I'm sitting here thinking of 1984. I can smell it: hairspray (Gen X was solely responsible for the hole in the ozone layer, I contend), Marlboro cigarettes and other things that have a grassy, smoky aroma, Jordache perfume, diesel fuel. It is my own warrant to speak of this time, and let me tell you, I do and often. After reading "Tesla Matters (Dude)" all I can think of is this: what are our warrants? How do we utilize them in our writing? Do they put folks off? Draw them in? When, and in what kind of writing, do we use them?
I would contend nonfiction deems them critical to the power of our message. Let me prove this: how often have you been reading along, innocently accepting the message (or maybe trepidatiously) when BAM. There it is. A cultural misstep. That is NOT what Reagan said, or Clinton, or Bush--the timeline is totally off--no one would have worn those shoes then . . .
(Yep, I totally just used all of the devices we talked about today.)
A professor I had once upon a time (her name was mentioned in class this afternoon) taught me something like this once. It went something like: never break the suspension of disbelief with your audience. You lose them. Badly.
You know the moment. You read the book. And then? There it is, the popcorn halfway up to your mouth, your feet jauntily hooked onto the chair in front of you, and there it is. Bastards. Sophie (The Da Vinci Code) has a brother? What the? That was not in the book. You look around, expecting riotous indignation from your fellow moviegoers. Nothing. Yet you have psychically left the building. Over and out. Suspension? Nope. Disbelief? Yep. The rest is just, well, garbage. I am personally still bitter about every single Stephen-King-book-turned-movie I have ever seen. (One of the only screenplays he has written is Maximum Overdrive. The others were Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. Stellar.)
No warrant. You can't come in. That is our right as readers, though, I believe. To refuse entry when we call qualitative bullshit.
And yes. I have cursed more than once in this blog. Why? Because I am about to use a warrant, and there is no way you would buy me if I came off as a pretentious, ivy-league prof.
It was 1984 and the Cradle Will Rock tour hit hard, right on the heels of the Back in Black tour (AC/DC, folks). I had no intention of ever working for "the man" and had even less intention of staying chemically lucid for more than, well, five or ten minutes. The t-shirt was black and had SEX DRUGS AND ROCK AND ROLL emblazoned across the front, and it was about two years before most of us had even heard the word "aids." And I was ruuunnning. (Little Forest Gump for you there.) Smart kid, lost, angry, scared, with a serious Peter Pan complex and no vision of my thirties. Kids like yourselves made no sense to me. How did they study and mind and cut their hair and eat their Wheaties? No way, man. Sunlight hurt my eyes and Walt Disney was blasphemy to my soul. Purposefully, vehemently, I threw away my childhood when I threw up my lighter to David Lee Rothe in crimson spandex. Part of me is still back there, waiting for the lights to come up and force me out into the street. Strangely, all the songs and all the bands and all the beer-soaked nights add up to this one moment in my teenage wasteland:
And when some local kid gets down
They try an' drum him outta town
They say, "Ya coulda least faked it, boy"
Fake it, boy (Ooh, stranger, boy)
At an early age he hits the street
Winds up tied with who he meets
An' he's unemployed--his folks are overjoyed.
They try an' drum him outta town
They say, "Ya coulda least faked it, boy"
Fake it, boy (Ooh, stranger, boy)
At an early age he hits the street
Winds up tied with who he meets
An' he's unemployed--his folks are overjoyed.
But here I am, Dr. PD, thirty years later, talking about warrants. I suppose I could have just "faked it," but I think I learned the regret of that decades ago.
And so. I begin sentences with and. And do a lot of ---- stuff like that. Proper English? Um, no. But it's in line with the signature on my warrant. I wonder, do we ever know the voice in our heads without examining the paperwork . . .
I think what we have learned and extracted from this course so far, has been to stay faithful to our styles and flaws, our warrants and outlooks. Using what is most honest to ourselves opens the door for us to better succeed in what we're writing or doing. Like writing about something that's passionate to you instead of a predictable and "easy to do" subject.
ReplyDeleteEven if we put people off with our writing and warrants, we shouldn't allow for that to hold us back with continuing with our personal progress in that subject.
My choice to become an English major has been one of those winding, confused, twiddle your thumbs type of decision. Beginning off just wanting to marry some rich girl to be my sugar momma for the rest of my life, I chose to pursue what I enjoyed to do and felt right doing, even if it opened the doors for others to hide a smirk or raise an eye brow.
How I write and why I love to write is materialized on the page when I do write. My life experiences, or frustrations, or jobs, or people I've met, all blended in with the hypocrite that squats in my body dwelling. I'm witty and sarcastic one sentence, then heartfelt and "prophetic" the next. But, my most successful writing is when I commit to my inconsistencies and pour everything out of the bucket.
Can someone else please post first? The only way I know what to say on here is by reading all of your thoughts, then regurgitating them in poorerer english. I must have missed a really important potion of class, or perhaps I'm paying the price for not reading "Tesla Matters", but I don't know what a warrant is. I know that my parents received a letter last year from Podunk Georgia notifying Wilson Sims of his failure to appear in court for a moving violation, and that his license would be revoked if he didn't s-l-o-w-l-y drive to Podunk and fork over enough cash to gain absolution. But I don't know what PhD. P is talking about, and I also don't know what I'm going to write about now that she robbed me of the opportunity to mask ignorance with humor by using all the (ALTERrnative) devices we “wrote down” in class. Although, I do suppose that the x-druggie, deaf-by-rock, habitual rule-breaker--rather than the ink-free, son-of-!@#$%^&*!@ (translation=republican), "A" seeking pretty-boy—is entitled to primary use of all things alternative.
ReplyDeleteLeft with no options or knowledge, and remaining fearful of my parent’s definition of failure, Ill say something honest. I know this will work because PhD. P isn’t enough of a hard-ass to slam something vulnerable with an “F-“.
Passage of honesty: I didn’t cry when my dog or grandfather died, I didn’t cry in break-up 1 or 2, and I didn’t cry in jail or because of it. But I did cry two weekends ago at my life-long friend’s wedding. My heart has not become braver, I don’t love my friend more than I loved my G-pa, and didn’t care more about my friends tears at the alter than my ex’s in the car…but standing next to my friend—thinking about bike rides, first kisses, and secrets—I realized, “I’m dieing”.
Worse yet, I fear than when I do die, and I’m no longer flailing in anxiety, that all the tears allotted for my blink will have been shed by my eye.
(I formally submit an apology to Warrant. I would have blessed you with more blubbering if I knew what the hell you are.)
I want to write something brilliant. I want to completely understand what I'm talking about and be able to articulate it clearly. Unfortunately, all of those abilities seem to have disappeared into the ether at the moment, and all I can do is keep coming back to one memory of my own emotionally poignant experience when the setting, and the time, and the music all suddenly gelled.
ReplyDeleteI'm 22. Still young enough that the marvel of being able to by my own alcohol impresses me - almost as much as it impresses my underage friends - and still carefree enough that turning in an assignment late doesn't seem like the end of the world. My roommate this spring is a girl I'd met on the dance floor and soon discovered a mutual love of camping and goofy behaviour. We were almost instantly sister-friends. It's finals time, and we've been working hard, we've been the good little girls with our school books and flashcards, swilling down coffee and trying to pretend like we actually care about something other than passing the test. Bonnie can't take it anymore and declares she needs a cigarette. So we climb into her old, black Ford Explorer that is filled to bursting with the remnants of a semester lived on the run, along with some camping paraphernalia, and we go for a drive. Just around the loop our road makes with College and Beehive road. We have the Indigo Girls blaring on the radio, and as we drive around; windows down, early summer air blowing in, puffing on Camels and trying to keep the dog from impaling us on her claws, we sing at the top of our lungs.
I went to see the doctor of philosophy
With a poster of Rasputin and a beard down to his knee
He never did marry or see a B-grade movie
He graded my performance, he said he could see through me
I spent four years prostrate to the higher mind, got my paper
And I was free.
This is when I realize I'm in the wrong field. I realize that I don't give a shit about the books full of facts and theories. I need something that challenges me to THINK, something with room for soul in it. And so I switch to English. No, that night wasn't the only, or even the deciding factor in that decision, but it was certainly pivotal, and if I have to pick a quintessential item from that phase of life, it's that. Windows down, Indigo Girls blaring, the smell of cigarette smoke filling the car, and middle fingers raised to all who may nay-say us.
Well, I really thought I was paying attention in class on Friday but obviously that's not the case because I have no idea what a warrant is. I was sure that I wrote down some sort of definition, but I just referred back to them and the only thing it said was "Warrant?? What is this??". So that's not going to help very much. I looked in the dictionary instead. I found a definition; to provide adequate grounds for or justify.
ReplyDeleteHow do we justify or vouch for our writing? I find we do this by being honest. Writing about our life experiences is always a great start. When I discuss life experiences, I often find it easier to tell the truth and not feel embarrassed by having certain information about myself out in the open. In Tesla Matters, Almond talked about how he and his lawyer friend, sat out front of a concert drinking wine and smoking a big, fat blunt. Obviously they are not hiding behind their professional titles as authors or lawyers. The same is seen when his paralegal walks past. Being honest makes you reliable in person and the same goes for writing. Reliability seems to be my new definition of warrant... (Can I even use an ellipsis here??)
Let's see- what is my warrant?
ReplyDeleteWhy should you believe anything I write? Noone is inerrant, and noone can write without some prejudice or slant. We all know and accept that. So why do we continue to care about reading other people’s thoughts? Why should I care if anyone cares about what I care to write? Warrants, baby. In other words, justification to the reader as to why they should care and why they should listen to your ideas. We as readers look for them subconsciously; warrants bolster the confidence of the reader in trusting the writer. It makes the writer look educated in his subject matter and makes his ideas seem plausible, a form of subliminal messaging, if you will.
I mean, we all do this even in life. Especially politicians, who have speeches written for them- which is a nonfiction document. I must now draw you, the reader, in and I suppose now is the time when I should insert an interesting/cute anecdote that will entice your interest and reveal my personality. But all I can think about when I read the word “warrant” is the impending termination of my car’s warranty and the term authorial warrant. I’m guessing the latter rather than the former is being discussed in this blog- using my context clue-finding abilities that have been honed due to GRE studying.
Everyone (well, everyone worth getting to know) wants to have someone understand them and be able to relate to them. What makes effective non-fiction writing so personable is the ability of the authors to infuse their writing with personality and to validate everything they write by being accurate in the details.
Well, I’d like to think that honesty and firsthand experience is all the proof any reader would need from me, but technically, as a writer, can I really be trusted? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that I intend to feed readers pages of lies, but I don’t know if I can always write to them as if I were whispering secrets into their ears.
ReplyDeleteSo “to place thou heart on thy sleeve, or to keep it firmly placed within thy pericardium?” I’ve been asking myself this for years. When I’m writing in my journal, I don’t even remember that my heart is behind tissues, and a sternum, and ribs and all other things that keep it safely locked away, it only seems natural that is slips down my sleeve and onto the pages, but when I write say, a blog, I can’t help but want to let my heart out, but at the same time, hold it close, since I don’t know if a reader is going to step on it until it’s all mushy and useless or take a peak and take it as it is. And this is why I can’t always be trusted as a writer. Because unless I somehow find the courage to display all, and to forget the rib bones, and the underside of the reader’s shoe, though I may be honest to some extent, I’m certainly leaving out bits and pieces.
That’s why I LOVE fiction, because in fiction, I can create a character who has characteristics that favor me or a grandmother or an aunt. And when they cry or laugh or feel something other than day-to-day happiness, then it’s real. Because though it is fiction, I could only write about it if I had actually felt it before. It seems ironic to me that in fiction I seem to be the most honest and the most revealing, but when it comes to nonfiction, that kind of writing that should get to the heart of the matter, I seem to find myself, sometimes, too concerned about the safety of my heart to write down the stupid words.
It seems to me that writers are the most courageous people. Because here we are with our imperfections and flaws and weaknesses, and unlike the sane people we know who keep their quirks and memories in the closet, we writers throw it all out there to be analyzed and discussed and perhaps judged. But what I do find in nonfiction is total freedom. Freedom from rules, and ideals, and the single file line. Yes, someone may hate what I write, they may even fall asleep reading it, but the feeling I get throwing myself into the pages as if I were throwing myself into a sea of people in a glass bottle, not knowing if they’re going to read it and cast it back into the ocean or if it will be one of their treasures is unexplainable. How do you describe what if feels like to be completely and utterly yourself and to have been brave enough not to just be yourself, but to put your heart up against all those shoes.
(I hate posting first too, Wilson. I purposefully didn't post until today because I didn't even really want to be in the top three.)
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking about this question a little differently- not "what are warrants?" but, a little more specifically, "what are my warrants?". I think about this a lot as a writer. What are the things I can say that are backed by the authority of life experience? I have loved, lost, hurt another and been hurt myself-- does that entitle me to speak as a woman, or am I still a girl playing dress-up with mom's heels and lipstick? I've been in a largely long-distance relationship for nearly three years now, and I think that for most people that's a warrant for me to talk about love and patience and fidelity. But here's the thing: I thought I knew about those things before I got into this relationship. I thought I had the authority to write about them, on account of being a person and having kissed a boy and cried about him (over him? for him?). Maybe we don't know about the truth of these warrants until we really have them, just like we can't comprehend the pain of a certain thing until we feel it for ourselves.
This is my most significant warrant: I almost died in the summer of 2005. I spent two weeks in the ICU with liver and kidney failure. My hair fell out and the skin on my lips peeled away. I lost twenty pounds (it's amazing, the dieting effects of never eating). A surgeon from Duke in a bow-tie figured out at the end of the wire that I had an internal staph infection, so they cut me open at the shoulder and drained me out. I got better. And I didn't say this in class because it felt wrong, but I was thinking it, and guys, we live incredibly short lives. I learned at fifteen that nobody gave a shit about how much life I thought I was entitled to. This is real life, and there are no guarantees. This two year, nine month relationship could go up in flames tomorrow because life is a bitch like that, but she's a gorgeous bitch that loves you no matter how much she hurts you. She loves you because she hurts you. She loves you, and that hurts you.
But there is such a thing as a false warrant, and the hospital gave me plenty of those too. I'm not warranted to talk about bravery like so many think I am; after the first few days, I didn't even make a great effort to stay alive. I wanted to either live or die immediately, but I couldn't remain in the middle of the two without going insane. When they let me out I shook for three days because I missed the drugs, needed them, wanted them like love and touch and annihilation. But I don't get to talk about addiction, not really, because I didn't choose this for myself, and maybe that's the big difference.
This post has become something different from what I'd thought it would be, but it's honest and that matters more than my plans, so it'll stay. Here's the point I'm trying to make: there are warrants I have that I don't deserve, and ones I don't have that I think I do. When it comes to the important things, I'm probably a Person of Interest at best (also, I watch too many cop shows). No warrant's been issued yet...but until then, I'll keep writing what I'm writing, and maybe one day that warrant will arrive.
I have been thinking about warrants since this question was posted on Friday. And it has really been hard for me to write and think about what to say. Like so many others have said when I write or even when I talk about myself, it takes a lot of trust for me to just lay it all out there. That is what I love about fiction, because you can write yourself without anyone ever really knowing the truth about you or who it is. It is like when you hear that song and it has so much feeling behind the lyrics and you know that there must be some hidden story behind the song. We as humans want to hear the real. I wish that I could be more opened with who I am. I think that it is fear that holds me back. I fear that people won’t want to hear my thoughts or my works. Why would they? It isn’t that I lie when I write my nonfiction; it is just that I don’t completely come clean with who I am. I don’t feel that my reader deserves that right, or maybe it’s just the fear of getting that real with someone that I don’t even know. I really do admire people who lay it all down there and tell you everything about them. All their dirty little secrets because I know this is something that is going to take time for me to do.
ReplyDeleteEven though I was out partying too late Thursday night to get my butt out of bed early to read Telsa Matters before Friday's class, I must say it was a class for the record books. I can't remember who said it but when we were discussing the little white sorority girl blaring her rap music and doing "bad things" at the bar then waking up the next morning and putting on her pearls and innocence, it was like a description of my life was being read aloud to the class...Don't worry I was not offended at all. Honestly, I found it humorous...because yes, I do go out and get drunk and make a fool of myself but hey, at least it makes for an interesting story and a good memory ( or non memory depending on where I am in my state of inebriation). But more importantly, it made me think about my writing in a whole new light too... I put on my pearls and innocence when I write, as well. It seems that lately I am too concerned with the formalities of writing that I never let my creativity flow and say what I really mean...
ReplyDeleteI guess going into English Education will do that to a person. Because let's be real, we all know if one of my students wrote about sex, drugs, rock n roll, or any other "non appropriate" thing in my classroom I would have to follow protocol and report the student. But have we, as educators/future educators, ever asked ourselves why we won't let students express themselves in such a free manner? All of those "hush hush" topics are just part of reality and isn't that what school is for?... to prepare kids for real life.
And yes, I do use ... about as frequently as I breathe, but it makes my writing flow.
As the girl in pearls and consumed by her innocence, I can't sit here and tell you I am a creative writer especially from a fictional stand point. But as the drunk ass who parties like a champion, I can tell you some pretty outrageous stuff...the best part being that's its totally real...or most of it is. Sometimes I like to make up random details that I'm not 100% sure if they really happened or not...it makes for a better story.
I have a problem connecting with a warrant, because despite how honest I want to be, I am always biased. That's the human condition, though; everyone sees things differently. For that reason, I have a problem laying my thoughts on the page for anyone to pick up. Why should anyone take my left-wing diatribes for anything other than the pent-up frustration of a lower middle-class, curmudgeon-in-the-making empath? Conversely, why should I give a damn about anyone who disagrees with me and why should I care about the strength of their warrant? I don't know and I don't care about their experience, I'm alive as well.
ReplyDeleteI'm reminded of this time I met a man called Ben up in Guntersville, AL. He was an aging hippie, the amiable type who has just about time for damn near anything. We got along well-enough, but the one thing that pissed me off to no end was his holier-than-thou opinions on music. Since I didn't live through the sixties and didn't experience Woodstock, I couldn't say anything about any of those classic bands which I love so much. What gave him the right to dismiss anything I said? His damn warrant? No, fuck that. Oh cool, You saw The Who live, ten times? Wow....I have 30 of their concerts on my ipod. Of course that doesn't count, how silly of me. And you know what? What ever happened to "If you remember the sixties, you weren't there?" Yea, shove it up your ass.
Ben and I don't hang out anymore.
As I conclude, I am left with this thought: If cops can fake warrants, so can writers.
I really like the question Josie raised. What are my warrants? I guess it depends on the situation, but here's a few that I think are significant to me.
ReplyDelete1. My humanity. Simply put, my imperfections. My flaws. My brokenness. This is the first and most profound of my warrants. I found myself depending on it Friday night on a mini road trip with some new friends. It allowed me to crack their shells and get them to talk about their lives.
2. My southernness. As strange as that may sound, I think it is something that defines my perspective and gives me insight into the world I live in. Sometimes, I believe we (and others) often see this particular warrant as useless. But it so thoroughly informs our culture (everything from music to movies to books) that I think this warrant is useful as a confession of a dichotomy (both strength/weakness, stubbornness/failure, knowledge/ignorance) that we as southerners can claim. I think of it as a version of 1. that is particular to the part of the world we live in.
I could go on, but I think, after having read some of the other posts, that I want to reflect on the nature of warrants. I realize that some of them we claim, some we fake, and some we deny. But in a way, the denial of a warrant can be the claiming of another. Josie's denial of bravery is a claim of (whether she intended it or not) humility and humbleness. We work so hard to earn some warrants, while we vehemently deny others, and in those actions we create a persona that is either heard or muted. Real or fake. This is the tension that Steve Almond talks about in Tesla Matters.
Do we fake our personal warrants to move with the masses? To convince them? To be heard by them?
I feel like when it comes to warrants, it is basically your permission to "move" someone.
ReplyDeletePeople take you seriously if you know what you're talking about. Or at least if you fake it.
But, faking it is no fun. I feel that if you really want to move someone you should talk to them about real feelings and real situations. If you leave your own mind penetrable, you are able to unlock others.'
For example, in high school I had a group of five girlfriends. Boys were frequently the topic of conversation. All of us were either in relationships or recently out of one. Except one of us. Ashley.
Yet Ashley was always the first one to preach to us when she felt we had screwed up. She'd even preface it by saying "I know I've never been through it but..." However, as soon as this sentence left her mouth it was obvious that the other four of us had checked out. She had no warrant. So we didn't care.
Now she is the first one of us who is engaged, so I guess she has the last laugh. We listen to her now.
Point is, we should use our warrants wisely, and not abuse them. They are not meant to "talk down" to others or to boast, but rather to tell someone else, "Hey. I know what you're going through. Perhaps I can help."
Rambled again. Sorry. It happens.
Dear Everyone: you’re exquisite.
ReplyDeletePlease don’t expect the same from me.
I, too, have little understanding of what this warrant gab is about. Mention of it Friday was news to me, and what news! So this is what I’ve been missing – the sucker-punch of prose, the brilliant badge that marks worthwhile composition.
Well, maybe I do have one or two. It seems a bit flamboyant of me to run around writing about my experiences or – dear God – my own thoughts, but occasionally I let my hair down, don some intensely ugly garb and own up to some serious self-destructive behavior. So I guess my warrant is that – I stand in my own way a lot and I want anyone sorry enough to read what I cast into blog-blivion to not feel so alone. Or maybe I’m completely unrelateable. I don’t know.
I’ll say this – my writing isn’t really clever or cunning, but there is resolve. I guess my warrant to your attention is that I won’t let you go without explaining something. I can’t.
My admiration for Steve Almond is derived from his sheer lack of a point. He can say anything and I’m going to like it because I don’t have anything as devastatingly real to talk about. Sure, I’ve almost been strangled to death, been through a four-year relationship with no ring in sight, gone two weeks without eating, and been given and given away a fortune, but who cares? I realize people who still read books are different that the rest of the population, that they are indeed still interested in things outside of themselves, but let’s face it – writers don’t carry their warrants around; we (the people who still read) assign them.
First of all - I just want to thank everyone for being so honest. I feel like I'm really getting to know everyone and it's only the middle of September. I can't wait to see where this semester takes us...
ReplyDeleteOkay, now to the real topic at hand. Warrants. Like most of you, I'm not really sure what mine are (or if like Josie said, the one that I think belongs to me even does, but I guess we'll see). I'm the New Girl At School. That's my warrant. I went to two preschools (no, this is not normal), three elementary schools, two middle schools, and one high school. I grew up on the East Coast (NY/NJ area), went to highschool in the midwest (MO) and am going to school now in the south (as you all know). I'm the Queen of remembering names & faces (because let's face it, it's much easier to remember the New Girl if she remembers you), a pro at conversation starters and small talk, and great at learning my way around (geographically as well as in the different social circles). I am the Leaver, not the one who gets left behind. Except for when my mom told my dad she wasn't going to move me again while I was in high school. Then we stayed and my dad left.
At least, I think that's my warrant. I guess we'll talk more in class tomorrow? Or more people will comment and I'll get a better feel for it.
Notes from class: Warrant- used to get readers to believe you.
ReplyDeleteI do believe that without warrants an author can fail tremendously, leaving you asking “Sweetie do you really know what your talking about?” Yeah, it may be your thoughts you write, but when you fake it readers will know. Real recognize real. Just as I too have learned from a previous professor (the same) that you never want your audience to not believe you, I write honestly and don’t throw in BS from time to time trying to make it more interesting, eventually f-in up.
Writing to me is sort of like life. We go everyday trying to prove to the next person that we can be trusted… even the people who claim they have nothing to prove to anyone. From all the things verbal and non-verbal used to convince are our warrants. And everyday it takes one little slip to recognize the real from the fake.
In fiction, which is partially true or just fake, I guess you have to be clever with words to keep you readers believing in you from beginning to end. But in non-fiction, I believe the truth (and warrants) shall make you believable.
I hope I was responding correctly...
Thank god for everyone else's comments, otherwise I'd be lost as hell. Sorry, but I was in the band at Miss St. on Thursday, got back at 3am and had a perfectly good class excuse, hence my absence.
ReplyDeleteBut warrants, huh? I can dig it. Why should a reader trust me or what I write? Hell if I know. Considering that most of what I've written in the past eight years of my schooling has been total bullshit mostly pulled out of my ass/Wikipedia the night before, they probably shouldn't. But in all that time, I don't think I've ever written about anything that I really cared about. I've been spouting out half-assed, canned essays for as long as I can remember, and I honestly hate it. I hate my own writing, and I always have. I'll write it, and the next day I can't stand to re-read it. I typically spellcheck and turn it in. It's worked for a long time now, which is nice. I guess my warrant only applies when writing about something that I'm at least semi-passionate about. If the topic is something that I can really relate to, I'll put my heart onto the page (not like a The Scarlet Letter research paper. FUCK that book); otherwise, I'm just going through the motions of paper-writing, and that's no fun for anybody.
It is a hard question to consider identity, the self as subject and connect it, or for that matter, bare it, in order to explore its link with the indelible imprints experience leave in writing.
ReplyDeleteI will be honest with you; <-- LOOK I USED A TECHNIQUE WE LEARNED--I was a coddled Asian that never had to worry about rent or when my next meal was going to be or where I was going next. Perhaps the "warrants" we can pull from that singular statement are the fact that it is past tense. Being an English major in defiance of my entire culture as self-sacrificial and sedulous has surfaced and changed my identity, and thus leaves those marks, pleasant and sometimes not, in my writing, as it has yours, I see. Culture and ethnicity are marks, however, I do see unexplored. Have you thought of what it is like to be white in a predominantly white society, what benefits (or not so much) race gives you? Or African American, or Hispanic, or Asian? I don't mean to say this is a negative manner--it is just something I haven't seen noted. Is race a warrant? Would you feel super-awkward if you were, say, writing a short story with the narrator a different race from you? From the investigations into the nature of the warrant, I can see that the idea of place the experiences derived from 'place' are definite warrants--I could never imagine myself trying to write a story set in NY or SanFran. Where would the lush details of the life endemic to those places that graces words with image come from? For me, I suppose I am content with my descriptions of Huntsville, Auburn, the countryside of Taiwan. At the same time, I am ambivalent; I am, in my silent, forboding way, envious of everyone else's warrants, your own unique experiences of time, place, and priorities. At the same time, I think of my childhood where I ran carefree in the hot southern summer, picking muscadines despite the mosquitoes and bees and blackberry vine. And I smile and laugh.
Friday I likened the late-night metal band 80’s culture Steve Almond so perfectly helped us envision to the current college sorority-slut bar scene. I left class knowing, being absolutely sure because of that weird feeling in your stomach knowing, that some people had taken that the wrong way. Like Anchorman, I immediately regretted that decision. But to be entirely honest (that’s the point of all this right?) I forced myself to share that with the class solely for the participation points. Its not that I never have anything to say, its that I’m almost certain no one will get it the way I intended. I’m shocked Cotton, that is what happened. And it’s probably because I didn’t have a proper warrant (am I allowed to say I know what this is without being terrified someone will read this and say I’m wrong? Com’n people, stop adding disclaimers to everything).
ReplyDeleteFor starters, there was not enough air in that clammy little cylinder-block classroom for me to properly explain why I was making such a horrendous comparison between Almond’s account of 80’s metal music culture and our generation of hip-hop blaring highly educated entitled middle class brats. But lets get one thing straight first, I absolutely love the idea that sorority girls can go out and get shit-wasted, funnel beers, and dance like professionals selling flirty girl fitness poles, then wake up and put on white dresses and pearls to go to chapter meetings and discuss what shade pink nail polishes members are be allowed to wear… (those may be ellipses meant to soften the blow, feels less final). Here is where my warrant comes in. I’ve done the same thing. I’ve listened to the most obscene disgusting rap music I can find. I’ve started drinking at 11am and brought home random people, I’ve gotten in fights with scary softball girls I had no business confronting, and I’ve fallen asleep in the bushes outside my apartment. But when I wake up, I wash the smudged stamp and dried debris (dirt, vomit, pizza?) from my body. And I go to class to discuss honesty and ethics and literature. I write my law school applications to prove I am a good person and I deserve a chance. But do I?
My (attempted) point being, we all do something to this effect. We think we are rule-breakers and never gonna work for “the man” (who kidnapped Shamoo and put him in a chlorine tank) and are we think we can do whatever we want, get drunk, make bad decisions, and be stupid. And we can. As long as we wake up in the morning and go to class, and realize life is NOT a Telsa concert, or a Wednesday night at the bar. Its only part of our lives that we want to last longer, that we want to live in forever. Sorry if this offends you or whatever, but I was agreeing with Almond.
Annemarie: Awesome. Just brilliant, hard, raw, real awesome. BTW: Read Amy Tan's "Mother Tongue."
ReplyDeleteAwesome.
I find it difficult to respond on this blog sometimes. I think I was expecting this class to be more technical and less emotional, so I guess that is how I am going to approach warrants.
ReplyDeleteJust because a writer has experience and deep emotion concerning an issue I don't always believe this constitutes a good reason for writing about it. In fact, I believe that too much emotion in writing can destroy that connection and belief between writer and reader.
I think Steve Almond does a good job of counteracting too much emotion with some humor and sarcasm.
Just because a writer thinks they have a warrant to talk about something doesn't always mean they do, even if they've experienced it. There is a very fine line which belief balances on, and not knowing enough of your subject can pull it one way while being too emotional about the subject can pull it the other. Too much in either way, and it might not hold up.
Well when I have always heard the word warrant, it is an actual object that gives someone the right to search, to feel, to know everything about something; whether it be a room, a car, anything that is someone’s actual space. To be apart of their identity, even if just for a little while. In relation to writing I see a warrant as a pass into someone else’s life and thoughts. Do I feel when I write I am giving others a warrant to know the real TeNesha? Nope. But, why? I used to love writing as a child when my mom first got sick with cancer I would write poems and short stories because I was good at it and it felt good to actually be able to release my emotions. But I guess I was not giving anyone a warrant to my life because I kept these private and the only person who got to actually read them was my favorite 4th grade English teacher. It is hard to be a warranted writer I feel because you are putting so much on the line by actually letting your audience in. Hopefully, I will learn to let go some and let more of myself in so that people can actually get a feel for me and who I am through my writing.
ReplyDeleteFor starters, I don't really get this whole "warrant" business. If the goal of this prompt is to get us all to share some kind of emotional vulnerability, then that's great. If the narrower goal is to get ME to share some kind of emotional vulnerability, then you all can keep dreaming. Quite frankly, this audience doesn't deserve any of that from me, and here's why:
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that people are now more open to sharing things about themselves that have some kind of deep emotional hold on their lives. Obviously, I am NOT AT ALL bashing Dr. PD's life story from last week. That was a very moving and sentimental story that really meant a lot to me to hear. It's the stupid, hippy-dippy, "precious" bullshit that people force upon others that makes me angry. You know what the difference between those two instances is? The first one is real. Dr. PD's story was real because her life is real. She felt that it was an appropriate setting for the story to stand on and she was right. I think we needed to hear that. It sounds like something she uses each day as some kind of motivator for any or every aspect of her writing. So get real!
I think Dr. PD's story was one of the more real things I've heard in a long time, especially from a professor. There are probably dozens of other stories that she or anyone has that could be just as moving. However, I'm not going to sit here and think of some instance in my life that would move people to tears just for the sake of an assignment. If such a task would be "giving you a warrant," then understand something: you're going to have to go through the whole district court system to get a warrant for my soul (in simple terms, you ain't gettin' any of this).
See, this is the problem with the internet: passivity. This might not be the correct use of the word in this context, but it will do for now. There is this mindset I have noticed in the last decade that a person has their own separate identity online. This identity is vulnerable to others, is like an open book to everyone, and has no reservations about their feelings, whether true or facetious. I believe that to give somebody all of your secrets freely is too easy. Why would you give a complete stranger your most valuable possession? I sure as hell wouldn't, and I'm not about to start here. That may sound hostile, but then again, maybe I'm a hostile person in that regard.
The point of this ramble is this: I don't trust people enough to just "hand them a warrant." There's a word for that in the dating realm; and it's called desperation. Any girl you go up to and just start spouting out life mantras is going to wind up and throw her Apple-tini at you in the same manner Randy Johnson used to throw fastballs. What do you have left if you give it all away? Not much. My audience will never get out of me what they want unless I trust them; or in the words of Charlton Heston, "When you pry it from my cold, dead hands." You have to fight me for it, and I'm a scrappy motherfucker, so good luck.
I'm not saying that there aren't proper times and settings to share these things with people (again, Dr. PD is probably the only person that I know right now who was right-on with her story), I'm just saying that maybe people should reconsider when they decide to feed the rest of us their personal bullshit to try to fit in or sell out. If it ain't real, keep it concealed, because quite frankly, I'm allergic to it.
I’m not thinking of 1984. I’m thinking of 1968, the year the world ended. The barricades had gone up in Paris and Prague, and students like yourselves—they’re 60 now—had overrun Chicago. The next year, smoke still rising from the crater, Nixon was inaugurated (a fitting apocalyptic judgment), and I stepped off a helicopter into a rice paddy, my spot on the floor taken up by a Marine holding a bloody compress over the coils of his own intestines. I did light a Marlboro when I stepped onto the ground (we called them Cowboys; there were no Lights then), and I still do, occasionally, when I see helicopters overhead, and now I sit here, in 2010, asking myself: what would be my warrant for writing what no one might not want to read, for writing about what happened in the days and weeks after I stepped off the helicopter, for writing a story truth that I no longer can be sure matches up one-to-one with happening truth?
ReplyDeleteYou probably understand warrants as logical justifications for certain conclusions or claims. If eating green apples from three different grocery stores makes you sick, you’ll probably decide not to eat green apples again, and your warrant will be the three previous episodes when they made you sick. Apparently, it’s the green apples. But suppose it isn’t? Suppose all the green apples in town came from the same farm, which used a certain pesticide, or were shipped in the same truck, which had previously been used to ship dead batteries leaking acid, or were touched by the same worker, who…well, you get the picture. Warrants can be wrong simply as logical devices.
But you’re also learning that warrants are not justifications in the logical sense only, the glue that binds evidence and claim (even if wrongly), but in the more personalized sense as that which prompts us to write. When Kat asks, “What are our warrants,” she’s essentially asking, what justifies a writer imposing his or her story on a reader. How dare I (or anyone) put words on paper that you might conceivably read? There is nothing that imposes more—that threatens more—than one person making a claim on another person’s attention and understanding. What warrant do we have for doing that? (The question seems to acquire more urgency when the writer is someone like Steve Almond, or David Foster Wallace, or anyone who takes you out of your comfort zone.)
The answer might be, not much at all, and perhaps none whatsoever, except this one, and it eclipses any formal logic I know of: whatever we write, these are our experiences, our thoughts, our voices, and to silence them out of some misguided belief that we’re sparing each other the noisy, irrelevant, boring details of our lives—the rock concerts, the firefights, the backseat the backseat gropings—because these details just aren’t important: to silence ourselves, I’m saying, is to silence every human being in the world, you, Kat, me, everyone, is to justify, I’m saying—to warrant, in some perverse way—the nonwriting, nonspeaking, nonliving human being as the only human being worth keeping alive. Like a bug in a sealed jar. Like a prisoner in the camps. And because silent human beings are never heard, they might just as well be dead.
That’s our warrant. We write to fight the makers of silence, the enforcers of silence. We write to keep each other alive.
Frank Walters
It's taken me so long to respond because honestly, I couldn't decide if I didn't have any warrants, or if I just was lying to myself and didn't want to open up.
ReplyDeleteSo I guess I'll just put my big girl pants on and speak (since I should drop the class if I won't, and if you hadn't said that I probably wouldn't have, but I like this class so here goes nothing).
I come from a "don't air your dirty laundry" kind of family. (It isn't the "pretend everything is perfect" kind of thing. It's a protection thing.) We love deeper than I've seen other families love, and we fight for each other harder than I've seen other families fight. (And I am NOT saying that ALL other families love and fight less than us, I'm just saying, I have seen some that are so distanced it breaks my heart.) We also have a wacky side to us, but we have been through so much together (cliche, I know...) that it's a little difficult for me to be able to just be so honest when I know people will be reading my writing, since they are the only ones who I've really been honest with.
When I first started writing, I used it as an escape because it was during a very ugly, very long divorce with my parents, at a time when my mother was working three jobs, we were in an out of domestic abuse shelters, and it a gamble as to whether we would have somewhere to sleep. I used it as an escape, it was a way to be vulnerable, without being vulnerable (if that makes sense...) One day I will be able to get everything from my family's story out there, but right now it's a constant struggle to trust myself enough to let it all out.
One thing I have learned from all the struggles of my "former life" as I like to call it, and our current situation with my brother having cancer is to truly, truly, love the people around you with all you have. Because in a split second you will learn something that will change your perspective forever, and you will never be the same. Everything can be ripped from your grasp, and if you didn't take advantage of the moment, you will never forget it.
And BOOM
ReplyDeleteI believe a warrant comes from a place of honesty within. My dad's a pastor and my family helped start a church from the ground up and I've never been able to have a "normal" relationship with a church because of it. That's because I've been brought up with a different perspective than everyone else; like my seat in the theater was behind the stage watching all the actors run and stage props and the chaos involved most people never see. This isn't saying I see the church as a show that's not real. On the contrary I'm a christian, though about as devout as most college students. I'm just saying I see the very human nature of the congregation and the bullshit that goes on. If my brother and I had a nickel for every person who came in the doors dramatically stating a heavenly re-devotion to the church, totting the bible with judging glances at rest of the flock, only to stop coming one week later, I could buy a hot tub for my apartment. The bitch of it was those were the people who judged me and expected me to be "the pastors son" whatever the fuck that means. I wasn't supposed to wear sneakers to church. I wasn't supposed to ever miss a week. I wasn't supposed to slip out after church without to catch the Bears play. I understand paster kids who go off the deep end. I really do.
ReplyDeleteHowever, more often I saw people who quietly did their part every day. Failed, as everyone fails from time to time, but I could always tell they were here for a genuine purpose. It came from the heart. I believe the people who write and there's a sense of "how dare you write about this, you know nothing about it" don't write out of honesty but out of fantasy. It comes from a place of egotism and adventure, not honesty, not that place in your chest that compels you to put what even you can barely describe, to paper because it feels like the tiny ball of angst will burst throughout your body. I believe anything anyone writes from that place is the only warrant you need. It's a divine warrant.
Kat, and students, I'm really impressed, to the point of being stunned, by the writing I'm seeing here. But I shouldn't be, should I? I'm looking forward to visiting class next week.
ReplyDeleteFrank Walters
Nick, I feel you. I got so tired of being "the missionary kid" and sometimes I feel like I'm still trying to break out of that box that people put me in. I never went off the deep end - at least not in the stereotypical "what can I do to piss my parents' congregation and/or supporters off today" way - but, like you, I get the kids who do. Honestly, I think, more than anything else, fear kept me from being one of "those kids." Sometimes, I wonder what it's like to have a "normal relationship with the church" as you put it. To just show up Sunday, sit through the service, and go home until the next church day. Would I have stayed had I had that? I don't think so. I really don't.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm not sure after writing all this what exactly it has to do with warrants, but us MKs and PKs have to stick together, so in a show of solidarity, the "Post Comment" button gets pushed.
After the discussion we had in class on Wednesday, and having reading Dr. Walter's really wonderful response, I went back and read my own response. I realized it may sound like I am advocating such silence, even putting down what other's have to say. I am very, deeply sorry if I offended anyone, I definitely should have made my post a bit longer and explained myself more fully.
ReplyDeleteI only meant to question what is the line between emotion and technical ability that an author should utilize as a warrant to keep a readers attention? I never meant that people shouldn't express their emotions, or that a writer should keep silent. Instead, I meant that as a part of thinking about warrants, an author should think about the best way to approach writing about a situation, even if they have experienced it.
In my head I was thinking about fiction, and what gives an author the right to make up and talk about something they may have never experinced before. I think the reason that fiction is sometimes the more popular genre is because such authors have an easier time of riding the line between emotion and technical aspects of writing and therefore are better able to draw forth the emotion they desire from an audience. As non-fiction writers I believe, we should also think about and maybe apply similar concepts.
When I said that I was expecting the class to be more technical and less emotional I only meant that is how I approach my own writing and so that is the only way I know to approach the blog. In preparing to write our paper, and thinking about how I write, I have found that I have a hard time expressing my emotions on the page, and often will obsess over more technical aspects. I always have a difficult time getting myself to losen up.
It's been a long time since I have been really excited about writing a paper. I may have been interested in a paper topic...but never excited. I realize that in my own writing I have a long way to go before it is anywhere as good as even some of the things I have seen my peers express on this blog. I am looking forward to the opportunities I believe this class will allow for me to losen up, maybe not take myself so seriously, and hopefully become a better writer.
Sara Humphreys: You have nothing to apologize for, and I would encourage you to develop your ideas. You've added a valuable insight to the conversation about warrants, and that is the notion of standards. Yes, we are warranted (always, I think) to write, and I've suggested that the warrant is internal to us (the mere fact that we live and use language) and that it begins to assert rhetorical power right from the first word we put on paper. (It began, when you think about it, when you uttered your first cry at birth.) But you've reminded us that words don't amount to much without readers, and that we therefore have a responsibility to make our words communicate. We're warranted, yes, but no one who reads us has to honor that warrant. Somewhere (somehow? That's why you're taking this course) we earn that honor.
ReplyDeleteYour division between the "technical" and the "emotional" is something you ought to flesh out; I,for one, am interested in it, and I think that by delving into it more deeply you might reveal something about how writers relate to readers. It's an idea that's in gestation. Bring it to birth.
By the way, you said nothing offensive in your first post, and I'm flattered that you bounced your second post off of mine. As Dr. Privett will tell you in more ways than one, take ownership of your words. They're a gift and a responsibility.
Frank Walters