The Velveteen Writer

(Special recognition for my two girls who have put up with me, twice.  Here you go.) 

First, listen to this (a newer, hipper version):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHkmLEhFq44

I've an idea in my head, but no way to begin.  Ever go through that?  Oh, yeah.  That doesn't stop after the cap and gown day, kiddos.

Rough transition it is then.  I have another blog that I write that is not as difficult, mainly because I do not have to consistently pause and ask myself things, like "is this academic enough?" "is this inappropriate?"  "what are my intended learning outcomes?"  "will I offend that sweet kid?"

No, no.  The other blog has my cultural fingerprints all over it: my religion, my Southern-ness, my rebellious nature, my sentimentality.  Of course, it's a truer voice.  Less manipulative.  More raw.  More important?  I doubt it.  But decidedly more therapuetic to write.  (And yes, Zeke.  I am real :)

This is not to say that a blog written for a class called "Topics in Writing" isn't pertinent, or real, or fun.  Quite the contrary.  I believe that some of you will go on to get a graduate degree and will need to get much more philosophical in your writing in order to excel.  Others of you will go on to be teachers of writing and will need to ask more of your students than the smooth production of the five paragraph essay.  But . . . how can I help you, really?  If this were the last class I ever taught, what do I need to share about writing?  No pressure, right?

And so, I think I am snagged on a qualitative issue, one that I have been trying to solve by weighing out writing skills against things like paychecks, career advancements, and accolades.  So snagged, in fact, that I am prepared to ditch all of that for something, well, more "real."  

I have read thousands of books, written several published articles, and have even slogged my way through some neatly composed essays that I personally abhorred for an A.  And yet?  A piece of writing from my youth continually haunts me.  

"You become. . . That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."  The Velveteen Rabbit

Real.  What does that mean to writing?  Should we even care, for when we can craft elegantly posed thesis statements and perfectly cited essays, all in hopes of that elusive A, is that all?  Is nothing more required of us?  Of course, I want you all to hone your craft.  Become "skillful."  But, if in the journey you do not find yourself, if on the way you forget why you fancy words and books so very much, if at the end all you have is a decent job but have lost the joy of making magic with a pen, then . . . well, then your hair has not been loved decently off.

  It is Friday, and we have talked of warrants, voice, writing tools like dashes, and have peer reviewed and shown up to class on time.  But, today, this time, just once . . .

 Let's write something for the sheer joy of it.  Push ourselves to create something real.  Here's a bit from me, your very real teacher.

I was the granddaughter of a Cherokee medicine woman and only ten years old, swathed in my mother's white organza scarves and twirling in the pines.  "Dancing in the Moonlight" swelled from my am/fm radio and drove golden sparks of fireflies over my fingers as if I had called them into being, called their little bodies into a dance with summer and sweat and innocence.  It was 1976, and my feet were stained red by Alabama clay, my heart broken by divorce, and my voice was still unscarred by thirty years of smoking.  And I danced, and dreamed, and twirled under a burnished dusk sky.  Part of me is still there, orchestrating fireflies and believing that summer will never end and that daddies never leave.  Somewhere, I dance.

 I'm not going to go back over and revise this.  Because it's real.

Your turn.

The Whole Damn Shooting Match (You, Me, and John Wayne

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8sNeozweTM

"Courage is being scared to death . . . and saddlin' up anyway."  John Wayne

I'm not sure why it took me so long to come to this particular blog day.  I've been toying with the idea of simply skipping it, and perhaps that's what caught my attention.  Why was I avoiding this one?  Because "Demagogue Days" was so political? Ranty?  Leftist?  I think we all know me better than that by now.  So . . .

What's in my craw? 

I found it over my third cup of coffee.  Fear.  Let's have a chat about saddlin' up, shall we?

I'm with Almond, all the way down to the last level of Dante's hell.  Pissed and self-righteous with him, hurt and indignant with him, embarrassed and vindicated with him.  It came as quite a jolt that Canto XXX left the two of us (yes, the two of us) in the dust, so to speak, and horribly grieved at the real fallout.  When do my rants, valid or not, take me away from my intended heroism?  How many times have I been right, had a warrant (and boy, did we cover that one), filed my exquisitely crafted injunctions with the proper authorities and found myself, smoking gun in hand,  so far from my cause?

Just to be clear, I'll provide disparate examples of such shenanigans:

1. Professor X warns me that I am too emotional about my essay subject.  Obviously, Prof X is an Anal, Archaic, Sexless Fart who is part of the great conspiracy to rip the passion out of my writing.  Final essay firmly refuses to examine AASF's alternate take on said well-loved subject (damn skippy!) and lands in a slap of dust and glory on AASF's desk.  Take that.  Flash forward to my first B. 

2. With doctorate firmly in hand, and under sudden and decidedly unwarranted attack from an uptight academe, I (and my little warrant) saddle up and ride into Town.  After all, others like myself need defending.  Freedom of speech and religion and all that.  I think I was feeling a little less John Wayne and a bit more Clint Eastwood, circa High Plains Drifter. (Of course, I completed forgot that Clint was dead, nothing more than a vengeful ghost with a bone to pick.) The rest was all pathos-driven-Facebook-diatribing, cost be damned.  My mother isn't quite over it yet.  

Let's now look at the fallout, shall we?

1. I publish the B paper in a well-respected academic journal.  Accolades all around, self-satisfied grunts, and AASF will still not speak to me in the halls.  Word.

2. I read the end of Almond's essay and drop my gun.  Shit. Tyler.  I had completely forgotten about Tyler.  But there he stands, hair in his eyes, that stray bullet all on me.  My student.  Well, damn.

You know, sometimes "my bad" doesn't quite cut it.  

I guess what I'm saying/asking/posing is something a bit like this: How far can our warrants take us?  Or, how far are we willing to go?  Personally, I don't think we can count the cost when saddling up, mostly because I think it might be too late.  I've asked a lot of you, stuff like honesty and passion, and so I hope it's not too late or too much to ask one more thing: foresight.  Temperance.  Just in those places where we have forgotten a little thing like ethos and we are galloping so fast toward our target that the townfolk get a bit blurry. I think Steve Almond, and I, are a bit trigger happy.  Maybe it's worse to be slow on the draw? Either way, when it comes to our writing (and maybe the rest), qualitative balance couldn't hurt.

One last thing.  For any of my students: I really hope the shooting match isn't over.  You were the point, all along. 

FML: "I Heart Wilson: The Story of Us"

What I remember, four months ago:

I get offered my first English Major class since quitting a professorship in Albany.  This is a big deal, folks, because of a strangely classist system called "tenure-track," which I walked away from and was assured I would pay for, indefinitely.  A deep love for Auburn, alongside a deep love for two grown children who will never move, prompted me to make the deeply painful choice of happiness over career.  And then?  I get the gift of you, English majors, one more time for the road.  Most probably for the last time.  You were a gift from Dr. Frank Walters and a quick response on an email to our Composition Director.  You were worth every bumpy, nutty, confusing, emotional, victorious, academic, life-changing moment of the last four months.

Sometimes, we have to make the hard, very costly, decisions that feel more like jumping off a cliff than flying.  When I think about my career, I always identify with Forest Gump: game legs, good intentions, strange road.  This is what I hear most in my head when I look back at the last four months:  "And I was running . . ."

A long time ago, an English teacher (about 24 years old) saved my life.  Certainly, I do not see myself as the savior of my students, but here's what: you all save me, every day.  This is why I heart Wilson.  We are the same.  In trying to teach, I learn.  In trying to play a role, I become real.  In reaching for that perfectly crafted warrant, thinking I am full of it, I find truth.  Writing saves my life, every day.  I hope we never forget this semester.  I hope we always jump, risk, and somehow fly (even if it's by the seat of our pants) because anything else isn't living. 

So . . . "Advanced Composition?" I think we made it.  In these blogs, sweated out over fifteen weeks, we composed.  We advanced.  They are the story of us.  (And I heart Wilson.)

With much gratitude,
Dr. Kat

FML: "Writing Crap and Other Musings"

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FML: "Portrait of My Body and Other Horrors"

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FML: "Freestyle"

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FML: "Writing Blindly"

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