Dreams of dreams

Last week I spent my writing energy on preparing my portfolio for an application to the Master of Fine Arts Creative Writing Program at the University of New Mexico.  I had been shaken by my reawakened love for teaching.  After years of setting my sights on the writing life, I was distracted by the thought (again) that I need to be “practical.”  Practicality is a good thing.  How had I come back to the idea that pursuing my vision passion and were not practical?

I had gone through many iterations of the argument: I love being in the classroom, and feeling like I could just as well work on a Master’s Degree in Education.  That will undoubtedly require some writing!   Teaching 5th grade pays more than a teaching assistantship. Besides, if I need an MFA I can do it later.

But I felt so sad thinking that “practical” way.  It seemed sensible.  But I kept having dreams that disturbed me.  Romantic interests from my long lost past would appear, and I would give my life to return to them.  Night after night: the one I let go so we could become the good friends we are today; the crush I had at 14, who I thankfully never had so I didn’t need to let go.  I knew these dreams weren’t about romance.  I knew there was a message from my subconscious: Don’t give up your love.  When I connected it to my dream for an MFA everything fell into place.  I can apply.  I don’t know if I will be accepted.  I don’t know if I’ll be offered an assistantship.  And I haven’t even explored the option of continuing to teach 5th grade while I do my coursework.  So I put the application in.  I am not letting my love go.

And goodness knows I gaining a whole lot by learning from my students.  I already have volumes to write about from our time together.  I will share some of those experiences next time.  In the meantime, I’ll just bask in the glow of the knowledge that I haven’t given up on my dream.

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Parking Miracles: Act As Though Your Prayer Has Been Answered

Well, maybe He's not too busy...

So I’ve got this weird issue.  I love prayer.  I know it works.  I experienced plenty of confirmations that Someone out there cares about what happens to me.  But somehow, I’ve slipped into this attitude of, “I’m not talking to You right now!”  I can’t really pin point any reason to be angry at God.  With very few exceptions, my life is pretty great.  So what’s it all about?  Frankly, it feels petulant.  That’s embarrassing.  I mean, really.  This is God we’re talking about, that Unknowable Creator Who knows me better than I know my own self, the One Who made the whole universe just so we could learn how to be closer to Him.

Well, I’ve got some major life-decisions to make, so it’s about time I got over it.  To help me, I dug up a useful process for using prayer in decision making, attributed to Shoghi Effendi.  I thought I’d share it here:

“Step 1: Pray and meditate about it. Use the prayers of the Manifestations of God as they have the greatest power. Then remain in the silence of contemplation for a few minutes.

Step 2: Arrive at a decision and hold this. This decision is usually born during the contemplation. It may seem almost impossible of accomplishment but if it seems to be as answer to a prayer or a way of solving the problem, then immediately take the next step.

Step 3: Have determination to carry the decision through. Many fail here. The decision, budding into determination, is blighted and instead becomes a wish or a vague longing. When determination is born, immediately take the next step.

Step 4: Have faith and confidence that the power will flow through you, the right way will appear, the door will open, the right thought, the right message, the right principle or the right book will be given you. Have confidence, and the right thing will come to your need. Then, as you rise from prayer, take at once the fifth step.

Step 5: Then, he said, lastly, ACT; act as though it had all been answered. Then act with tireless, ceaseless energy. And as you act, you, yourself, will become a magnet, which will attract more power to your being, until you become an unobstructed channel for the Divine power to flow through you. Many pray but do not remain for the last half of the first step. Some who meditate arrive at a decision, but fail to hold it. Few have the determination to carry the decision through, still fewer have the confidence that the right thing will come to their need. But how many remember to act as though it had all been answered?

How true are those words – ‘Greater than the prayer is the spirit in which it is uttered’ and greater than the way it is uttered is the spirit in which it is carried out.”

When I first came across this passage, I was in a pretty bad state, post-divorce.  I thought, what the heck.  I’ll try out this prayer thing, see how it works.  I decided to practice with small but non-trivial stuff.  I lived in a sketchy neighborhood at the time, and would sometimes come home past mid-night.  My prayer experiment was simple.  Every time I came home after midnight, I said a short prayer that I would find a parking place on my block.  It wasn’t trivial.  I needed to be safe.  Once I said the prayer, I acted as though it had been answered.  Every time I found a spot near my apartment on my block.  This happened many times over the course of two years. On the north side of Chicago, that’s practically a miracle. And that “act as though” part was critical.  It wasn’t hope.  I projected confidence.  It was a fairly small thing, so I felt like I could manage that kind of confidence.  But I tell you, every other time I have used this process, for much larger things than parking, it also worked.  I’m not saying I got what I wanted when I asked for a car.  I’m saying that when I wanted clarity, I got it.  When I made a decision, and acted as though it had already been accomplished, doors did open, the right person or book or thought did appear.  So I’m going to give it a try again.  What have I got to loose?

I think one key to it all is that I try not be selfish in my prayer.  For example, before I write, I ask God to make me ready to serve Him.  “If it be Thy pleasure, make me to grow as a tender herb in the meadows of Thy grace, that the gentle winds of Thy will may stir me up and bend me into conformity with Thy pleasure, in such wise that my movement and my stillness may be wholly directed by Thee.”  If I’m asking God to inspire me so that both the movement and stillness of my pen are directed by Him, then at least I’m starting out with good intentions.  Writing can be such an act of ego.  Writing selflessly is like walking on the edge of a sword.  I have to keep my service to the reader and the story at the forefront of my mind, or I’ll be shredded to bits.

How do you use prayer in your decision-making or in your creative process?

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How Writers Can Use Digital Storytelling to Flesh out Story and Build Platform

A Wordle is a very simple form of digital storytelling.

I have another blog focused on digital storytelling that still gets regular traffic, even though it has lain silent for some time now.  But I have recently been thinking about making some changes to the novel I’m working on, and realized that digital storytelling might help me flesh out these ideas a little more before I commit to making wholesale changes.

Digital storytelling is a powerful medium that helps people tell stories through voice, imagery and music using simple technologies available to most people with computers.  It was founded on the idea that everyone has a story to tell.  As writers, we live that every day.  At the end of 2010, I reviewed my favorite discoveries in digital storytelling for the year.  The examples tell both fiction and non-fiction stories.  And digital storytelling can also help you as a writer, both in the writing process and in building your platform.

To create a digital story, a person first develops a script 2 to 3 minutes long, then generates a storyboard to consider imagery that can illustrate the ideas of 15 to 20-second sections of the script.  After creating or finding the appropriate digital images, the storyteller digitally records the narrative.  Using free video-editing software available on most computers, the person creates a 2-to-3-minute video, and can include music and effects to complete the soundtrack.

Let’s take a look at the seven elements of effective digital storytelling developed by Joe Lambert at the Center for Digital Storytelling, and how they can help writers.  These elements were originally outlined in Lambert’s Digital Storytelling Cookbook.

1.  A Point of View –  Writers can use digital storytelling to try different perspectives using digital storytelling.  If your work-in-progress is written in third-person perspective, try creating a digital story in first-person.  The short length of the script and the visual nature of the medium can help you develop the character’s voice and physical characteristics, as well as develop plot points.  Digital storytelling is traditionally written in first-person, but if you want to try third-person to see how it feels, digital storytelling can give you a small enough canvas to experiment with.

2. A Dramatic Question – You probably already know the dramatic question of your work in progress.  Digital storytelling can help you develop the dramatic questions of scenes that lead to the climax and resolution of your greater story, or can provide a medium for you to present a synopsis of your work more creatively.  It can also help you develop subplot or back-story.  For both fiction and non-fiction work, it can help you process your research into a more meaningful and relevant story arc.

3. Emotional Content – If you’re finding that your work is lacking in emotional texture, digital storytelling can help you focus on creating the feelings you want.  Choosing digital imagery that helps you visualize your settings and characters is invaluable. Using descriptive language rather than explaining the emotions that a character feels or that a situation evokes is as important in a digital storytelling script as it is anywhere else in our work.  But combining it with imagery and music can really help us draw out the emotions we need to tap into as part of our creative process.

4. Economy – This element is what makes digital storytelling so useful to the writer.  Because the script is so short, (one double-spaced page of text for 2 to 3 minutes of narrative) the production time needed is manageable, and creates a product that your audience is willing to view in the time they have available.  It also helps you focus on what is essential to the story.

5. Pacing – Recording the narrative with effective pacing can help both you and your audience connect more deeply with your story.  Speeding up your narration in high tension/high action moments, pausing for dramatic effect and using different inflections for different characters’ voices add a lot of dimensions to a scene, and can really help you develop the tone and style you want to use in your larger work.

6. The Gift of Your Voice – Some of the best-read books-on-tape are those read by their authors.  The author records the exact pitch, tone and inflection intended.  With digital storytelling, you don’t have to wait for Audible to purchase your story to convey what the story should sound like. It also helps your audience connect with you in a new way. Reading the text out-loud is an excellent editorial technique, and can help you make significant breakthroughs in what is missing or just isn’t quite right.

7.  Soundtrack – Many writers listen to certain kinds of music to get them in the mood for the writing they have to do.  Movies use music to underscore and enhance the emotional content of the story.  Why not music in your digital story to accomplish both ends?  Don’t forget, It is important consider copyright when you use music. Websites like the Creative Commons  offer music that can be used legally.

Whether you are working on fiction or non-fiction, digital storytelling can help you share your topic with your audience in a new way.  In a short amount of time, you can introduce characters to your audience, share important research you’ve done to help you develop your story and setting, or explore avenues that you haven’t gone down before to help resurrect a stalled manuscript. It can add a new dimension to your platform that draws in new audience and engages your current audience more deeply.

Have you used digital storytelling to develop aspects of your work-in-progress?  Share them here!  Do you have other thoughts about how it might be useful to your creative process or platform building?  I’d love to hear them.  If you’ve done digital storytelling as part of your writing process, contact me, and I’ll invite you to do a guest post to share your work.

I’m going to try creating a digital story with my novel’s main character, using first-person.  It may take a couple of weeks, but I really want to test the waters before I go diving it to a totally new revision of the second draft I’ve been working on.  Watch for it here!

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2011 in Review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for my blog.  It’s useful for me to know how my readers are coming to it, and what they’re reading the most.  It even suggests some topics I might want to write more about, because readers responded well to those posts.  See if you agree, and let me know!  Thanks.  And Happy New Year!

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,100 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 18 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

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“You can’t get theah from heah”

The main (and only) entrance to the teaching building. Those other things that look like doors are only for show.

Gates and building entrances drive me crazy.  Here in China, movement sometimes feels quite restricted.  I hear that voice in the back of my head, that one with an Upstate New York accent that tells me, “You can’t get theah from heah.”  For example, when I get off the bus at the stop in front of the college where I teach, there is a gate and a building right in front of the stop. But the gate, with its guardhouse empty, is closed, impassable.  And even if it were open, the front doors to the lab building are locked with bicycle chains.  There is no way to get to the teaching building right behind it.   I have to walk to the main gate a block down the road, and cross campus to get that building.  And the teaching building, which has a perfectly adequate number of doors at each end of the T-shaped building, has only one real entrance, because all those doors except the main entrance are locked with bicycle chains too.  God help us if there’s ever an emergency that requires a quick egress.

Plus, there are the guards.  These are the guys at the gate whose job it is to make sure that only the right kind of people get on campus.  Or if there happens to be an epidemic, they make sure only the right people get out.  During the H1N1 virus scare several years ago, they had thermometers and were supposedly checking everyone’s temperature before they left campus.  If you had a fever, you weren’t allowed off campus.  But they never checked the foreign teacher’s temperatures.  I actually had a bad cold with a fever at the time.  But I  later found out that I didn’t need to worry about that.  Their thermometers didn’t even work.

The guards also watch the main entrance to the teaching building.  That’s all they do, watch it.  Quite the sweet job, if you ask me.  And every housing compound, commercial building and public facility has a handy guard to sit and watch the door.  Do they know anything about the location of it’s occupants?  No.  That’s not their job.  Do they know how to find any particular office?  No. Hm.

My novel has been limping along recently because of hindrances like these.  I had no way to really enter a part of the story because of my ignorance.  A significant part of my story is about a legal proceeding that, until today, I knew little to nothing about.  I know where my main character is, I know where I want her to get to, but “You can’t get theah from heah.”

I found out how true that is today.  I interviewed an attorney about the legal procedures of this particular area of property law. I found out that the timing I had planned was all wrong! But something else happened.  That part of my story completely came alive for me.  There are elements of the process that are fraught with intrigue.  And the timelines for the procedures create some intense suspense.  It is a much faster process than I ever dreamed. I also gained a huge insight into the nature of this kind of law.  All this, courtesy of my dear source, an attorney who gave me his time and resources.  Yes, a lawyer gave me time.  For FREE!  And he’s willing to give me even more!  I love my job.

Research can do that for our writing, bring it alive, and get our story moving to where it needs to go.  We may start out thinking our characters need to go straight from point A to point B.  But through our research, we find the twists and turns that enrich and liven the plot, and make it more real and meaningful.

I need to be more grateful to those guards sitting at the gate, and to the restrictions that prevent me from going directly from point A to point B.  It’s hard.  It seems so stupid to me.  It adds almost ten minutes to my commute.  But I could look at it as extra time to exercise and to contemplate the intricacies of and contradictions in Chinese culture.  I could use those extra ten minutes of podcast Chinese lessons.  Or, hey, I could use the time think about how to get my main character to win her court case!

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How freezing toilets are like deadlines

When you've gotta go, you've gotta go

I had to go to the bathroom this morning, so I left my office and walked down the hall.  When I walked into the ladies’ room a blast of frigid air greeted me.  The windows were wide open.  It’s late November in northeastern China.  Whose idea was this?  Everyone’s, apparently.  All the windows were open in the bathrooms throughout the building.  Perhaps I should appreciate the “fresh” air.  If they weren’t open, that special sewage scent might be more noticeable. All the toilets at the college are the “squatty-potty” variety, with two places for one’s feet on either side of a long basin-like bowl.  It’s essentially a fancy hole in the ground.  And plumbing in China apparently hasn’t advanced the “u-bend” stage of piping.  Consequently, the out-gassing from everything that gets flushed makes its way back up the pipes and into my nostrils.  But the thing is, I had coffee this morning. And you know how it is.  When you’ve gotta go, you’ve gotta go.

Deadlines are like that.  They force action.  Rita Mae Brown once said, “A deadline is negative inspiration. Still, it’s better than no inspiration at all.”  I was thinking about that earlier this morning as I checked my students’ homework.  They had to do some internet research in English, and find three tips on time management.  As I reviewed what they had written, I was reminded of my former life as an office manager, when I had studied Stephen Covey’s principles, and clung to my Franklin planner as if it were my blankie.  I was working for a small but busy environmental law firm in Austin, and found that if I didn’t organize and prioritize, I felt constantly overwhelmed, and often dropped one of the many balls I juggled – professional, personal and community responsibilities to which I felt deeply committed.  But as I reviewed my students’ work, I realized I hadn’t used a planner in five years.

Coming to China has changed my life dramatically. I now live in a place where I am essentially illiterate, deaf and mute because I can’t read most of what’s around me, can’t understand what most people are talking about, and can’t express myself effectively in their language.  I teach at a local college and write.  I have domestic help, so my household responsibilities have been drastically reduced.  Both my children are in school.  And as for community responsibilities, well, they have shifted from mostly administrative tasks to building friendships and a stronger sense of community in this culture that is so very strange to me.  Still, I am very committed to these responsibilities.  But every one of them is now relationship-oriented rather than task-oriented.  Instead of having to manage budgets, equipment and staff, I teach.  Instead of procedures and memos, I write essays, memoir and a novel.  Instead of changing diapers and feeding babies, I talk with my children about their school days.  Instead of planning and attending meetings, I meet with my friends and we talk about how to make the world a better place, and how we can become better people.  We support and encourage each other in our troubles, and revel in the good times.

But I think it’s time to return to time management, especially because I feel I’m loosing sight of my writing goals.  My intention was to begin posting weekly on this blog, both to build a community and to increase the amount I write.  But I set no deadlines.  I also wanted to get into the habit of submitting my work for publication at least once a month, and keep the work circulating.  I haven’t submitted anything since September. I was supposed to get a writers’ group formed to generate support and some sense of deadline, but I’ve only sent one text message out into the world to get that to happen, and not followed up.  It’s about time to tighten the belt and get serious.

So I turned to my writing resources to dig up what I can find about setting self-imposed deadlines.  I found a fine blog post by Patrick Ross, which includes five tips to help make sure I meet those deadlines.  He suggests setting realistic goals, breaking down those goals in to bite-sized pieces, celebrating accomplishments and creating and accepting the consequences of failure.  One suggestion I find very helpful is: “if you track progress digitally, you should have an easily visible physical representation of it, so you have both the satisfaction of drawing a line to mark your progress, and reminders of your progress every time you walk by the display.”  My current time-management tool keeps everything hidden in my little iTouch.  Even though there are pop-up reminders, they are not as demanding a reminder as something that is in your face, and frequently reviewed.  Ross also mentions that he “changes [his] project tracking lines every few days so it simply looks different, even if the goals/deadlines haven’t changed.” This helps prevent the familiar sight from becoming invisible. The comment discussion that follows adds to the helpful insights and  practical tips.

Once I have some self-imposed deadlines set, I will create a calendar of submission deadlines for contests and requests for submissions.  Then I’m going to have to brush the dust off my Franklin planner and remember how to prioritize and set weekly and daily goals.  I hope it’s like riding a bike.  I have a feeling it’s not.  I have a feeling it’s more like forcing myself to go to the bathroom when I know there is a freezing wind waiting for my exposed tush.  But I have to do it.  I have a lot of ideas that need to get out there into the world.  And you know how it is.  When you’ve gotta write, you’ve gotta write.

What do you do to manage you writing life/time?

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Murder in Oak Hills

Writer commits Murder in Fictional Oak Hills: Beloved character will be missed

I had to kill someone last week.  I dreaded it as much as I looked forward to it.  I wasn’t sure how to do it.  I only had vague ideas…with a candle-stick in the library?  I pondered the options.  Whatever I did, what was more important was the reason I had to kill her.  She had become too important, but not important enough.  Oh, the contradictions we  create when we write!  I knew the only way for this person to become important enough was for her to die.  So in the end she got it with a heart attack beneath the wisteria.

Writing the death scene was much simpler than I thought it would be.  I did my research, and learned the symptoms of a female heart attack (which can be significantly different from typical male symptoms).  I re-read what I had written about my character’s situation in the preceding scenes and was surprised to find the warning signs already there, before I had even decided on how to kill her.  This tells me I should trust my subconscious.  Long ago, I thought perhaps she would need to die in the story, but changed my mind.  Apparently, this bug never let go.  It became obvious that she needed to die.  She was a crutch, making life too easy for my main character, Suzanne. When I finally started to imagine this character dead, I began to see how her death would propel Suzanne, and the story, forward.  Indeed, writing the following scene, where she learns of the death of this person, my writing came alive like it hadn’t in a long time.  Suzanne did things I never expected, but it was fresh and alive and real.

A few other things surprised me, and taught me how to write the scene, and Suzanne’s reaction to it:

1.  From the beginning of the piece, write as if this character is going to live to the end.  Develop the character well, and make sure the relationship between her and the main character is strong and clear.

2.   If you have developed the character and her relationship to the MC well, details from the character’s life should come out more than the details of the death. Draw out the emotional reaction of the characters to those details.

3.  Avoid cheesy exposition.  Death often comes as a surprise.  Keep the description of the death spare, and let yourself be surprised by what happens as you write.

4. The reason for the death is usually more important than the death itself.  Focusing on build up (when the character’s death is expected) and/or follow-up (when it is unexpected) will help readers connect with that reason.  The reactions of the other characters to the death should be catalysts for moving the story forward.  For excellent examples of this, see J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, which is replete with unexpected deaths followed with brilliant reaction and plot movement.

5.  Write to good “death” music.  Choose a playlist or a long piece that gets you into the right emotional space of the scene for that character.  The suicide death of a teenager in angst (think Everybody Hurts by REM) needs decidedly different music than a mother who is loosing a long fight with cancer (think Albinoni’s Adagio in G).  But really, use whatever works to get you feeling while you write.  I used music from the American Beauty soundtrack.  That story has nothing to do with my story, but the music was perfect for my scene – quiet, somewhat sleepy, private, with a definite tension.

It is ironic that I found so much life in my writing and my process while working on this death scene and its follow-up.  Perhaps that is another lesson.  Writing is often about touching the center of life, plugging into that electric Source that feeds us, creates us, and helps us create.  Death is one of the most profound ways we discover and interact with that Source.  I absolutely loved writing this stuff.  Maybe that’s why J.K. Rowling wrote so much death in her books.  She mentioned in an interview with Oprah that the writing of the series  helped her process her mother’s death.  And though my characters’ experiences and reactions are not similar to my reactions to loss, the writing of it has given me a new way to consider those losses. It has been cathartic!  I laughed.  I cried.  I’m sure my colleagues with whom I share an office think I’m nuts!

This is the first “murder” I’ve ever committed.  I sure hope it isn’t the last!  I love being a writer.

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Voice Found. Now what?

Writing instructors and How-tos frequently discuss finding one’s voice.  It’s that unique sound or style that develops when writers write authentically.  And whenever I start to write that I’ve found my voice my fingers start to freeze up and my gut gets queasy.  It’s almost like an ironic tic.  If I’m writing with my authentic voice, I just don’t say those kinds of things.  So saying it removes my authenticity, because I start to doubt instantly that I am telling the truth.

So, instead of saying that I’ve found my voice, the bigger truth is that I trust my voice.  I know when I’m going wrong.  My bones tell me.  And if I can stay true to that, then I’ve done something.  The problem now is choosing what to say.  There are so many things I’m passionate about, so many topics to explore, so many genres to dip into.  I can’t build a platform if I’m writing about natural childbirth one day, using the arts in community development the next, and the oneness of humanity the next.  In the depths of my heart everything I’m passionate about is sourced from an inexpressible love for people.  But writing about that in those terms makes me want to gag.  I write poetry, memoir, portrait and essay.  I write novels and stories and grant proposals.  How the heck am I ever going to settle down into a set of genres and topics?

This blog is forcing me to choose.  Well, let me put it this way.  For the sake of a sense of community around my blog, I want to focus a bit more.  Even if it’s only me and two other people, I want us to chew on some common topic together.  But I’m coming up blank.  Too many choices, none of them speaking loudly enough to me.  It’s making me feel grey and bland, and like I’m sinking into mediocrity because I simply can’t choose one thing to be passionate about.

Of course, I’m avoiding the one thing that I could write volumes about – my children.  I have four, but only two acknowledge me as their mother.  I don’t want to write another blog about parent alienation syndrome, because I don’t want to contribute to such a divisive topic.  I don’t want to blame or curse anyone.  I would be strident and angry or weepy and paralyzed if I tried to write about it, anyway.  Or am I just making excuses?  It is those issues that bring us the greatest trouble that we can write most authentically about.  That is where our voices can sing, if we would but let them.  So what do I do?

I am tempted to put up a survey: What do YOU want Amalia to write about?  But that’s a cop-out, and I know it.  So I’m just going to throw it out to the Universe.  Show me what You want me to do with this voice.  I want to be useful, I want to harmonize, I want to connect.  Show me the way!

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Banishing the Boogeyman

Boogeyman Be Gone!

Do I have what it takes to be a writer?  This question has been plaguing me since I started putting my own words on paper.  Do I have what it takes to move people with what I write? Do I have what it takes to be successful?  Or even the more existential “do I have what it takes?” that gives me license to write at all.  Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking, by David Bayles and Ted Orland, supplied the answers.

Nearly every other page of my copy of this text has highlights.  These nuggets of truth guided me along a non-linear path through areas of my psyche that have harbored unspoken fears.  Now that light has been shed on them, they show themselves for what they are, like the boogeyman.  The creepy noise that came from under my bed was terrifying to me as a child, until the day I had the courage to shine the flash light under there and find cockroaches stuck to the tape on the back of posters that lie on the floor.  It was a scary enough image.  But cockroaches are something I can manage.  Boogeymen aren’t.  Finding reality in my fears is comforting.

One fear has to do with how my work is received.  I do not write for myself alone.  There must be an audience to complete the circuit.  It is the same with much of my art, as a singer and with theater work.  Audience does more than justify the work.  Audience completes it.  Without someone to receive the work, there is no point in beginning.  However, I am reminded by this book of several points regarding the audience.  First of all, “there’s generally no good reason why others should care about most of any one artist’s work.”   Much, if not all, of my work will be devoted to improving my work.  The only way to improve as a writer is to write, to see what works, and to write some more.  The authors speak of learning to distill from one’s work the true voice .  This comes from recognizing and developing habits that are helpful to the process.

The second point about fears that this book reminds me of is that it is helpful to give my work time to breath before showing it to someone else.  I recently finished the first draft of the first short story I’ve written since the eighth grade.  I eagerly showed it to my husband five minutes after I finished, giving him the reminder that I hadn’t written one since the eighth grade.  I won’t go into detail about his response.  It was, in many ways, helpful.  But this experience was such a complete confirmation that “what is sometimes needed is simply an insulating period, a gap of pure time between the making of your art and the time when you share it with outsiders.”   If I had given myself time to breath afterwards, and worked more on it, I would have noticed many of the things he mentioned.  If I had given myself that insulating period, I would have gone in with a much more receptive and productive attitude then with my needy, eager-to-please approach.

There is a corollary to this fear of “how my work is received” that can be addressed in another way suggested by Bayles and Orland.  In several different contexts, they mention that artists quit after graduating from college because of the lack of support and feedback.  I recognize the urgent need for me to find or create a writer’s group as I approach graduation.  This has become a higher priority to me as I have come to recognize that my husband, while very supportive, should not be among my first readers.  I also recognize that most of my family and friends aren’t right for the job either.  However, there are a few, some who are involved in writing, some who aren’t, that l will begin to call on for that role.  But even beyond that, I need real-time discussion with people who are engaged in the craft, who can help me see my blind spots, and help me process what I’ve written in the safe environment of a workshop of mutual respect and support.

Another fear I have is about being “good enough”.  This fear has to do with two things: first of all, the fear of not having good ideas; and secondly, the fear of not being able to execute well the good ideas I do have.  Bayles and Orland write, “vision is always ahead of execution, knowledge of materials is your contact with reality, and uncertainty is a virtue.” What a relief!  It is that gap between what we envision and what comes out through the filter of our limited language that drives us forward.  We constantly strive to reveal the truth more truthfully.  And it always comes back to the guidance of “write what you know”.  When I deeply engage with the experiences and knowledge of my life, I find those truths.  When I want to, or pretend to know something, I only find myself floundering for words.  But again, the gap between what we want to know and what we know is what can lead us to explore new areas in life.

What I come away with after reading Art & Fear is the resounding sense that, yes, I do have what it takes.  As the authors say, my job is to learn to work on my work .  That I can do joyfully and forever.  I can and must share my work.  But Bayles and Orland have reminded me of the context of that sharing, both within history and society, and within the context of my self-concept. Perhaps our society has forgotten that writing is not only about self-expression but more importantly about offering an important service to the world – the service of presenting the truth from a new perspective.  More importantly, I recognize now that writing is not just a self-indulgent practice of expression.  I am not being selfish by throwing myself wholeheartedly into my calling.

On a final note, I was curious about the authors’ refusal to discuss these ideas in terms of creativity.  Perhaps this stems from the oft repeated fear that people don’t “feel creative.”  I understand their point, that perhaps creativity is mistaken for a rare commodity.  However, in my understanding of art-making (in life-making, actually), creativity is a virtue we all posses, and is expressed in an infinite variety of ways.  When we engage with the creative aspect of ourselves we are engaging with the ability to make something entirely new, giving something of ourselves in the process.  Just like any virtue, creativity needs to be cultivated through recognition and practice.  We recognize the places where creativity is required, then we practice our creativity in order to develop the virtue.

Overall, I find that Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking is written in a style that is appropriate to its purpose.  It does not seek to be a manual.  It seeks to uncover the deep questions that artists face as they begin and struggle with their craft.  It also explores those questions with a great deal of honesty and compassion, providing answers that come not only from the authors, but, as with any good art, from the audience’s engagement with it.

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A Digital Coup in my ESL Class

Students use web access on cell phones to learn English

They did it today.  They took over.  My students, that is. 

I was happily minding my own business, teaching them the day’s lesson when suddenly they took over the learning.  It was down-right revolutionary.  And I couldn’t have been more ecstatic about it.

I’ve been dabbling in the realm of digital learning for an article I’m writing.  Today I thought I’d try an experiment.  What if I actually USE what I’m writing about in MY class?  I teach second year English majors at a local technical college.  The class is Conversational English.  I have the freedom to use whatever curriculum I choose.  So today it was a geography lesson:  The World is Flat.  My students had never heard of Thomas Friedman.  They had heard of Christopher Columbus, so when I wrote those words on the board they seemed a bit confused.  But in our last class we examined the English terms for concepts they are quite familiar with – “streaming audio/video,” “social networking,” “chatting,” and “online gaming”.  I also introduced ideas about expanding their learning beyond their classroom or text book.  But I could tell the lesson was barely brushing the surface of their sponge-like minds.  So today I blew their minds away.  I hope I did, anyway.

I introduced the concept of the flat world in much the way Friedman does in his introduction, in fact paraphrasing him.  We discussed ideas like “collaboration” and “out-sourcing”.  They know the ideas, just not the English terminology, and they only know it conceptually, not in practice.  China is a collective society, but it is woefully ignorant of the practice of collaboration. 

Near the end of the first half of class, when we were about to break, I asked the class who had Web access on their mobile phones.  95% of the class raised their hands.  I told them to use Google in English, and search for whatever they wanted.  Some needed help.  I guided – “What do you do in your spare time?”  Blank look. “What do you enjoy doing when you are not studying?”  A hesitant, “Watch movies,” uttered the shy student.  “Great!  What kind of movies?”  She nearly squeaked, “Funny movies.”  “Okay,” I said, “search for ‘comedy movies’.”

Others needed no help at all.  One searched for the history of basketball.  Another for the newly announced host city for the 2016 Summer Olympics.  Those who had no phone crouched close to their friends.  Groups of students whispered what  they found.  I approached two students who weren’t searching.  No phone.  I handed them mine, and walked away.  A few minutes later, I came back to see what they were looking for.  “Who is Thomas Friedman?” was in the search field.  “Yes!”  I shouted, surprising them.  “That’s it!”  I had written his name next to the title of the book.  They wanted to know who he was.  And without any prompting from me, they whipped the learning right out of my hands, and took over.   And they worked straight through their break time.

The timid girl who watched movies found a list of the 100 funniest movies of all time.  Now maybe she’ll watch them in English, and practice her listening comprehension and pronunciation.  Later, they had to come up with 5 examples of how the world is flat.  They had to create ideas.  And they did a fantastic job.  Creative thinking has not been a strong suit among these students, but they were suddenly coming up with examples of how the world is flat:

Changing our appearance…Girls in China want blue eyes, because of Western influence.  They can see how they will look online with blue eyes, just by uploading a picture.

Surgeries that were impossible in China before because of lack of expertise can be done using telemedicine. 

Automobiles are manufactured using parts created from every corner of the globe. 

In the introduction of the book, Friedman mentions Dalian.   It is the outsourcing center of China as Bangalore is for India.  He interviews the former mayor of Dalian, Xia Deren.  The mayor talks of China’s human resource capital – the largest number of university graduates in the world: 

“Though in general our English is not as competent as that of the Indian people, we have a bigger population, [so] we can pick out the most intelligent students who can speak the best English.”

These are my students, who are sitting in my class room, and taking over the world by taking over their own learning!  That’s the kind of coup I can support.

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