Dear Bookworms

So, readers, if you exist, I'd like to take the opportunity to tell you about a really great resource for both book lovers and writers. I'm sure you have heard of it but let me just rave for a second, ok?! I absolutely love goodreads. Their tag line is after-all:

Meet your next favorite book.

If you are a book lover like me than you completely understand that such a simple line couldn't be more accurate because a) books are our friends and b) you can never have too many favorite books. : )

Call Me an Optimist...

This post, almost a part two of my post The Reality of Hope, will be about the poetry we've been reading in my British Literature class. This week was the Wyatt/Spenser week. We read the modern translations of some of the poetic works of Francesco Petrarch alongside the "translations" (often times more like interpretations) of the same poems by Sir Thomas Wyatt and Edmund Spenser. Following is my analysis of one of these poems (taken from our discussion for class). The poem is one that compares emotional turmoil to a storm, the mind to a ship, and reason to a guide whilst at sea. 

Someday Stories

In my previous post I make a reference to the "someday" story. I thought I'd take the time to explain. I am the kind of writer who has a million ideas. Several stories going all at once. And of course I hope that someday I'll finish them. Don't put off for tomorrow what you could do today, you may be saying. Generally I agree with you, especially when it comes to things like washing your dishes, showering, or organizing your sock drawer. But there are some things that just take more attention, more time, and more patience than I have in my few spare hours. This includes fulfilling my childhood delusion, ah dream to write novels. 

"Any Fool Can Make History...

... but it takes a genius to write it," said Oscar Wilde.

I'll put aside my desire to discuss what Oscar may have meant by that but for now it will serve the purpose of revealing today's topic, which is a writer's need to do research, focusing on historical research.

Last week in my Women & Literature class we read The Witch of Blackbird Pond, a young adult work of fiction by Elizabeth George Speare. Published in 1958 and winning the 1959 Newberry Medal, this book tells the tale of a young British girl from a plantation on Barbados who after the death of her parents, moves colonial America to live with her aunt, uncle, and two cousins. Speckled throughout this tale of loyalty and acceptance (and just a tad bit of romance) Speare provides her readers with history. Some of it is actually based on real historical events, some of it (most of it, I think) is simply fiction. But   regardless how much of it is made-up the truth is that Speare does a phenomenal job (as far as I can tell) of remaining historically accurate throughout this fictional tale. It is obvious that she has done her homework!

Creating Worlds

In British Literature we finished reading Utopia last week. This is one of those stories that I knew existed and imagined as this wonderful, wonderful life changing book. Boy was I wrong. Please don't think that I'm saying it wasn't a good book, for I am glad that I read it and I found it very intriguing. However there was zero plot (ok, not zero... but close) since it was mostly a fictional history book. Well not history... geography, anthropology, philosophy... ? I can't put my finger on it. Regardless this book covers all of these aspects of one nation: Utopia. But it never delves into the lives of the people OF Utopia. Which is really a shame because More's (Thomas More is the author, by the way) most outstanding quality, that I saw anyway, is world building!

FOCUS!

This post is a sort of BONUS post since I won’t be writing about my usual class related subjects. Please, read on:

It is quite evident that writing and reading are closely related. The two tasks are taught simultaneously, and the two hobbies often go hand-in-hand. My love of reading blossomed around the same time that I started writing. And as my writing has become my focus for school I’m finding that the more I write the more I crave books. Unfortunately the combination of writing and literature classes don’t lend themselves very well for personal reading (although the most recent book we read in Women & Literature definitely would be something I’d gladly read in my free time). All of my free time seems to be sucked up by homework: brainstorming stories or reading a few books/stories a week. Don’t get me wrong this is almost (yes, almost) the best kind of homework in existence but homework is homework, especially when it means getting desperately behind on your favorite television show and having to continuously tell your friends you can’t hang out.

Now that I’ve painted the miserable truth let me add that there is hope, a loophole. One aspect of my day that is inevitable is driving. I drive to school, to work, to church, to visit my sister (on those rare occasions that I have finished my homework, or just put it all off until Friday), to the grocery store. In short I spend approximately 3-4 hours in my car every week. Time that can be well spent with the little help of one of the great inventions: AUDIOBOOKS!

An Anonymous Audience

The reader/writer relationship is a messy one. It rarely involves standard communication and interaction, yet it almost always has the potential to be a liaison involving both love and hate (from both parties involved I’ve realized). What do I mean by that? Well, from a reader’s perspective there is always that agony when your writer takes that dreaded turn into the raging storm and you just want them to stop torturing that poor main character and you wonder as things go from bad to worse if there is any chance of said main character making it to shore… But also there are those moments when you hang on every word that the writer says, with such a tender sense of longing for their voice to never cease, for the story to be one that is indeed never-ending, so that you can spend every day on that ominous distant planet or even in that quite common spare room.

From a writer’s perspective the relationship is equally full of that love/hate. For me personally I am able to sit down and eagerly imagine my reader. Maybe its someone like my roommate who reads nightly by the faint light of her bedside lamp or perhaps someone like my father who only picks up a work of fiction once a year, if that. Could my reader be a child experiencing the agony and thrills of a chapter book for the first time? Or an elderly and avid reader intending this book to become a new favorite? At times this great-unknown collection of reading people is cause for motivation while at others it’s intimidating in the full sense of the word.

Which finally brings me, believe it or not after such a long intro, to the point I was intending on writing about this evening: AUDIENCE.

The Reality of Hope

The first two books we read in my Women & Literature class were Autobiography of a Face and Truth & Beauty. These books are intrinsically bound together because both are autobiographical/biographical accounts written by two very good friends, Lucy Grealy and Ann Patchett.

The first, Autobiography of a Face, is Lucy’s journey through the struggles of cancer, surgery, and growing up. In a way Ann’s Truth & Beauty picks up where Lucy left off (in reality there is some overlap). We see Lucy’s side of things as the battle Lucy faces against the world while Ann’s point of view shows Lucy’s battle with herself.

Before I continue I would like to say that I do would not suggest these books to just anyone. A lot of the issues that Lucy deals with are expressed quite openly and are not, in my opinion, suitable for most audiences (I’d include myself in that list, but I unfortunately had to read it for class).

On that note I’d like to comment on what I’ve learned about my own creative writing from reading these books. Lucy and Ann had a unique friendship, a real friendship and in my mind friendship is a noble thing. It’s a tricky thing. But its important to understanding mankind. I enjoyed that aspect of these stories. Ann, the unfailingly loyal friend and Lucy the needy yet unendingly loving friend communicate together quite a lovely and real struggle of friendship. THAT is something that interests me and inspires my own writing (I need to work on making my fictional friendships a little more realistic with ups and downs instead of the friend coming off perfect side-kick to the main character’s every need).

British Literature of the Middle Ages

Well, we’ve just finished our ‘Middle Ages’ portion of our British Literature class so I figured I’d use this natural break as an opportunity to communicate some things I’ve been learning about writing from these literary classics from across the pond.

We first read the poem ‘The Dream of the Rood’ whose author is unknown. This piece of literature is essentially about a dream that the narrator has where the cross that Jesus died on is personified. I know it sounds quite nerdy but I love personification. Its not only a writing tool for poets though; using it subtly in other areas of creative writing can give novels, short stories, etc an artistic edge. But I’ve gotten off track. Something that stood out to me while reading ‘The Dream of the Rood’ was the perfect use of detail. The author doesn’t shy away from painting a picture in the reader’s mind, nor does he (or, but less likely, she) crowd out the goings-on with an overload of images:

“There they took up almighty God, lifted him from that cruel torment. They the warriors left me there standing, blood all over me, pierced everywhere with arrows. They laid him there, limb-wearied; they stood at the head of his lifeless body.”

I’ve learned in my writing classes that it is quite possible (and at times most natural) to use TOO many adjectives when describing things in our writing. This portion, as well as the entirety of the text, I think shows a good balance. Enough that we can imagine the scene but not so much that we become overwhelmed and tired of reading. I know I definitely need to add ‘edit out unnecessary adjectives’ to my list of things to do during the revision process.