Writing – Page 4 – Shannon E. Williams

69. Things I Can Tell Myself: One Small Truth

July 27, 2015July 27, 2015 smirkpretty

I am not going to read Jared Diamond’s The World Until Yesterday.

Never mind that he’s on deck for a Monday evening book group at the Unitarian church right up the street. And I have two full weeks until then, which is more than enough time. And it’s an opportunity to talk ideas and raw human family concerns with like-minded, world-eyed liberals right here in my community.

And that I want more than anything to disrupt this aching lonely purposeless robotic toil-consume-pick up-drop off-sort-pay-do-it-all-again-tomorrow middle aged existence by weaving myself into a project bigger than me, and attending this group is one simple step towards a richer life.

Because that’s a lie.

I want other things. This I want, yes, but only as much as other things, not more than. Maybe even less than, if I’m really honest.

My 7am Zumba is a few notches higher. That’s why, instead of reading past 11pm, I turn off the light and quiet myself down.

Also higher on the list? Long, meandering walks through the neighborhood with Noodle.

Making my own hummus from scratch is up there too.

Drawing crayon doodles on the envelopes into which I fold letters to Bug at camp. And scritch-scratching in my journal. And tip-tapping here: All higher.

Also whirling through loops and riding over soft plateaus in nighttime phone conversations with My Mister. And deadheading the basil. And transplanting the peppers. And mining the deep vein of creativity when the tough tasks come calling during my 8 hours.

Lunchtime yoga. That’s higher too.

If I really want that book club and the currency I imagine it carries — I mean, if I really want it — the choice is simple. Kick Jared Diamond up to the top of the list. Let something further down fall off.

And here I am, standing at the local library about to wave my key-card under the scanner. I look at what I’ve got. An Alice Munro collection of short stories, a thin volume of poetry exercises, a Stewart O’Nan novel called Last Night at the Lobster.

And Jared Diamond.

I think, What would it hurt to just take him home? Maybe if he’s there on the bedside table, I’ll pick him up. He might enthrall me. Just imagine how edifying, how engaging that discussion group! Fourteen days? No problem.

But why do this to myself?

Why this relentless work to repair, mutate, improve?

(Or prove?)

Somehow, I still fear the call chorusing through me is a siren’s song. The desire I drive so hard to override must be Peter Pan at the window, stunted id and stars for eyes.

Somehow, I am still trying to get this growing-up thing right. And still doubting that the woman right here in this skin is actually enough.

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.

— from Mary Oliver’s “Wild Geese”

I’ll do better (because doing better seems to be so damned important) if Jared Diamond makes his 512-page case somewhere other than my bedroom. I set his down on the re-shelf cart.

The moment I do, two quick but powerful currents rush past from opposite directions. The first says, Rock on, Girl! You’re free of that pointless assignment!

The second one is harder to decipher, but I still manage to catch its gist. It says, There goes another chance to be a person of substance. Have fun playing in the shallows, my friend.

And because my father earned a PhD, lists dozens upon dozens of publications on his CV, and spends a good chunk of his weekends reading not only the entirety of the Washington Post but a good portion of the works of nonfiction reviewed in its “Book World” — because of all of this, I am forever falling short of the mark.

That mark written on the bones of ghosts.

That mark mapped in disappearing ink.

I beep through the library checkout with only poetry, short stories, and a novel. As I do, I take a deep breath and tell myself the true small truth. This one has nothing to do with Jared Diamond.

It is this:

I will never be my father.

The heart shivers, resists, cries out for the comforting lie.

Then lets go.

I carry home my works of fiction and image. I walk my dog, slice peaches and cherries, talk on the phone with My Mister, then come here to write.

Fiction. Image.

Lyric. Story.

(So much closer to nonfiction than anyone let on.)

Something alights outside my bedroom window. It calls softly.

This song, I’m learning.

This song, mine.

Parenting, Things I Can, Writing

68. Things I Can Send: One a Day

July 26, 2015July 26, 2015 smirkpretty

In Zimbabwe, I wrote letters. Some were to my parents, some to friends, a couple to myself. Mostly, I wrote to a boy who’d loved me when I left but wouldn’t when I came home. During those months making sadza with my Sisi Portia and singing songs at human rights retreats, I covered thin blue airmail pages with stories and wishes and questions and promises. Sometimes the outsides of the envelopes were canvas, and I’d doodle around the address and play word games at the flap.

The highlight of any week was finding something in the mailbox from the states. How young I was then. Deep in the Masvingo province, red soil stained my shoes as I blistered my hands digging the foundation for a schoolroom. At the edge of Harare, I crammed myself into the back of an emergency taxi with six strangers to make the commute back to my host family. Passing through the market, I breathed smoke rising from tin drums where the maize was roasting. I ducked my head against catcalls from men too long at the beer hall calling, “Hey, musikana, marry me! Buy me a walkman!”

Here was this 20-year-old girl learning to carry on an entire exchange in a Bantu language, and it was still the mail from home that lifted me.

It’s too long ago to remember anything in those letters. The boy and his housemate wrote to me together a time or two, though they mercifully kept me in the dark about their new status. The content of any correspondence mattered far less than the fact of it. I wanted to touch a place that held me, or maybe just know I was remembered.

I understand now that mail from home was a status report on the acceptability of the exchange. This was its real value. My correspondents were still in the game. Play could continue.

I was too busy writing to realize that the act itself was shaping the journey. As much as these missives were “mail,” they were diary and commonplace book, hymnal and captain’s log. An envelope from home was an invitation to keep coloring in, keep making the story into what it was trying to become.

When I returned to the states, the boy handed me all that stamped and creased paper I’d sent from Africa, now neatly tied in string. He gave me back my pile of words. I hated him more for that than for choosing the other gal. The letters were for him to cherish. For that semester in Zimbabwe, I rode high on a precious delusion that he prized every word. I pictured him sneaking into his room and closing the door to read, re-read, get drunk on ink and fall a little more in love with me.

Did I mention how young I was?

I figured he’d guard those letters with his life. And here he was, handing them back to me.

Maybe I took them but it’s hard to remember now. Too many moves, too much life. I looked away, and the decades absconded with the bundle. I wish I had grabbed them from him and stashed them in a fireproof box. I wish I’d known what a story they’d make.

I wish a lot of things.

Today, I wish that on my son’s first day of his first year of sleepaway camp, the newness will offer him an untried self, the guides will provide a net, and the knowledge of home — out here, always here — will run so deep in him, he forgets to need me at all.

But in case he does, his mom will be there. Every day at mail call.

Things I Can, Writing

49. Things I Can Agitate: The Pool

June 12, 2015June 12, 2015 smirkpretty

She falls, cuts her knee, and sits there crying.

BEAR growl hibernate prowl tumble forage
AUTO FACTORY produce stamp mechanize assemble
TEACHER lecture bend inspire pause puzzle
HOCKEY slide crash score crack check snowplow
COBBLER sew patch measure mend revive polish
BUS DRIVER veer steer advise ignore wait brake
SPACE TRAVEL orbit signal capture float eject
FARMS sow harvest broadcast irrigate fertilize feed
STREETLIGHTS click change sway warn urge
CHILDBIRTH grunt grit bear howl count sob
TREES seed flower leaf reach shade house drink
CELL divide mutate form die attack congregate
OCEAN swell crest drown recede cool bash
HAIR snarl slip tangle curl droop spring bristle
STREETFIGHT slam split bleed bruise sneer resist
PRINTER ink roll letter align center correct
COW low ruminate gaze chew calve kneel
BUTCHER rend slice weigh package rip cleave

She tumbles and rips her knee on the bristling sidewalk. The blood captures her, and she droops there, lowing at the sky.

Things I Can, Writing

3. Things I Can Catch and Release: The Censor Speaks

January 13, 2015 smirkpretty

The Rules:

Avoid “I”
Stick with a person
Rephrase any instance of “no” or “not”
When it doubt, verb
Who inverts the passive
Actions float; feelings sink
Dice
Describe in detail
Enough description — get on with it
Develop a character
Develop a plot
Make a point
Points are red herrings
Get over yourself
Cliches are dead weight
Is that sentimentality? Seriously?
Carry a theme
Release your grip
Use all the senses
Get back to the action
Look up
Exploit conflict
Contrived conflict fails
Contrived anything fails
Just make it up
But make meaning
And make it seem accidental
Smile. This is fun.
Keep your hand moving
Generate volume
Polish gems
Murder your darlings
Perfection is death (also, the reverse)
Express what moves you
You don’t matter
Learn something
Teach something
Get a grip
Walk away
Stay
Wrap it up in a pretty ribbon
Everyone can see coming

Learning, Writing

Six Things a Dull Work Task Taught Me about Writing

July 3, 2014 smirkpretty

Merging two departments at our university means surgically coupling incompatible websites. Having spliced on the temporary graft last month, we now tackle the trickier job of weaving source to source so the seams don’t show. Today’s task involved rooting around under the patch to prune redundancies and rewrite bits of content.

Flagging here at the end of a seven-hour editing marathon, I take a breather and a gander. Weaving its way through the pages is a clean-edged trail of snappy language. It’s a marvel. In less than a single work day, I wrote a comprehensive volume of coherent text. Clicking through the screens, I see more passages composed more clearly than any of the bloated essay drafts oozing from my grasp the past few months.

Why does this work? What is it about tip-tapping away on a web-based work project that sparks such productivity and — dare I say it — craft? A bullet job might look like a different species than “real” writing. Get a little closer and you’ll see it is part of the pack. In fact, it has something to show us about how to deal with its more menacing kin.

1. Turn Up the Pressure

Your work needs to be out there. Somebody somewhere wants it.

Today’s task confirms that procrastination has poor return on investment. The current site’s content is either incomplete or inaccurate. Students need it finished and live. We make our jobs harder when we deprive students of proper guidance and then scramble to fix the mistakes they make without it. The only alternative to doing the work quickly is taking down whole sections of the site, and that’s a waste of good progress on a valuable project.

Your work matters enough to get it out there. Set a hard deadline and meet it.

2. Name the Audience

Put your reader in a blaze orange vest and have her stand at each intersection telling you which way to go. When the parade is in town, you need to be able to pick her out of the crowd.

For today’s task, the site’s readers line up in this order:

a. New students
b. Prospective students
c. Current students
d. Administrators from around the school
e. Faculty advisors
f. Student services providers at other universities

I keep all of them in mind — as well as their ranking — as I make decisions about what to write and how to arrange it all. The content has to rise to the standards of d, e, and f while primarily meeting the needs of a, b, and c.

Have your reader stand up and tell you what she needs to know.

3. Choose your Note and Strike It

Is it black tie at the opera or Chacos at a drum jam?

A website is one face of a person or organization. Word choices and sentence structures need to project the culture the site represents. That’s a big way of saying that the text is an ambassador. Its tone should give the reader a sense of how people inside deal with each other.

For today’s task, I determined that the site should be conversational but not chatty. The voice echoes what someone might hear at a student orientation or an admissions info session. It steers clear of stiffness and jargon while maintaining its polish. I dress my language on the tailored side of “business casual.” The tie is loose but it’s still a tie.

Put on wing tips and you’ll step like a boss. That’s how it goes. Once you set a tone, you start humming along.

Read it out loud. Does what you’re hearing fit your reader’s ear?

4. Memorize your Purpose

To use that voice with confidence, you have to know what you’re trying to achieve.

Today’s task highlights the website’s role in meeting the school’s larger goal: training the next generation of scholars. The content needs to do more than provide basic information. It must also introduce our Shiny! New! Story! as we make our way through this merger. When deciding how to compose and organize, these counterbalanced themes simplify my options. The site has two basic jobs:

a. Informing students of the resources, expectations, and procedures while also. . .
b. Conveying the scholarly mores of our emerging school

Both form and the content have clear objectives. I know what they are. Indecision doesn’t stand a chance.

Make the goal your mantra. Return to it when your words rebel.

5. Erect a Scaffold

Outlines may be overrated but they anchor your belay as you clamber through the work.

Prior to today’s task, I created the site’s format. That was a few years back. I plucked gems and threads from other websites and used them to assemble a frame. Re-creating the whole thing now would be senseless. This skeleton gets the job done. No need to worry about the fit. Trusting the structure lets me muck around inside the passages and fill them with content. If I find myself hammering something in at an awkward angle, I can crack joints, split seams, and make it all move where it needs to go.

Draft an outline in plain English and start filling in words. You can place things in another order once you have things to place.

6. Dice it into Bites

Bullets within categories within headings let you enjoy the carnita without staring down the pig.

Today’s task attends to one idea at a time. I work in this category right now, answering this question right here. What’s the use of fiddling around with other issues? If something pops up, I jot it down and return to sorting out this shred of text.

On most websites, an idea appears on the page in a size that’s easy to digest. Writing this way can be simply devilish until you make it devilishly simple. Divide the work up into ever smaller pieces. Bring one up front and get to work. If the reader needs more material, find or make a place for it, link it, and fill in later.

Cut with a clean edge then go trim the fat.

“Bird by bird,” as Anne LaMott says. Don’t write a book. Shape an idea.

Just one.

This one.

Take a shot at injecting these features of 9-5 writing into your more defiant projects. You just might bring them to a heel. Then you can really move.

Learning, Writing

Zero Draft

June 13, 2014 smirkpretty

As a single word carrying multiple meanings, writing is what you produce, the act of producing, and the tools you use. This piece is writing. So is this tap-tapping and so are these sentences made up of all these words.

Academic writers who aim to do more than churn out a dissertation, who want to write for publication and contribute to their fields, write differently in all three ways than do the dabblers.

Scholars with their names on the spines of the weighty tomes seem to belong to a secret society. Only the ultra-talented and super-human make it in. It can seem impossible to reach that degree of productivity. The truth is much less mysterious. Becoming an author as well as an expert is a choice, and it is a choice that takes the form of an overhaul. Shedding the ill-suited writing habits most everyone carries from English 101 and establishing themselves in writing life, those authors recognize that their subject-matter expertise is only valuable when it is part of a larger conversation.

Be that as it may, the transformation from student to scholar does involve entering a secret society. For members of this circle, the zero draft is the secret handshake.

Whether you call it the “spew” draft, the discovery draft, or the exploratory freewrite, the purpose is the same: to break the one-draft habit. In graduate school and in publishing, the writing process necessarily becomes both iterative and complex. The students who grasp this begin their initiation into the community of scholars not just by writing to demonstrate learning, as Peter Elbow notes, but writing to learn.

Ideas do not exist in a pure form separate from the act of writing them. The old axiom about clear writing being the result of clear thinking is inaccurate at best and dangerous at worst. It feeds into the assumption that writers have fresh ideas which they can capture and display. When writers consciously and intentionally use their initial drafts to pour and explore, they unlock themselves from their pre-determined formulations of what they “know,” and reveal assumptions, concepts, theories, and connections – all the things that came before and exist alongside what they are now cobbling together. Writing then works to fill in and build out the conversation about what we understand as real.

The false divide between subject-matter expert and writer exists only as long as the scholar imagines her job is to accurately represent some slice of the world. When she accepts the premise that the world itself take shape as she writes, the velvet rope lifts.