How to Be Miserable

Come home from a foreign country, have a fantastic couple of days, and then get really sick in the few weeks between health insurance terms. First your throat will start to hurt; then you'll be phlegmy, your eyes will get red, and you'll lose your voice. Your ears will start to hurt from blowing your nose so much, and then the pain in your ears will escalate until you're afraid you're suffering hearing damage. Complain as much as possible, but for the most part, just sit around the house like a lump until the unbearable pain starts to subside (the kind of pain that makes you fight against coughing, crying, or any other involuntary expense of energy). Sleep at irregular hours; who cares about jet lag when you're this sick? Try every ridiculous herbal remedy suggested, since you don't have access to any prescription medications or a doctor's diagnosis, and consume enough Ricola and frozen blueberries to keep your throat from staging an all-out revolution.

After a week or so, you'll think you're almost better, and you'll go out to a restaurant. It's your first time out of the house since coming home from the airport a week ago, so you try to act like a normal person. But you're still overcome by at least one wave of uncontrollable coughing.

And then write a blog post about it so everyone knows just how miserable you are.

(I really am trying to be positive, but it's somehow cathartic to admit just how bad the past week has been.)

Fiction Gets Personal

This summer, I found The Best American Short Stories 2000at the local library and started reading through it. I figured it could act as a guide to the market, and though I only ended up reading the first third of the book or so, it served that purpose well. The back of the book had an index of all the magazines it selects the stories from, which I looked up one-by-one online to see submission guidelines and to gauge the suitability of my own work (not that I actually have anything particularly publishable right now).

Needless to say, this week I was pleasantly surprised when I came across an Amherst professor's blog and saw a post entitled How To Make Use Of The Best American (insert title here) Anthology. The professor, Alexander Chee, writes about the method Annie Dillard recommended for making use of these anthologies, which bears remarkable similarity to what I was doing on my own this summer: "Annie taught out of Best American Essays in part, she told us, because it took the temperature of what was being published and who was publishing it." And I also read The Writing Lifethis summer, which Dillard was writing at the time that Chee was under her tutelage.

I only wish I'd been a student in that Wesleyan class; I absolutely love Dillard's writing. But if I don't take a class with Chee at Amherst, I may be kicking myself in a few years for missing that opportunity. The thing is that the last time I applied to Fiction I at Amherst, my pride was hurt when I didn't get in, and I haven't applied since (partly because it hasn't fit into my schedule, in my defense). At the time, I e-mailed the English department questioning the fact that there was only one section of Fiction I offered all year, which made it fairly competitive, and the e-mail ended up being forwarded to Chee and we had an intense discussion. I was deeply mortified when he took my comments the wrong way and chastised me like a child (because he felt that I'd been chastising him and the department's policies).

So what really hurt my pride was not the fact that I was rejected, but the way that exchange went. When I just went back to look at it, I realize how childish I was being, and that Chee's response was absolutely justified, but my freshman mind couldn't grasp that fully back in April of 2008. He did offer to comment on my writing sample, but I dropped the chain of communication by failing to respond to his last e-mail, and that was the end of that. So maybe I'll do the adult, responsible thing, tell him that I like reading his blog, Koreanish, and drop the baby grudge I've held against Amherst's Creative Writing department all this time. Maybe I'll also check out his novelfrom the Amherst library over interterm.

The truth is that my writing sample sucked, so I really can't complain.

Anyway, I'm satisfied that what I was doing this summer is exactly what my idol Annie Dillard recommended. And if you haven't read her essay "The Stunt Pilot" from The Writing Life (which The Best American Essays 1990 anthologizes) I highly recommend it.

2009 Year in Review

In less than one month we'll come to the end of our calendars and 2009 will fade away. So I'm looking back and reviewing the year, inspired by the first post on my favorite blog, Zen Habits.

I realized that 2009 has been the least stressful year of my life in 4 years or more, which is an accomplishment considering that last fall my nervous system was on the fritz due to extreme stress. In the spring, I took 3 theater classes and an English class, and 3 of the 4 were intro-level. Over the summer, I lived in an apartment instead of at home and acted in a show, and here in Italy I've had an academic breather as well. Granted, I've faced challenges and it hasn't all been easy, but at least I haven't been killing myself! Here are some of the things I've accomplished this year:

+ First semester of grades I'm actually proud of at Amherst. It's a tough school, and in previous semesters I had a harder time choosing the right classes and following through as a student, due to a multitude of personal stressors and poor work habits. But in Spring 2009, I knew I had to make a change, so I threw myself into classes I'm passionate about: Playwriting, Language of Movement, Materials of Theater, and Reading, Writing, and Teaching.

+ Acted in 3 shows: Vagina Monologues, Evita, and Strange Weather. Next year I'll take it a step further as a co-director of the Monologues, and hopefully act in an Amherst Theater department show.

+ Started learning a new language. I'm in an intensive Italian class and living with a host family, and while I'm far from fluent, I can at least hold a conversation. I was very intimidated at first, but spending 8 hours a week in class and not spending all my free time with Americans has paid off.

+ Traveled alone in France for 10 days. This would have freaked me out just a few months ago, but in Italy I've gained confidence and flexibility, and I was able to take the initiative for the trip. I saw one friend I knew from Amherst, but otherwise very few Americans, and I stayed with Couch Surfers and though I frequently lapsed into English, I did improve my French.

+ Made productive changes. I still waste time, but by tracking my computer usage on Rescue Time, reading productivity blogs and e-books, and cultivating an attitude of mindfulness, I've begun a process of change. I procrastinate less and feel better about myself, and I expect the changes to continue well past 2010.

+ Read 500 pages of Anna Karenin. This time I just need to finish it!

There are many other things I've done this year, and it's been populated with at least as many failures and disappointments as successes - but I'm focusing on the positive here! I have a lot of goals for the upcoming year. For now, though, I'm still in Italy, and I'm making the most of my last two weeks abroad!

Possibly the longest sentence I've ever written.

I just received a letter in the mail. I wrote it a few months ago at the final meeting for the year of the Writer's Club at Amherst, and Emmy sent it out as the summer draws to a close (thanks!). Here it is, slightly edited:

Waking up on the last day of something, or the first, contemplating ends and beginnings, taking an impossible leap, discovering things in myself that were so well hidden that I had never seen a trace; finishing something with pride and congratulations, with an awed appreciation for my own capabilities, winning an opportunity to begin something unfamiliar and exciting, coming across something new and beautiful; finding my own expressions inspirational, drawing away from the dredges of conformity, ready to fly off, my trajectory charted only in the minimal ways dictated by necessity, equipped with what I need for the moment and knowing that tomorrow will take care of itself; now, a part of me recognizes that I am finally pushing past the chasm that separates me from adulthood, coming into my own and finally knowing what that is, what it means, how I fit into it, and releasing the worries of inadequacy and inefficiency and incompletion, drawing a new hope from within, blossoming in the glow of tender care and daily watering, and my eyes widen in wonder as I greet it each morning upon waking up.

The prompt was to write about something that makes me happy. What makes you happy?

Summer, and the reading is...

Every summer, I shuttle back and forth from the library, consuming less than half the books I check out, but still a great deal. This summer, once again unemployed, the habit stuck. However, some of the reading was more active - I'm attempting to learn Italian - and, living farther away from a library, the trips have been less frequent. Furthermore, in all the preparations for spending a semester in Italy, all the reading I'd like to do before I get there just isn't going to happen.

Today, I picked up Italian Neighbors and An Italian Education by Tim Parks, along with another Italian memoir and a history of Italy from the library. They join two dozen other books I'd like to read in the next twenty days. But even if I only get to skim them, I think they'll be beneficial.

It's amazing how travel can be amplified by reading. I kept browsing guidebooks to Italy and finding myself disappointed with the lists of hotels and grayscale photographs. A novel or memoir can pull me into a place so much more fully, giving me a heartfelt desire to see and understand the birthplace of its history. And Rome is the point of origin for so many aspects of Western history.

I've started Park's second book, and near the beginning he notes his stance on travel writing: "I have always been suspicious of travel writing, of attempts to establish that elusive element that might or might not be national character, to say in sweeping and general terms, this place is like this, this place is like that. One always thinks: But I've met French people and they weren't at all droll...Or worse still: How long has this author been there, anyway? Two months, three? How can he possibly know anything deep about the place? How can he tell us about anything more than the casual phenomena any traveler would notice...It all becomes no more than an exercise in eloquent reportage, or like those novels by Dumas that speak so entertainingly of countries the author never visited. When I arrived in Italy...I swore I would never write about the place."

But he did end up writing about his own experiences in Italy, which he differentiates from the kind of travel writing that is filled with generalizations. I hope I can write about my experiences there without being cliché. But if I am, so what? If thousands of American students have gone to Rome before me, should I really think that I'm so unique?

Which brings me to the question of what a new writer really has to offer to the world, whatever his or her subject of choice happens to be. It's hard to get published, and most of the books that manage to hit the shelves still don't attain any level of success. I've already blogged about the mind of the writer and what drives us to write. But we do expect audiences; we write with certain people in mind, probably a great deal like ourselves, reading the kinds of things we like to read. Do we edify them? Do the books I picked out this summer - some quite carefully, others for little more than a catchy cover - enrich the life I'll lead during the rest of the year? I've arrived at these questions, but I have little in the way of answers. And for now, that's best. Perhaps the answer is in one of my books.

A Monday Piece

Zero hour is approaching rapidly; only 3 weeks remain before my departure for Italy. In the flurry of preparations, I've had little time to devote to writing, and it's all too likely that it will fall to the wayside during the four months I spend abroad. At the very least, I plan to regularly update a blog devoted to my travels, and I'll be writing papers for my classes. Beyond that, only time will tell. No more progress has been made on the short story; I've lost the fervent drive that got me through those first few pages. I haven't even been reading much. But I do have a poem.

In the Subjunctive, I Will

I would, I

would tell you

if the sparks had burned

if the light was out

if I needed anything, or

wanted you close

I would, I

would wake up

if I missed you too much

if I lost myself again

if this were broken, or

stale and bitter

I would, I

would hide away

if this can't be mended

if this is my last stop

if we haven't decided, or

given in

I would, I

would lock out the cold

if we were alone

if we could forgive

if there were words, or

threads of solace

I would, I

would, I would,

I know.

Why Don't We Read Poetry?

Poems about Poems: Why not? by Katha Pollitt is a charming blog entry, topped off with "The Poet's Occasional Alternative," a lovely poem by Grace Paley. Here is an excerpt:

"everybody will like this pie...

many friends

will say why in the world did you

make only one

this does not happen with poems"

People do seem to appreciate pies more than poems. In fact, on most people's lists of 'ways to spend my time,' reading poetry ranks extraordinarily low. When I was teaching in Brooklyn this past January, I discovered that poetry-hating does not seem to be a natural human inclination, as evidenced by the Creative Writing students' vociferous consumption of the poetry Ms. Sacks made available. As practice for the eighth-grade ELA exam, we solicited essays comparing two Langston Hughes poems, and several of them were delighted to discover this poet. I don't suppose that these inner-city kids then took it upon themselves to seek out poetry, but if it were regularly presented to them, they wouldn't turn up their noses.

I love reading poetry, but it isn't often that I actually do it. I considered reading a poem a day and blogging about it, to boost my own poetry consumption as well as critical skills, and to give readers (if I ever acquire any) an interesting education in the field. And I landed upon The Best American Poetry blog, but I didn't come up with a method of extracting a poem from the internet daily, at least not one that I expected myself to follow through on. Still, I plan to add some books of poetry to my regular reading, and to post the occasional poem discovery on this blog. And every time I come across a poem, I am determined to give it a fair chance before I take my usual recourse: skimming, and then skipping over it.

Creative Writing Courses

This fall I'll be studying abroad and I won't have the chance to take any creative writing courses. But I'm already planning my courses at Amherst for the spring, even though preregistration is months away. Here's what I'm hoping to take:

English 11: 20th Century Theater of the Americas

I shopped this course last spring but it didn't fit in my schedule, so I'll definitely take it this time around!

English 36: Shakespeare

This has been offered every semester and it hasn't fit yet. I love Shakespeare and I've heard great things about the professor, Bosman.

English 52: Caribbean Poetry: The Anglophone Tradition

Looks very interesting, but it's at 8:30 AM and it might have to go.

Theater & Dance 61: Playwriting Studio

Possible preparation for my senior thesis.

Instead of the Poetry class - or as a fifth class - I'll also apply to Fiction Writing I at Amherst and Advanced Short Stories at Smith. I've only applied to the Fiction class once; if I'm published by next January, though, I have a pretty good chance at the Smith class, and it's definitely preferable.

1165 words into the untitled previously mentioned short story, and it's going well. I'm hoping to post it on AbsoluteWrite in a few days - and possibly submit it to literary journals by the end of the month! I'm not expecting success at the first go, but I still want to try.

Writing Forums

I'm writing fiction, and I'm looking for feedback. Of course I can pester my friends and family for advice; a few of them are talented wordsmiths who have all the time in the world for constructive criticism. On the other hand, it's also nice to belong to a community of writers, so I have signed up for writing forums.

At first, I figured that one would do the trick - a Google search brought up WritingForums.org; I registered and started posting. But the quality of the critiques seemed a little low, and I was worried that I wouldn't be able to publish anything I posted because of copyright issues. Another search: this time I read some simple reviews and decided on AbsoluteWrite.com. It's an extensive site with (ostensibly) higher-caliber writers, and work is shared only in password-protected forums available to members only. I'd like to keep up with both forums, but will post any work I may try to publish only on AbsoluteWrite.

I'm currently 700 words into a short story about a gay man picking up an ex, who is now married to a woman, from the airport. I've just gotten to the point where they meet, and I'm stuck. But I'm writing something (this blog post!) and the story has been coming along, so I'm happy.

The Mind of the Writer

We are all writers. It is a form of communication that transcends time and distance, and nearly everyone in the modern world learns to harness language for use on the page and screen. We write e-mails, text messages, office memos, college essays, love notes, to-do lists, journal entries, and so much more. Yet some of us take writing so seriously that we endeavor to call ourselves "writers." What is the difference between the writer and others? It cannot be simply that the writer writes, or earns a living by it; others write as well, and many claim the title "writer" well before are paid a cent.

The difference is in the mind of the writer, which holds a fascination for words and a reverence for experience, actual or imagined. It is a place where expression is paramount, necessary; not because its experiences are particularly special, but because language seeps in and through them, demanding the recognition garnered by writing them down. For others, writing is a means to a clear and limited end, such as earning a grade or reminding Grandma not to bake anything in the broken oven. If your writing is driven by a desire that goes deeper than achieving a simple goal, and this desire is fulfilled only by writing, then your mind is that of a writer.

In the few thousand years since writing was invented, it has proliferated exponentially. There are hundreds of thousands of books published each year and far more writing published in periodicals and websites. Only a sliver of these writings will stand the test of time and still be read hundreds of years from now; but the mind of the writer overlooks or dismisses this fact and finds lasting satisfaction in writing that can come from no other source.