Hats off to Kincaid

I was introduced to Jamaica Kincaid some years ago in an English Lit course. It is interesting how over time the way you view a writer changes significantly because I remember reading a few of her short stories and not enjoying them very much but I read her essay A Small Place and found her wonderfully charming. Although her essay states "place" this is actually an essay on traveling. Normally you would read an essay about Antigua and the writer would rave on and on about how blue the ocean is and Kincaid acknowledges the banal way a traveler views his/her escape. She describes what it is like to get off the plane, how the cab driver will try to scam you (but you won't see that because you are on vacation) and the church you will visit but then she does the most ingenious thing -she tells you what Antigua is really like! That the eyes of the wanderlust are just that: lustful not able to see the truth. Kincaid's way use of the essay is profound to this fiction writer because there is pizazz and flair and goddam irony! I think that there couldn't be a more honest piece of travel writing out there. I am as critical as they come to my own writing and to others. I feel that if you are sitting down and writing something, even if just for yourself, that it should be entertaining, have a great voice, and unique. Kincaid's piece is not only unique but fun in its own depressing way. For New Year's I went to Cabo and had this very wonderful lighthearted experience but I did not think about where the people lived that gave me this experience. Her philosophy is incorporated into the essay without making it a personal piece but rather a historical one in which different classes of people cross paths and meet in the middle of paradise/shanty towns and neither one is able to see what the other does. When I think of my impending travel/place essay a sense of doom overcomes me. Why? I am happy to tell you -because writing non-fiction, whether a school essay or a creative piece, makes me beyond nervous. This type of writing is out of my element. When I submit a short story to workshop I am proud, generally elated and I receive a rather pleasant response. When I submit an essay in non-fiction I feel that I am a phony! Uncomfortable with the voice! Wanna throw it out! This blog is no different. However, Ms. Kincaid's essay showed me that an essay that I am dreading because of the confinements of the assignment and because it is an essay (let us not forget) does not have to be feared. My essay does not have to be of the drab sort of a vision of traveling that most people expect. I may write an essay about a visit Lancaster, PA land of the Amish, and what I think that they might feel. Let me clarify, I am not saying that I would dare understand the way the Amish feel nor would I make it personal but in the way that Kincaid is able to frame her essay in such a way that she is not the center focus but is very much the voice of the essay. In my head a journalistic approach was going to have to be the way to go but a ha! I have seen that is just not the case. The Amish will probably not be the subject of my next essay but maybe they will. What I do know is that I won't write if I don't think it is a quarter as eloquently composed as Kincaid's. Not perfection but something admirable, something I am comfortable with and I believe that Kincaid has succeeded in showing this writer a new way to look at something.

Memoirs/Personal Essay

Here's the thing, I have a blistering high fever and have had so all weekend. Not only that but I have been throwing up everything I am putting down. I give this disclaimer because I do not know how clear I am being in writing about this reading. I have attempted to write my blog, but have been so dizzy!

This week we read about the difference between a memoir and a personal essay. For those of you that don't know the difference a memoir is a longer story over a broader amount of time and a personal essay is one that is a snapshot of a moment in one's life.


I find Zinnser's style to be provocative and interesting as a how to, but also as do as you please. He suggests that we don't go overboard in talking about ourselves and at the same time not to be afraid to take risks. I sure as hell wish I had Zinnser sitting on my couch as I roughed the world of the personal essay. I chose the snapshot, as I was not sure of myself and definitely didn't think I could pull off an entire memoir. I usually write fiction and I don't have a lot of stamina with that either. I enjoy the art of the short story more than the full novel (although that is a goal of mine).


Being ill, writing about myself, and reading about writing about myself, has produced an anxiety in me greater than I have felt since I attempted my first music review. I like to hide behind a character's voice rather than use my own -I consider myself the Johnny Depp of writers. Zinnser suggests that we find our own voice and I am seeing the power in that. I think that if I could just relax and be myself my fiction would improve as well as my attempts at creative non-fiction.

There's a story that he recaps about a student who's father was held captive during the Holocaust and she wanted her father to join her in Poland to revisit it. When he refused and did not want to talk about it she thought her story was done. But Zinnser, the brilliant man he is, told her that it wasn't his story but her story that she was after. This student did the work herself and realized that we only have our own stories. He also remarked on students that wanted to interview family members about certain events and he told them that was no longer a personal essay -more like journalism- and allowed the student the freedom to write how he remembered the event. I would love to say this helped me greatly during my first personal essay, but I did not enjoy the process, nor find that I did well at it. My fears of a weak voice were there and I did not accomplish what I had wanted after all, but I think with more guidance from Mr. Z I will get there or somewhere closer to there by the end of my eight weeks discovering the voice within me that is screaming "don't let me out!"

Snobs in all Forms

To paraphrase Zinsser: non-fiction is the stepping off point for most writers because they are most comfortable in the shoes of their own thoughts. I disagree with this thought. I have been writing as long as I am able to remember and the drive to writing was fantasy, not reality. I live in the reality and prefer not to write about the normal, everyday, mundane or the painful experiences in my life. I find that to be the opposite of cathartic. I become frustrated with rehashing events. For some this might be true, for some this isn't, and for this writer it definitely is not. I also disagree with the idea that someone learns to write. I belong to the school of thought that believe that writing is in you, it is something that is chosen for you not something that you choose. So, for those that are "learning" maybe it is true that non-fiction is their stepping off point but for those of us that are cursed by sleepless nights and anxiety filled days of flashing cursors it isn't a matter of ABC to 123 but rather different avenues of the same event. 


Zinsser's point of declassifying literature is well taken. He does not care for the snobbish attitude of those that consider fiction high brow and non-fiction non-art. I would consider myself a literary snob and have made this same claim many times over, however after reading his opinion I truly have reconsidered my nose-in-the-air assumption. And yes, the only true distinction is good writing and bad writing, and that should be the only place we can be snobby. If we may. And I will. I can't give up all vices at once. 


In the chapter, I understood why he nor the three women were interested in engaging in a literary discussion with a less than well versed radio host, however the four panelists were as big of snobs as the critics who consider non-fiction an inferior beast. I thought that Zinsser and the panelist could have been informative and helpful to the audience as well as to their inferior host rather than refuse to answer a question they deemed beneath them and lacking eloquence. The intellectual silent treatment is part of the reason people are afraid to ask questions and engage in areas out of their comfort zone. I had a boyfriend who was/is a die hard Raiders fan, I knew nothing about football, let alone his reason for waking up on Sundays. He knew this but rather than deeming me a fool he enjoyed sharing with me the rules and points of the game. I became interested and soon didn't need him as a crutch to enjoy the sport. If we literary types could follow this lead we could open up a world to those that we left out because we are impatient with their lack of inherent knowledge and in turn open up an entirely new dialogue that could only improve our view of literature ~whatever that means.

MFA

Alright, so here's the thing...I've thrown my whole life in the trash -well that is what the ex told me. And I've always subscribed to the Pretty Woman mentality that it's easier to believe the bad things. Well, he hasn't been the only one. Last year, my father informed me that my elementary school wanted to put me straight from sixth grade to college and by not doing that he thinks he may have ruined my life. Instead, of going straight to college I have attended five, yes, five undergrads.

I have always wondered how/why my high potential route has brought me to working at a tanning salon.I am thirty-four and sling tans for a living. I have to say this, I am good at it, maybe the best, but that's like being the best the toilet cleaner -it does not require much. The only answer that I have, may be that things came too easily for me when I was young and by the time I needed study skills, I didn't have them. Then, I took the easy way out.

But I'm back in! Okay, minus the exclamation point. I am applying to MFA programs in creative writing from Brown to Long Beach ~I have a slightly inflated ego/highly insecure; it's makes for an interesting mix.This application process is absolutely jarring, daunting, and any and every other synonym for intimidating. I have decided upon applying to "lucky number" thirteen programs, as the odds are against me, so why not taunt the gods. The programs only accept six to twenty-five students per year. Seems to suggest, why even apply? That has been my suggestion many a days, especially with the upward cost of two grand. But for someone reason I keep writing those damn essays and submitting my short stories and cringe all the way to slam of the mailbox. I feel like when I pack for vacation and I am absolutely positive that I forgotten something, I check, double and triple check, and I haven't, but it sure feels like it.

The essay that I am working on this weekend is for Johns Hopkins, I am to write a critique of my own work. I have known this for three months, it is due on Friday and yet I have waited because for the life of me I don't know what the hell to write. I have been offered, sometimes bulldozed with opinions of my more educated friends on ways to accomplish this. Bottom line, the whole I threw my life in the trash keeps coming up and I think why would Hopkins even want me, come on, I just learned that it was Johns Hopkins not John Hopkins.