in my worn boots, and watch a braver soul take on the “varmint.” Since that first post I’ve become bolder, more self-confident in what I have to say, even more warranted you might say. And yet as I type that statement I wonder if my newly discovered confidence will open the door for me to start shooting before I should. Will my ecstasy in discovering lost/hidden warrants, love for words, or stories from my life that actually might mean something to somebody, wipe out my careful lining up of the sight with the target? I don’t think so, but I will also be more willing to stand up and take a shot at taking a shot.
I’ll also be ready to live with the consequences. That is something I will have to keep in mind as I shift from the position of the student to that of a teacher. That brings to mind a story. My high school AP Calculus teacher is very good friends with my mom (who is also a teacher). My mom told me one day that she had decided to retire. I was to be honest shocked. This was a teacher who loved to teach, especially the AP Calculus classes. I asked why she had decided to retire and my mom told me that she had gotten into it with the principal of the school and he took away her AP classes and gave them to a younger, and much less experienced teacher. While he couldn’t fire her, he did make sure she got the lowest math classes possible. She started shooting without looking at: a) how it would affect her (getting, in essence, demoted) or, b) how it would affect the students that she would be taken away from. (I heard that the new teacher didn’t know what she was doing and a majority of the AP Calculus students failed the AP exam that year)
And who got hurt most? The students. So when it comes to them, I plan to protect them from the stray bullets as much as possible, even if it means cowering behind the shuttered windows of the salon every once in a while and keeping my mouth shut.
In my first post I talked about Americans and there need for power and competition...and forgetting about the people they hurt and that helped them along the way. Now I have discovered a little more meaning to this whole 'shooting match' idea.
So many times in my life I have struggled in writing papers/essays or assignments just to please my audience or my teacher...the complete opposite of what Almond does in his writing.
This class has taught me that it's OK to take some risk in your writing and shoot some stray bullets along the way or people that will be affected by what we write. Yes, there is a certain limit and we have to be careful, but that shouldn't stop me continuing to write in my own style.
You can't go through life always trying to please others...somewhere along the line you have to let go and just embrace that freedom that a blank page and pencil give you...let your voice be heard.
I like what Abby said about taking a few bullets to the chest as a writer and developing what she called "writing wounds". Writing wounds could just be another way of saying "lesson learned", but it sounds a lot better when it has a sweet name like writing wounds. If these writing wounds were the real deal, I think I'd be like Sonny at the tollbooth right now. I've taken my fair share of criticism for my writing, and amazingly, I dont think that I've done anything to remedy it just yet.Maybe I'm stubborn, or maybe I'm a glutton for punishment, but I cannot seem to wrap my silly little brain around the idea that I'm not the greatest thing since Egyptians invented horses.
How far am I willing to go? I wish I could say that I was like Abby and that I poured every ounce of my soul into my writing. But the truth is, I don’t. I would probably never be as brave as Dr. P. and write something that I knew my professor wouldn’t like. I depend too much on acceptance, and acceptance starts with an A.
ReplyDeleteWell, I guess there was one time where I decided to write what I wanted to write in a class. I had asked my teacher to look over my work and see if it was okay. She said that she thought it could be a little different , that I could change some parts up. But I was proud of what I had written. I thought I was right. So, I turned the work in anyway. And what happened might you ask? I made an A in the class. Crisis adverted. Bullet dodged. What would I have done if my teacher had totally hated it and I had gotten a bad grade. I don’t know. I probably would have groveled and given her the sad puppy face until she let me do the assignment.
Maybe pushing the limit is what some people want you to do. Maybe my teacher was proud that I had stood behind my idea, that I had gone against the grain and wrote something that I believed in, even when I knew she didn’t agree with me. I don’t think that any of my warrants necessarily allowed me to defy my teacher. I think it was just something random that I felt strongly about.
We have a term for shooting matches, it's called collateral damage. (To get just a little nerdy for a second) In Battlestar Galactica Colnol Tye uses a suicide bomber to try and take out the traiterous president Gaius Baltar, but instead takes out 30 humans who were on the cylon police force and GB did not show. Tye held to the end that they were all traitors anyway who deserved to die, and he would do it again just for a chance to kill Baltar. If you look at such things from this revolutionary stand-point, the lives lose their meanings to go for the higher meaning. The destruction of percieved evil must be sought out through the destruction of innocent compliance. But in the end was Tye even on the right side? He may have believed that he was right, but is it possible to prove that to the other side? This theory falls apart when looking at the pluarlity of life. Any righteous action we may take usually falls apart under heavy scrutiny. There is no absolute right or wrong, and the choices we make usually affect many more than intended. But that is life in a big sloppy handbasket. Life is static without risks, and sometimes people need to be sacrificed so that we can acomplish what we believe in. The question is how far are you willing to go for what you believe in? And do you believe in it enough to let those invisible faces become part of that collateral damage?
ReplyDeleteLast time, I talked about a warrant like a driver’s license – permission to hit the road, while still abiding by all the speed limits and stopping at all crosswalks. A driver’s license doesn’t give you permission to harm innocent pedestrians.
ReplyDeleteLooking back on our past blogs, I see ties between this blog and the first blog, the one about pauses. The pause blog took on a new meaning when I read about the whole darn shooting match because I realized that the whole darn shooting match could usually be prevented with a simple pause.
Stop for a second. Think. Then write.
A pause is a chance to reconsider, to collect yourself and process your emotions so that you don’t spew out words uncontrollably like an agitated Coke bottle. As I began to work on my Letter to Me paper, my mind flooded with possibilities. I could change history. I could let it all out about everyone that ever did me wrong, and then maybe I my past self would be able to prevent it all. But, what would be the point? What would my past self think of me?
Would anyone benefit from reading that paper?
I love the quote (I’ve heard it from so many places that I have no idea who actually came up with it, but it wasn’t me), “Leave every place better than you found it.” I want this to shape my writing. I want to leave my readers better than they were when they picked up the paper.
Better how? I don’t know.
Better mood, better attitude, better day, better outlook?
Yeah. All that and then some. I want to inspire and encourage, and I can’t do that if I write selfishly, for the mere purpose of releasing my pent up emotions.
I love Abby’s powerful declaration:
“I want to go as far as I can possibly go with a good piece of writing and in order to do that I must put every ounce of soul I have into that block lettered beauty.” I need to remember this – you can’t inspire someone without putting your soul into it.
In my mind, all roads eventually lead to Godzilla.
ReplyDeleteeponymous, you just got me there.
So at the end of Godzilla, on a one million dollar budget, the film slaps America in the face. Full out swing. It stings. It draws blood. Got the rings turned palm-side.
The story is a spine-tingling response to the risks of nuclear war. Godzilla/ Gojira is created by a nuclear blast and wreaks havoc and all that good stuff which we know him for. The cool explosions that made him appealing to movie goers. The awesome monsters- which kept bringing me back to the Akron Public Library to check out the VHS cassettes under my dad’s account- only after I read the titles. And I was a stupid ass kid. Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla took forever to read, even after my father helped out through the G-o-d-z-i-l-l-a___v-s-___M-e-c-h-a part of it. But I fought (and he helped) and eventually I could read not only Godzilla’s title but also the entire groundbreaking literary work by P.D. Eastman-- Go Dog Go.
What I didn’t originally recognize about Godzilla (and what brings me back to the point) is the significance of the sacrifice by the eye-patched scientist in the film’s closing sequence. He has created a method to remove the oxygen from water, effectively separating that pesky O from those two Hs. It is how he slays the beast that is wreaking havoc on the Japanese nation. After seeing that Godzilla has been executed by his de-oxygenating techniques- the scientist promptly cuts his life line. He ensures his destructive weapon will die with him rather than allowing it to be used for dark means- such as- the destruction of humanity. (A classy fuck you to the use of nuclear weapons)
He was willing to go the distance for what he believed in. What’s your limit?
I think Almond shows that we are free to go anywhere we want with our warrants, stray bullets be damned. But he also shows use how easy it is to lose sight of the original aim and get caught up in a whirlwind of conflict fueled by nothing more than contempt or rebellion.
ReplyDeleteSay you’re struck with this passionate feeling about a subject (or whatever). You feel it would be blasphemous to sit quietly while this monster dances around in front of you. It is your vigilante duty to share your brilliance with as many people as you can.
But then you’re forced to pause for a moment, maybe to tie a shoelace, and your passion’s baby floats through your head, a little more slowly than when it was hurled into your arms. The ghost of Christmas future comes to you, and you see what could happen if you blaze on - the wreckage is great. Would you feel compelled to back down once you realize you could inflict harm onto a few (or many) bystanders? Or would you grab another pen and notebook for ammunition?
Maybe this is where temperance comes in. True, we can do anything we want with a warrant we believe is ours. But maybe while lying the shoelace, you can decide whether what you’re about to do is actually likely to accomplish anything worthwhile. Or, no matter how well-meaning you were at the start, if you seem to have misplaced the warrant along the way and just as you turn around, you see it explode like a land mine and any initial goals you have are shattered in the wreckage. I guess having the foresight to consider the possible consequences of trigger-happy haste - except that foresight can be so coy, so evasive. It turns into a guessing game. Sometimes we guess right, other times we guess wrong, horribly wrong. So I’m still not quite sure how quick to action is prudent. I do believe that if the matter is deserving, it is imperative that we, as writers, attack full-force.
How far can our warrants take us? Or, how far are we willing to go?
ReplyDeleteLooking back, I totally went too far while writing my first essay. I found this out when I asked my husband to proofread it. He says he’s a slow reader, but I could tell from the grimaces and huffs that something was off. “It just sounds like a rant with incorrect grammar mechanics.” Aha! Almond achieved!! But explaining my assignment didn’t help: “That doesn’t matter. I just don’t agree with what you said.” The comment didn’t hurt as much as the arms-length look mildly tried to hide.
My worldview change was caused by one of my brothers, Matt – a Marine halfway through his service who wanted out and was not treated with the best care in regards to his new choice. Being the little sister I am and considering the ridiculous heart-wrenching details of his situation, needing an outlet for my frustration is an understatement. James saw right through this “essay” and saw me for what I was. My “warrant” or what I thought was my warrant had backfired on my audience (intended or not). This also led to what Dr. P referred to as “surface” writing, which I totally agree with. I had chosen an emotional perspective, but only ranted rather than diving into what was really there. In a way, it was good for me because I got out a lot of shit (but unfortunately did not revise as well). What it taught me was that I shouldn’t let my emotions get in the way of my warrant or really let it run wild. My limited perspective of the military and politics (and my feelings of strange solidarity with Almond) coupled with raw emotion led to me losing sight of my warrant and my point to the essay. I see now that a warrant does not give you license to say whatever you want- no matter how justified you feel. The most important part is being able to realize when you’re drifting down the river of denial…and to make sure you’ve still got your paddles handy.
When I first wrote this blog I focused a lot on the idea of procrastination and how it hinders most college student's writing because we like to take the easy road out. After reading other post, I notice a theme dealing with passion for writing. Being passionate does give our writing that extra spice but our passion can cause stray bullets that harm others. I know Dr. P said something in class awhile back about how her grandmother said you don't know what type of cave a bear goes to at night. It kind of puts things in perpsetive. It is true that we all RANT like Almond. We all want people to hear how crappy our day was or how the economy sucks, but I feel like we have to be careful. It's like the Spiderman quote "with great power comes great responsibility." I don't know if any of this makes sense. I kind of feel like I am rambling....
ReplyDeleteI guess I am saying that passion is a good thing and it is okay to rant at times....But we should seek a balance.
Reading the post again makes me think about how it is easy for us to be creative for Essays and formal pieces. Even though we do have more paramters for Essays, we can still allow our passion and creativity to shine. Harder Yes? But I guess that's one of the challenges. Allowing your warrants to show through parameters.
Why would you think about leaving this blog out? We all get trigger happy. I take things to the extreme probably more often than is healthy (my Johnny Depp obsession would be a good example. Good news though, I am currently three years clean and only watch What's Eating Gilbert Grape in moments of pure weakness).
ReplyDeletePulling the trigger on writing is not as easy as I ever thought it would be when I was younger and thought English wouldn't be hard.
Then Dr. Silverstein (I don't care if I shouldn't say his name) ripped a paper to shreds because it held no literary significance.
Was I pissed? Of course. Was he right? Definitely. Because I had no idea what I was doing, No one has taken the time to show me how to really craft an argument. I was going off a series of brain farts and a pot of coffee the night before the paper was to be turned it. I didn't care about the topic, and I didn't care about the class.
I didn't push myself at all. Now, I really put myself in my writing. I am working on finding a way to sound intellectual and write my own style at the same time.
In my last blog I touched on what we talked about in class about caring what people think vs. not caring at all. I’ve started writing more without caring what people think and instead just getting out whatever I want to say no matter the consequences, which is good. It’s taught me to jump into the shooting match instead of being the docile damsel in distress on the sidelines waving a handkerchief and wondering which cowboys going to save me. Now I’m Calamity Jane (pew pew). Whats that have to do with warrants? Well now I don’t think about them as much. I just assume that if I’m writing about something I want to write about then I have the warrant to do it. So I agree with my statement that warrants don’t really take us anywhere. They’re just that extra push in the right direction - a little voice saying, “Yeah! There you go! That makes sense!” So is it better that I’ve started writing, say shooting first and asking questions later? With no thought whatsoever to warrants? I think it’s gotten me to be less timid in worrying about baring my soul. As long as I appear confident and nonchalant in what I’m saying then I can say whatever I want.
ReplyDeleteTake life by the balls and just run with it. That is one piece of knowledge I have gained recently.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if this 'don't give a shit' attitude is stemming from my mother's constant demand that I stop wearing dark fingernail polish, regain my high school physique, and cut my hair into a 'nice' teacher bob, but I can GUARANTEE you that is not happening anytime soon.
I am done worrying about the little things and learning to stand up for myself and what I believe in. Granted, I am still deciding on what I believe in and don't believe in, so that mode of defense is a work in progress, but as far as my warrants go, they are worth fighting for.
Now, I am not stupid enough to believe that I can use curse words and crude humor in pieces of writing that will be anywhere close to a middle/high school setting, but just because they stick me in a classroom with pubescent teens doesn't mean I have to stop being me.
What warrants come down to is the little pieces that make me 'me' and I will always be willing to fight for those individualistic qualities that matter.
Stray bullets… yeah we’ve all been hit by a few in our lives or at least shot off a volley of rounds that hit unintended targets, that’s what I call stickin’ your foot in your mouth. I’ve done it so many times I ask people directly if I’ve inadvertently offended them in some way… you know…just to make sure.
ReplyDeleteI believe that this blog was one of the most important, it lets us know that the words we say don’t always hurt the one their intended to affect, sometimes there’s that kid… that Tyler, sitting on the sidelines sucking in every word we say and taking it all to heart.
We’ve all been on both sides of that situation, I don’t know if I was supposed to come away with this or not but now I really try to think about what I write before I write it… I don’t want to offend my reader or anyone else for that matter. But in today’s world how can you not offend some people with the simplest argument?
This is probably the biggest problem I have. My answer to the question "How far are you willing to go?" is... not far enough that I could possibly get hurt. I don't know exactly what I'm scared of. It doesn't even really make sense to me... but something always keeps me from pouring my soul into my writing. I can blame it on academia all day, but the truth is... it has to be something in me that keeps me from doing what I want with writing. We're taught that grades are everything. Having that 4.0 gpa to get into college or grad school is crucial. So we strive, and we stress, and we work ourselves to the freaking bone trying to get those A's... even if it means sacrificing a little of ourselves along the way (or a lot). But you can't expect to change the world with academic shit. So what do I write for? Shouldn't it be more about me learning how to write well... how to write something great that could affect people in ways unimaginable? YES. It should. So, the question becomes... how do I break free from this cookie cutter way of writing? I'm still figuring that out.
ReplyDeleteWhen I read Abby’s post about putting every emotion into every piece of writing, I asked myself, “Do I do that?” I don’t think I put too much emotion in my papers because I more focused on the content and getting it correct. I would like to be like Abby and put more emotion into my papers. Many times, I just want to write my paper, check for grammatical errors, and move on to the next one. This technique does not allow much room for emotion, though. I probably need to put more emotion into each paper so that I can get more out of it myself.
ReplyDeleteI do know that when I begin teaching, I want my students to put emotions into papers. High school and middle school students have more opportunities, in my opinion, to put emotion into their papers. They aren’t critiqued as much on papers as college students. I remember that many of my high school teachers were just proud that we actually wrote something…and it was legible and made some sense. But I want future students to do more than simply writing legibly or sensibly on a piece of paper—I want them to actually take pride in the work and make something out of it.
Noel...
ReplyDeleteAfter looking back at your comment from the original posting, I can honestly say you are awesome and carry promising words of wisdom. I mean, how could I not see that writing is all about sucking it up and taking a few bullets to the chest, even it leaves me with a few writing wounds!
As a writer, I have to constantly tell myself, like John Wayne, to saddle up and keep going! Don't worry about what other people think of your writing. You are the ultimate creator and eventually your writing will show the masterpiece your hands have made. Telling myself not to worry often makes me feel better, but still leaves me with constant worries of will it get shot to hell and back? And if it does, will I be able to press on?
One of my favorite bands is playing on Pandora right now as I blog away. The Shins? Some might have heard of them. To sum up their awesomeness, I will leave you with a quote that fits this shooting match perfectly...
"The worst part is over, now get back on that horse and ride!"
We are all stuck by how far we are willing to go. I am not going to lie, I lacked a little inspriation for this blog. I was stuck. I didn't just want to repeat what everyone else said, and I was annoyed with my previous post. So I took a break. Here is what I came up with... Not a damn thing. Maybe my break wasn't long enough... regardless, I carry on, and here is what I want to tell y'all. That song "Mustang Sally" keeps playing over and over in my head. One problem: I only know 3 words... Ride Sally Ride. So I looked up the lyrics. Weirdly, they fit. It talks about going do fast, riding so long, that you miss out on things as they come pass you by. I think this is like our warrants. We fly past, fly through everything, get to the end, look back and go ohhh crap. I was so focused on getting out I didn't enjoy it while I was here. How far, and how fast are we willing to ride to get our point across, and at what cost to others are we willing to stick it to the man. In a non-literary, totally random parallel, Dane Cook (the comedian) does this thing he calls the sufu or super f'you. Not just the middle finger goes up, but the ring finger as well. Granted this is comedy, but it created a controversy. He tried for the joke, but offended many many people in his wake. How far is simply too far? I guess, honestly, we don't know until we cross it.
ReplyDeleteRachel and I had similar stories to tell and she addressed me personally by saying, “But let’s face it. If we could go back, we’d do it again”.
ReplyDeleteUh, totally dude.
Maybe that’s my problem. I never learn from my mistakes. I guarantee if I found myself in a similar situation where my honor (academic or otherwise) was being questioned I’d go all Bruce Lee on their asses. Damn the consequences and bystanders who may be in the way. Oops. There I go again thinking of only myself. Well, shit.
Dad always liked to say to me, “those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it”. I think he liked to think he came up with that. Try Santayana, Daddy-o. Anyways, I’m the doomed one in this statement. Even as the young Catholic girl I was (disregard all naughty fantasies…) I would always confess the same sins in Confession. Lying, fighting with my brothers and sister, being an all around bitch to my parents. You know, average teenaged stuff. A priest told me one time that if you confess a sin, you receive absolution for that sin. BUT (here’s the kicker) you have to be truly sorry. The only way you are truly sorry is if you don’t commit the sin again. No repeat offenders. Then, you aren’t forgiven.
Yeesh, why can’t double jeopardy apply here?
I guess I haven’t changed much because I still find myself repeating the same mistakes over and over again. So I wonder if I am truly sorry for my actions. Probably not, huh? That’s what it would seem like anyway.
Add that to my warrant. Doomed-to-repeat-past-mistakes and never-sorry.
I should put that in my personal ad. Don’cha wanna date me?!
AlyFronk, you crack me up. Keep on doin' what you're doin' because it works.
ReplyDeleteI'm not one to let bullets fly. I mean, I drop a fuck here and there in my writing but thats not really getting too crazy. I wish I could though. I wish I could saddle up and just go all out guns blazing with this blog. But deep down I think y'all would all think I'm completely nuts. Which I probably am (we all are), I guess I'm just not as comfortable with it as Almond is. I'm too cautious, too apologetic and too afraid to let it all fly. Let's not even get into collateral damage, because I can't even address my own mistakes after I sequester them in the distant memory of my recollection, much less when they're related to others. I don't want collateral damage, I don't want damage at all. I want to play it safe (water guns anyone?) But that's shitty writing. You know it and I know it. That's how Clifford the Big Red Dog came into existence. I don't want to write a Clifford. (Not that there's anything wrong with him, I just want to play with the big kids) I'm want to be like Hurston. She definitely wasn't reserved, in fact she let it fly. Screw small town America she said- I'm going to do something big. And you can't do it unless you saddle up and let the guns go blazing.
But let's get real here, I don't have the harlem renaissance floating my artistic aspirations. I have Facebook and a neglected blog. My, my what weapons. In a time where economical crises devalue our vocation it's difficult to write in a way that truly moves people like it used to. Do we want to shoot em' up if it was all for nothing? I guess it depends on how good your aim is.
Courage. Courage is the word that stood out to me throughout the time I spent thinking about this blog. During my past year of school, I have learned that courage has a lot more to do with writing than I ever thought… especially when it comes to my personal writing. If you really think about it, when we make our writing available for others to read, we are allowing ourselves to be vulnerable. We are opening ourselves up to criticism and rejection when our writing is no longer just ours. I have never liked to share my writing with anyone. I would turn papers in to the teacher and that was the extent of it. Writing has never been one of my favorite things to do, and I’m sure one of the reasons for that is my fear of someone else reading it. Although I have always been timid when it comes to my writing, the idea of sharing writing as being a form of courage has never crossed my mind. I began to really think on this subject after reading this blog, and throughout the rest of the course. I now see that there is no doubt that one most definitely has to be courageous when it comes to sharing his or her writing. When your writing is out there, and you are no longer the only one reading it, there is almost certainly fear (unless you are not human). All of us are scared when a piece of ourselves is subject to ridicule and criticism from others. Because of this, writing takes courage. Like the words of John Wayne, “courage is being scared to death, and saddlin’ up anyway”.
ReplyDeleteI could really relate to Meredith’s outlook on this blog. She talks about how that when a writer cares to much the writing come off as too safe. This is a problem that I can relate to in my own writing, and it is one that I will continue to work on. Worrying too much about if my writing is error free is definitely a fault of mine. I have to admit that I am sometimes jealous of my classmates’ writing. Some of them are completely comfortable opening up and letting others see into their very soul… or so it seems. Unfortunately, it doesn’t come that easily for me. I think that I am actually afraid of allowing others to see too much. Allowing people to get to know me through my writing is a skill that I have yet to master. Once again, this is where courage comes in. I now see that it takes courage to be a good writer, and it is well worth the risk.
I'm not sure that I've learned anything about shooting matches since writig this blog, except that I will probably never change. I will always be the girl who fires first and asks questions later. I'll be ground checking everyone I come across for my entire life, most likely. And honeslty, I kind of like that about myself. I'm never the girl that lets others "run over her." Nope, never been accused of that. But I have often been accused of being a bitch. I find that's what makes my writing unique, makes me unique. Gives me a warrant to both love myself and hate myself, because being the bitch isn't always fun. And in the end, although no one really wins shooting matches, they sure do make for some damn good writing.
ReplyDeleteI think I missed the whole shooting match part of this. But thinking about it now, I’m picturing my writing on one side palming a hand pistol and my audience targeting it through the magnified crosshairs of an assault rifle. If you picture this correctly, my writing is soon to die (I guess that explains why I didn’t choose to develop this idea sooner). Eh…fear, and rightly so. We talked about audience in the first post, and it seemed like a big deal at the time. We tied our bows neatly at the end of each little blip and we made sure we edited correctly so things came off “right.” And then I said audience is irrelevant. These days I’m thinking id show up to the match unarmed. What’s the point in pointing a gun at an audience anyway? “You will like what I write or else!” Yeah…good try. All I need to do is write something and show up to the match. The more shots they fire, the more chances I have to recover, write harder, and show up to the next match. Ooooohh…a push. One day I’ll take every bullet, and be that much stronger for living to tell about it.
ReplyDeleteWriting is such a neat, twisted animal. I can sit here in my apartment typing, nay pulverising my keyboard with ideas that I'm sure will take your breath away. Shooting matches are fun in writing, you can formulate and write a debate and let it sizzle when you're done. Hot and itchy like a sunburn.
ReplyDeleteBut my god. At work today I got into a shouting match about what is the better dish: pie or cake. I said pie due to its diversity in range. Not only can you chow down on Key Lime and Pecan pie for desert you can also eat pie as a meal Chicken Pot Pie and my personal favorite Shephard's Pie. It's the flexability of the dish that I was hitting on. My coworkers (I was outnumbered-majority rule doesn't work in mental institutions-)countered with cake can be flexable just look at the fruit cake. "The fruit cake are you fucking kidding me?!" I found myself saying. Short story, somewhat shorter: I had to dismiss myself to the other room because they claimed victory in the debate. (we also debated is Sno-Biz a good thing-answer: yes it is one of the things that allows me to still believe in a god).
But what was it? It was a shooting match. Basically as a writer I can do that from the comfort of my writing nook (an office chair), without the blood pressure and without the red face. Ain't writing great? And erotic (we were all thinking it).
Most of the time I don’t feel like John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, or Steve Almond… instead I always felt like one of those townspeople in Western movies, running and ducking for cover when the bad guy and the good guy are standing off on Main Street, hands tickling the air about their holstered guns. I would peer out between the shuttered windows of the salon, shaking in my worn boots, and watch a braver soul take on the “varmint.” Since that first post I’ve become bolder, more self-confident in what I have to say, even more warranted you might say. And yet as I type that statement I wonder if my newly discovered confidence will open the door for me to start shooting before I should. Will my ecstasy in discovering lost/hidden warrants, love for words, or stories from my life that actually might mean something to somebody, wipe out my careful lining up of the sight with the target? I don’t think so, but I will also be more willing to stand up and take a shot at taking a shot.
ReplyDeleteI’ll also be ready to live with the consequences. That is something I will have to keep in mind as I shift from the position of the student to that of a teacher. That brings to mind a story. My high school AP Calculus teacher is very good friends with my mom (who is also a teacher). My mom told me one day that she had decided to retire. I was to be honest shocked. This was a teacher who loved to teach, especially the AP Calculus classes. I asked why she had decided to retire and my mom told me that she had gotten into it with the principal of the school and he took away her AP classes and gave them to a younger, and much less experienced teacher. While he couldn’t fire her, he did make sure she got the lowest math classes possible. She started shooting without looking at:
a) how it would affect her (getting, in essence, demoted) or,
b) how it would affect the students that she would be taken away from. (I heard that the new teacher didn’t know what she was doing and a majority of the AP Calculus students failed the AP exam that year)
And who got hurt most? The students. So when it comes to them, I plan to protect them from the stray bullets as much as possible, even if it means cowering behind the shuttered windows of the salon every once in a while and keeping my mouth shut.
In my first post I talked about Americans and there need for power and competition...and forgetting about the people they hurt and that helped them along the way. Now I have discovered a little more meaning to this whole 'shooting match' idea.
ReplyDeleteSo many times in my life I have struggled in writing papers/essays or assignments just to please my audience or my teacher...the complete opposite of what Almond does in his writing.
This class has taught me that it's OK to take some risk in your writing and shoot some stray bullets along the way or people that will be affected by what we write. Yes, there is a certain limit and we have to be careful, but that shouldn't stop me continuing to write in my own style.
You can't go through life always trying to please others...somewhere along the line you have to let go and just embrace that freedom that a blank page and pencil give you...let your voice be heard.
I like what Abby said about taking a few bullets to the chest as a writer and developing what she called "writing wounds". Writing wounds could just be another way of saying "lesson learned", but it sounds a lot better when it has a sweet name like writing wounds. If these writing wounds were the real deal, I think I'd be like Sonny at the tollbooth right now. I've taken my fair share of criticism for my writing, and amazingly, I dont think that I've done anything to remedy it just yet.Maybe I'm stubborn, or maybe I'm a glutton for punishment, but I cannot seem to wrap my silly little brain around the idea that I'm not the greatest thing since Egyptians invented horses.
ReplyDelete