Week 5 Reading Response

I got a lot out of the essays from Telling True Stories, especially Kelley Benham's essay about dialogue. The examples she used were so perfect. It reminded me of what Marin said last week about only using dialogue if it reveals something essential about the subject. But it also reminded me that readers need dialogue to help them connect with characters (that's one of the things that I thought was a bit lacking in Trillin's Astoria piece - there weren't very many first-hand quotes from the Flavels). As Benham says, "Dialogue is easier for people to read than straight narrative, because that's how we listen to the world and how we communicate" (105). It seems like the trick is choosing when to use it and when to paraphrase.

I really liked Tracy Kidder's "Memory." It was realistic without losing a kind of optimism and wonder at the remarkable individuals that Kidder met. It revolved around a central theme but profiled a few different people in order to get at the issue from different angles. Memory is shown to be really complicated; it's not just a piece about how sad it is when old people lose their memory.

I wasn't so crazy about Trillin's "First Family of Astoria." As Anna said, I wasn't grabbed by the historical layout in the beginning, and it took a while for me to get invested because I kept asking myself, "Why should I care about these people?" Even when I got to know the Flavels better, I still didn't care about them, because Trillin didn't give me much reason to. They didn't really seem like multi-dimensional people; instead they were a source of irritation to the town. And maybe that's the point: maybe this isn't so much a profile of the Flavels as a profile of Astoria and its obsessions. Still, I felt dissatisfied that I didn't get to know them very well except from the outside.

Final draft: The Weight of One Strand of Hair

One Friday afternoon, after a painless one and a half hour drive, I arrived home from college for a weekend with my family. I walked into my bedroom and found an envelope addressed to me waiting on my bedside table. The return address indicated that it was from a small literary magazine. Another rejection letter. They had been rolling in over the past few months, ever since I went on a poem-submitting spree that summer.

I opened the envelope and a check for five hundred dollars fell out.

My first response was, “Holy shit, I won something!”

My second response was, “Holy shit, I’m going to have a lot of explaining to do.”

I was too excited to think. I would figure it out later. I practically floated out to the living room to announce to my parents, “I just won five hundred dollars in a poetry contest! And my poem’s going to be published!”

After the general exclamations of surprise and congratulations, my dad asked, “So what’s the poem?”

What was the poem? The poem was the essence of a secret that had been gnawing at me for over a year, condensed into fourteen lines.

Now the unexpected had happened, and the poem was going to be published, and my secret was out.

***

Losing my faith was simple, the work of a moment. I was in the back seat of a van driving through the Loire Valley with the fall sun streaming in through the window. The excursion was part of a five-month study abroad in France, the longest I had ever been away from home. I was reading The Stranger by Albert Camus. When Meursault says of the priest, “He seemed so cocksure, you see. And yet none of his certainties was worth one strand of a woman’s hair,” I felt a surge of revelation. I wanted to spend the rest of my life appreciating things like hair and sunlight and the chocolate that I bought at the gas station half an hour back.

The certainties of my faith weren’t helping me grow in any way; they told me how to live, and then they made me feel guilty if I failed to live that way. I wanted to find out for myself how to live. I wanted to shake off all the guilt and devote myself to appreciating the world around me, in all of its stunning, miniscule details.

Losing my faith was easy; the hard part was accepting that it was gone. Even if I wanted to figure things out for myself, I couldn’t forget that for twenty years, Catholicism had provided my moral grounding and an important part of my identity. My religious beliefs had also been part of the common glue that had bound me to my family. I may have lost my faith, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to lose any of those things.

When I returned to the U.S. that winter, I struggled to fit my new self back into the shape my old self had left behind. The first Sunday I was back, I went to mass with my family and when I went up to the altar to receive communion, the Eucharist fell out of my hand. I was certain then that I was going to hell.

But what could I do but keep going to church, enacting the empty ritual, pretending I still cared? I couldn’t tell my family. I would do anything rather than hurt them by rejecting the faith they had raised me to believe in. I was afraid they would think less of me, or make repeated attempts to re-convert me.

For over a year, the struggle raged inside me. In the spring I took a poetry workshop. I found that writing was the only way I could force myself to think through the way my faith had shaped me and to consider what I would do now that it was gone. Slowly, secretly, I started to rebuild the foundations of my world.

***

I showed my parents the letter I had just opened. When my Mom saw the title of my poem, “The Good Book,” she asked, “Is it about the Bible?”
“Yup.” How could I tell her that the poem was basically bashing on the Bible? That it described my inability to accept the Bible as truth?
“So,” my mom asked, “do we get to see this poem?”
“Uh, yeah. I’ll show it to you…just not right now.”
My parents looked puzzled, but they didn’t press me for more information.

I decided to explain myself that night at dinner. As the meal got underway, I followed the conversation carefully, inserting comments and laughter when appropriate, nervously waiting for my opening. At every lull of silence I would start to steel myself to jump in, but each time something tugged me back. No, this is too hard. I’m not ready. I need more time to figure this out. But soon the plates were almost clear of food, and I knew it was now or never.

“So, I wanted to say…about this poem…I want to share it with you, but I have to do a little explaining.” I told them how I had been having doubts for a while, and that I wasn’t sure where I stood with the Catholic Church. I explained I had written poems to help me think through the issue, and that this was one of those poems.

Everyone looked at me for a moment longer. Then Dad asked Nora to pass the string beans.

The next day, though, my mom approached me in the kitchen while I was getting a snack. She thanked me for telling her what was going on. She said she was proud of me, and that I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing: figuring out my faith for myself. And after she said that, I knew she was right.

Week 4 Reading Response

One interesting parallel between the two profile pieces from Narrative Journalism is the fact that both writers are present in their pieces, but not too present.

Some pieces (for example, the article that John chose) can be told from a distance, but it seems like others really demand the presence of the writer. I think that "Trina and Trina" is definitely one of the second kind. We see LeBlanc's struggle to help Trina through all the twists and turns of her life. On p. 219, we see LeBlanc's confusion about her dual roles of reporter and friend when she says, "There's no open bed for her to start treatment, but Artie's family needs a break. I exceed my role as reporter, convinced I am going the limit as a reporter, and I take her, fully, in." We also see the way LeBlanc compares herself and Trina, which leads her to draw hasty conclusions. We see the messiness of the situation, and it's not just Trina's messiness. It's the system's messiness, and it's also our messiness.

In "The American Man at Age Ten," Susan Orlean gracefully weaves her presence into her portrait of Colin. She's the one getting hit with the sling shot, and she is also sometimes the one being questioned in stead of the one doing the questioning. I really admired her ability to blend seamlessly into Colin's world and to enter his mind frame. It made it a bit easier for me to jump in myself. At the end of the piece, Orlean is literally trapped in Colin's web. I wondered about this ending - why did she choose it? If I had to guess, I would say it was something about the all-powerful imagination of the 10-year-old...? At any rate, I loved it.

Thinking about the profiles we will write, I wonder: Should we show our presence as an observer/as someone who's processing observations? If so, how can we do this without dominating the piece and making it a personal essay?

Profile Pitch

A couple of weeks ago, while I was working in the Writing Center, I met a student named Carline. As I helped her with a job application, it came out that she was from Haiti. Immediately, my mind filled with questions. What was it like for her to see tragedies unfolding in her country from the vantage point of one of the most powerful nations in the world? Who did she turn to for support? What did she think about the campus’s response, both to the earthquakes and their aftermath and to her as a “representative” of her country? What will happen when she returns home?

In the wake of a disaster such as the one that recently hit Haiti, many voices and stories emerge. We have heard many such stories in the past few months, but Carline’s story is unique and comes to us from our own shores and from our own campus. Not only can her story help us to better understand her native country, but it can also shed light on our response as a campus community and our attitudes as Americans.

I have contacted Carline and she got back to me saying that she needed a little time to consider my proposition. She hasn’t talked to very many people about the events taking place in her country because it’s painful for her. I should have her response by today at 5. If she consents to talk with me, I would interview her and shadow her as she goes about her daily life in Kalamazoo. I would also talk to her friends, her professors, and the CIP.

I remember vividly the eerie feeling that I got during my time abroad, when I would turn on the French news and find that every channel was covering the 2008 U.S. election. It was the feeling of watching myself being watched. I can’t begin to imagine the trials that Carline has had to go through during the past few months, but I can remember that feeling, and hopefully that will give me a place to start.

Week 3 Reading Response: Writing For Story

I'll admit: I was threatened by this book. It seemed to efface everything I'd ever learned about writing, both in creative writing classes and from my own experiences. Coming from a background in poetry, I had always been taught that there is no way to plan a piece of writing beforehand; one simply had to let the words come out. The emerging poem would make clear what it wanted to say, and the act of writing the poem would often lead the writer to some unexpected discovery that could never be planned in advance.

In the creative non-fiction course I took last quarter, the pieces were longer and in prose, but the concept was the same: writing is an act of discovery. If you come in with an unshakable plan, you're missing out on the fun. It was not that my instructors didn't stress the importance of finding a focus and developing it over multiple drafts, it was that they explained the writing process as a bloody, painful battle. The writer must strip herself naked, exposing the most vulnerable parts of herself, and wade through the muck of the initial writing until she stumbles upon the true point, the "so what?" of the story. Then she basically has to write the piece over again in order to make everything converge on the main point.

So when this Jon Franklin guy started talking about outlining, I got a little panicky. I rely heavily on outlines in my academic writing, but outlines in creative writing have always seemed to me to paralyze the piece before it even gets off the ground. However, my panic turned to shame when I realized that the amateur writer he's always talking about is actually ME: on p. 112, when Franklin describes "spaghettiing," I recognized the feeling all too well. Like the amateur writer in the book, I have always dealt with this issue by using the "bull-your-way-through" approach that Franklin describes on p. 114. And it sucks...writing that way is more draining than a day at the gym. I've also never thought to start writing a piece anywhere other than at the beginning, which for Franklin is a big no-no (p. 158).

Now, in addition to feeling stripped of the "art" component of writing that I had worked so hard to cultivate over the years, I was feeling utterly belittled and demoralized. But when I got to p. 160 and read Franklin's explanation of "calibrating" the story, I finally found the discovery component I had been missing. Franklin describes that moment during the writing of the rough draft when the writer discovers that "the story is taking over and making course corrections for [him]." He says, "[T]he simple (or not so simple) process of writing the story through, if you've invested yourself in it, has changed YOU. You're no longer the same person who found that story and analyzed it. In a sense you have lived it, and you can see it from the inside now as well as from the outside. As you reconsider the story now you should be able to see it with much more insight and a keener understanding of the forces at play in the character and his story."

After reading this book, I've come to accept the concept that a story can be tightly structured from the start AND contain a process of discovery for the person writing it. And, as Franklin points out, as the rough draft evolves, the writer will often tweak the outline in order to accommodate a change that has come about through the writing process. I'm excited to try Franklin's method; it seems a lot less painful than the blind stumbling I often find myself doing when I sit down to write.

Responses to personal journalism pieces

Anna—

The way you structured this piece really helped me understand what it was about at a deeper level. I love the way you frame the piece with yourself and the role of Eva, and then spend a lot of time in the middle talking about the real Eva and your encounter with her. Arranged this way, the piece makes it obvious that it’s about more than just you: it’s about the way art makes connections and effects transformation. I also loved the simplicity of the scenes—when you describe your meeting with Eva, you include only the most important details to set the scene, and you focus on what she said and did and not on what you were feeling at the time. I think that’s the best way to deal with such an emotional topic without getting sentimental.

I wanted to hear more about why you doubted your ability to take on the role and how the script was challenging for you. This would create more of a conflict, so that when you resolve everything in the final scene the reader will feel strongly the change that you have undergone.

Marina—

I love all of the dialogue in this piece. I really get a sense of her character and your frustration from your exchanges. I think that if you tinker with the organization a little bit, you will be able to bring your main point more into focus. It seems like you’re centering around the idea of being able to communicate in your own way (9th paragraph). I wanted that to be clarified: what did it mean to you to communicate in your own way, and how was your host mom preventing you from doing that? I like the way you started with the description of what you had to sit through every night at dinner; what if you wrote a longer scene that described a typical day in Strasbourg, how you were making progress with the language (vendors) and then you would come home and be crushed by your host mom’s mean comments? But I also like the way you frame the piece with your arrival in France and your departure. I’m just not sure how to make everything fit together. I think that you should choose only one or two scenes and flesh them out a little more instead of giving the reader a summary of you time abroad. The tissue scene has to be the turning point—what a great moment!

Joel—

Hilarious. I like how, after you’ve described everything that happened, you end with arriving in Barcelona and the cycle beginning anew. The piece was all the more comical because you didn’t actually go into what happened the second time around.

I didn’t start to see the piece’s larger significance until the very last sentence. I think you should make it clearer that this isn’t just an entertaining anecdote, and that it’s meant to comment on the way that we (don’t) learn from our mistakes and the way that we see traumatic events through the rose-tinted haze of nostalgia. I would suggest cutting out the part about your first flight from Detroit and finding a way to introduce the Barcelona story that gives the reader hints about what you want him to take from the story. What’s the larger significance to you? How is this a turning point? I got a hint of the significance but I wanted you to make it more explicit.

I think you do a good job of capturing the panic you felt, but I wanted to see a few more details about what you were thinking or doing that manifested your panic. More of the “throwing clothes and toiletries into my bag”-type details.

Munirah—

I think that where this piece ended is maybe where it needs to start. I loved the last sentence, but I was left wondering how college prepared you to live your life. It seemed like you got to the turning point and then stopped. One way you could approach the piece would be to start with college and how it changed you and then reflect back on the way you used to be and your athletics-fueled perfectionism.

I really love the scene that you start with, as well as the scene from your first game. The uniform detail is the perfect way to contrast the other girls on the team with yourself, as someone who was actually concerned about the outcome. I think the question is, how could you work the scenes so that they point more clearly to your perfectionism and your will to achieve? With the second scene, just having more details about what you were thinking after the game, and how it didn’t line up with the ideal game in your head, would say everything you need to without you going through and explaining in overview how perfectionism ruled your athletic and academic career.

My writing process for "The Weight of One Strand of Hair"

...by the way, if anyone has alternate title suggestions, I would be thrilled to hear them :)

I spent the last quarter in Gail Griffin's Creative Non-Fiction class, and I did a lot of writing about myself. It was exhausting and I often felt very naked. So when I got this assignment, I wasn't sure if I had any important stories left to tell. Well, really, I knew that I did have stories, it was just difficult to summon up the energy to write something so personal. It came together in bits and pieces. It seems like I spent more time thinking about the essay than I spent actually writing it. I did a little free writing, then I set it aside and went on with my day, but I found myself thinking about which scenes or events to include and which to leave out, how I wanted to organize the piece, and how I saw my reflections working together to converge upon a central focus. I had a lot of doubts, like "How can I make this subject interesting for a reader?" and "Should I include more scenes and cut out some of the reflection?" But when I sat down to write over the next couple of days, I found that the word limit of under 900 words didn't leave me with a lot of room for doubt. I couldn't do what I usually do, which is just add more and more until I'm satisfied (and my piece is enormous). The word limit was frustrating, but it was kind of a fun challenge to have to cut out all of the unessential details and focus on what really mattered most to the story.

The Weight of One Strand of Hair

The other day in my Victorian Literature class, during a discussion of the widespread crisis of faith that followed the publication of Darwin’s writings on evolution and natural selection, our professor asked us if our generation had any way to understand the extreme shock that hit the Victorians when their creationist world view was ripped out from under them like an ancient, moth-eaten rug. As twenty-first century students at a liberal arts college that is in fact very liberal, evolution was no big news to us, the professor assumed. “So what’s your way in?” she asked. “Can you sympathize with these people, and if so, how?” Hands were going up all over the place. No less than three students said that they had been raised in small, insular communities that had taught them to take the Bible as the literal truth. Then they came to college and took their first biology course where they discovered that according to their professors and their peers, the world was actually much older than 4,000 years and men were descended from monkeys. My own story is somewhat less dramatic. I lost my faith, but it wasn’t violently torn from me; at the same time, I didn’t arrive at college eager to shed the Catholic tradition I had been raised in. But like the Victorians, once faith was gone I had to rebuild my world from the ground up.

I was in the back seat of a van driving through the Loire Valley with the fall sun streaming in through the window, and I was reading L’étranger by Albert Camus. The van ride was part of a weekend excursion to visit the castles of Chambord and Chenonceau, which was part of a study abroad program in France. Already having been steeped in the stunning elegance of the castles and their grounds, haven eaten the most gourmet cafeteria lunch of my life (salade de crudités, veal stew, and chocolate mousse), being in the company of ten fellow students who I had come to adore over the past month, I was overwhelmed with happiness. Camus’s existentialist reasoning was starting to work on me. When Meursault says of the priest, “He seemed so cocksure, you see. And yet none of his certainties was worth one strand of a woman’s hair,” I felt a surge of revelation. Hair is beautiful! The uncountable number of filaments on each person’s head! So many different colors and textures! I wanted to spend the rest of my life appreciating things like hair and sunlight and the chocolate that I bought at the gas station half an hour back. I wanted to shake off all of the religious guilt that was paralyzing me and preventing me from loving the world around me.

My five-month stay in France was the longest I had ever been away from home, and what my parents didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. The parties, the drinking, the European men throwing themselves at me. I was asserting my independence, but I wasn’t out of control; I felt that as long as I kept myself on track with my own internal moral compass, I didn’t have to continue to follow church doctrine to the letter. I had always doubted some of the Church’s principles, anyway. Like, why is homosexuality a sin? And why can’t women be priests? I wasn’t sure how I felt about birth control and abortion. For the first time, I actively grappled with these issues and tried to understand my own position on them instead of just accepting that I had to believe certain things because the Church told me to. Nothing was automatic; letting go of my faith meant letting go of security and embracing ambiguity. I will never forget the look of bewilderment on one would-be-lover’s face when I told him that I couldn’t spend the night because I had been raised to believe that sex before marriage was a sin and I still wasn’t sure how I felt about it.

But it was when I returned home that the real faith crisis began. The first Sunday I was back, I went to mass with my family and when I went up to the altar to receive communion, the Eucharist fell out of my hand. I was certain then that I was going to hell. I had no idea how to fit the person I had become back into my old life. I didn’t want to tell my family, so I kept going to mass, but I couldn’t accept what the priest was saying. The only way I could work through my questions and doubts was to write poems about religion and spirituality. My secret was out, though, when one of the poems was chosen to be published. My family would have to see it eventually. I explained everything one night at dinner: how I didn’t know what I believed anymore and how I was trying to work it out. My family looked at me for a bit, and then my dad asked my sister to pass the potatoes. But the next day, my mom thanked me for telling her what was going on. She said she was proud of me, and that I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing: figuring out my faith for myself.