Tag: friends

National Day on Writing: #WhyIWrite

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Today is already a good day. It’s Friday. The sun is shining. My honors students are going to write their own Gothic stories, modeled after Poe, Faulkner, or Gilman, later on this morning. In addition to all this–it’s also National Day on Writing, sponsored by the Why I write IIINational Council of Teachers of English. All week long on my Instagram account, I’ve participated in their #whyIwrite campaign, posting one reason each day for, well, why I write. This blog post is the culmination of my daily musings on why I write.

Reason 1: I love to write.

This one is probably pretty obvious, but I figured I’d elaborate, anyway. I have been compelled to write since the day I was physically able. Boxes and boxes of journals, begun when I was in just third grade, occupy a significant amount of the storage space in the eaves of my attic. I love to write articles, diary entries, poems, stories, narrative Why I Writeessays, novels, blog posts. There isn’t much I don’t like to write. The feeling I experience when I know I have written something just the way it needed to be expressed is the same satisfaction produced by the sound of a softball smacking a glove in a perfect catch. That sense of achievement and precision is priceless.

In addition to the simple satisfaction writing provides for me, I find the act of writing therapeutic. Writing provides a physical, mental, and emotional means to let go. It allows me to process my emotions and thoughts, and offers a form of catharsis.

It also reaffirms for me my place in the world, and my identity as “writer.”

Finally, I find flow through writing. There is nothing quite like the sense that the piece I am writing–the very words pouring from my pen or fingertips–stems from some secret source I have magically tapped into. I am just the conduit. It is effortless. Finding myself in this state is truly a spiritual experience, one I have not achieved through any other activity.

The feeling I experience when I know I have written something just the way it needed to be expressed is the same satisfaction produced by the sound of a softball smacking a glove in a perfect catch.

Reason 2: I write to remember.

One of my favorite things about writing is going back, sometimes years later, to read things I have written. Many times, I find I wrote about things that, had I never written about them, I would have forgotten them. They never would have resurfaced in my mind. I love rediscovering scraps of experience that, without writing, would have been lost to my consciousness.

Reason 3: I write to be remembered.

Writing offers a form of immortality. It helps me preserve something of myself for future generations–for my nieces, for my nephews, maybe even for their children and their children’s children. Often, when I write something, particularly diary entries or personal narratives, I wonder who might read them decades down the road, and think about me–and know a little more about me, about herself, about the world as it was when I was here, for having read it.

Writing is a handshake, a hug, an invitation to empathy and understanding. It is one way to strengthen the bond of the human family.

Reason 4: I write to get perspective.

Writing helps me get my thoughts in order, helps me sort myself out.

Reason 5: I write to connect.

One of the most rewarding aspects of writing is when people tell me a piece I wrote resonated with them. People’s reactions to what I write about my family and marriage, the lessons I have learned through my mistakes or misconceptions, or the effect nature seems always to have on me are so touching–and encouraging. Writing is a way to reach out to humanity as whole, across oceans and mountains, to cry out into the abyss, “I am here! You are here! And we are not alone!” Writing is a handshake, a hug, an invitation to empathy and understanding. It is one way to strengthen the bond of the human family.

Why I Write II

 

 

 

Reading, Writing, Dog Food, and Validating Emotions

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Lauren and I sit in her Jeep in an alley across the street from the building where we take a writing workshop together. It’s dark, almost 9:30 at night, Lauren’s face illuminated by the glow of her car’s dashboard, street sounds filtering through our open windows. The

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One of my favorite writing activities is participating in the Life in 10 Minutes writing workshops. This blog post was inspired by a conversation I had with a friend and fellow Life in 10 Minutes writer after our workshop last night.

night air is warm and still–and electric with the nightlife of nearby VCU, the students energized from their summer hiatus, enlivened by reunions with sorority sisters and roommates and classmates.

 

“One thing I struggle with,” Lauren tells me, “is feeling like my emotions aren’t valid. Like, I have it so good compared to other people. What do I have to complain about–to feel sad or angry or upset about?”

I get what she’s saying. I mean, how do I dare say I’m overworked or overwhelmed or stressed out when, somewhere in the world, someone else spends 12 hours a day toiling in a sweatshop for pennies–and feels grateful, maybe, just to have a job? How could I dare complain about missing my sister, who lives 10 hours away, when somewhere in the world, someone else’s sister lives even farther way–or maybe isn’t even alive anymore at all? How dare I feel sad or stressed when my biggest problems are wishing I didn’t have to get up for work Monday morning; not getting enough sleep; and trying to figure out how to cram a full work day, a trip to the grocery store, a run, and a family dinner into one day? Especially when I compare those worries to the much more burdensome concerns of people around me? How ungrateful am I? If my problems were more extreme, wouldn’t I find myself saying, “I wish my biggest problem were finding time for the grocery store. If only my biggest concern were having to work Monday morning.” Wouldn’t I see my old troubles as trivial, silly? Yeah. Probably. In all honesty, yes.

If my problems were more extreme, wouldn’t I find myself saying, “I wish my biggest problem were finding time for the grocery store. If only my biggest concern were having to work Monday morning.” Wouldn’t I see my old troubles as trivial, silly? Yeah. Probably. In all honesty, yes. But that doesn’t necessarily make my stress or sorrow or dread any less valid.

But that doesn’t necessarily make my stress or sorrow or dread–or Lauren’s, or anyone’s–any less valid. (And, on a side note, how interesting that we beat ourselves up over the validity of only negative emotions. I’ve never heard anyone say, “How dare I be happy when someone else has it so much better?” but I’ve heard time and time again, “How dare I be sad when someone else has it so much worse?”) Your sorrow might result from X; mine, from Y. But we both experience sorrow, regardless of the cause. My anxiety might come from this; yours, from that. But we both experience anxiety. The experience of the emotion makes it valid, not the cause of the emotion. It’s the emotion that counts, not always its cause–not all the time.

Think about it like this: I’m currently working on an article about the ingredients and “superingredients” (think: super foods) you should look for in your dog’s food, and one thing I’ve learned in my research is that more important than the individual ingredients, are the nutrients found in those ingredients. So, while you might want salmon or chicken to be included on the ingredients list, what you’re really after–and what your dog’s system is really after–is the protein (or the omega-3 fatty acids or the omega-6 fatty acids–but you’ll have to read the article for more on that) the salmon or chicken (or dried egg product or oatmeal or lamb…) provides. Just as the nutrient is more important than the ingredient that provides it, so the emotion is more important than the experience that causes it.

When we read, we feel familiar emotions in unfamiliar circumstances. It is the emotion we recognize, not necessarily the situation, not the emotion’s cause. We understand the emotional experience, even though the circumstance prompting it is foreign.

Our conversation put me in mind of two things, the first, something I read recently: Reading makes us more empathetic people. If we know what grief feels like–even if the only cause of it in our own lives is the impending fade of summer vacation into another school year–we can understand what grief feels like when it’s caused by a situation we have never experienced–a divorce, the loss of a beloved friend. When we read, we feel familiar emotions in unfamiliar circumstances. It is the emotion we recognize, not necessarily the situation, not the emotion’s cause. Perhaps you’re reading Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. You’ve likely (SPOILER ALERT!) never had to kill your best friend to spare him a worse fate–that has probably never been the cause of your sorrow, grief, or loneliness (I hope!). But you likely have lost a best friend, to one situation or another, and thus are capable of empathizing with the character’s sense of sorrow, grief, and loneliness. You understand the emotional experience, even though the circumstance prompting it is foreign.

The second is this: a fellow writer’s assertion that writers feel more deeply than, well, non-writers. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but if it is, than we creative writer types, well–our sorrow over the death of yet another glorious summer might feel akin to the sorrow someone else feels over something others might deem much more worthy of sorrow. And, as a writer, having known sorrow, you can now transfer that sense of sorrow, however trivial its cause, to your characters, who might be likely to experience it as a result of whatever circumstance they’re in.

In any case, reading, writing, and emotional experience are intimately and inexplicably intertwined. Whether your emotion is triggered by something even you yourself deem trivial, or something almost anyone would deem worthy of the resulting emotional reaction, pain is pain, love is love, anger is anger, joy is joy. Emotions are part of the human experience. We do not all share the same lives, the same experiences, the same situations. What we do share, though, are the human feelings these lives, experiences, and circumstances cause. We all know love. We all know vengeance. We all know fear. We all know gratitude. We all feel, no matter the source of the feelings.

 

 

Board Games for the Bookish

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My initial intent was to save this post for a blizzard, or at least a snowy day, good for cozying up inside, but then I got superstitious and started thinking that waiting for snow might jinx the weather, and no snow would ever fall this winter. In an effort to prevent that horrible eventuality, I decided to move this post up. It’s timely enough now: Lots of families gathering for Thanksgiving next week will likely play board games together, right? Here are four that are perfect for the literarily-minded among us.

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One of my favorite board games described below is LIEbrary. The die, shown here on the left, features various genres of literature, plus a wild-card option.

4. Scrabble

This one is pretty obvious,  but it had to make the list: It’s a word game. Literary types love word games. We’re walking dictionaries and thesauruses, after all. To excel at this game, one must be good at spelling, and have an impressive vocabulary. Some Word of the Week posts on this blog might prove helpful for this game!

3. Bananagrams

I like to think of this game as a sort of Scrabble,  Jr. As with Scrabble, players should possess a talent for spelling and an unlimited vocabulary. Also like Scrabble, players use letter tiles to spell words, but there is no board for this game. Instead, each player draws a certain number of tiles from the pile, determined by the number of players, and uses them to spell as many interconnected words as possible. Once a player has used all of his letters to correctly spell real words, all of which connect, he yells, “Peel!” At that point, everyone draws one tile from the leftover, face-down tiles. This continues until all tiles have been drawn, completely depleting the leftover pile. The first player to use all of his tiles to correctly spell as many interconnected words as possible once all tiles have been drawn from the leftover pile, yells “Bananas!” and wins.

2. Balderdash

When my siblings and I were children, we referred to this game as “the lying game,” because it requires players to make up fake definitions to real, though obscure, words. To play, one player draws a word card. The other players create what they believe to be plausible definitions for the word, even if they have no idea what it might mean. Any player who writes the correct definition moves ahead (if I remember correctly). The player who writes the definition that fools the most fellow players also gets to move ahead. Players who identify the correct definition, as opposed to being fooled by fake ones, move ahead, as well.

1. Liebrary

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Above is one of the genre cards The Librarian would read to his fellow players, who would then craft a fake first line to the book the card describes.

I. LOVE. THIS. GAME. It’s similar to Balderdash, but centers on literature instead of vocabulary. Players are asked to compose phony first lines of books as opposed to phony definitions of words. Not only is it an excellent and hilarious game to play around the dinner table with friends and family, but I have also played with my students in high school English classes. It is especially pertinent when we talk about how to write a hook, and the types of first lines that are most effective. In Liebrary, each player gets a game piece of a certain color. Players take turns rolling a die labeled with five genres: Classics, Horror/Mystery/Sci-Fi, Fiction/Non-Fiction, Romance, Children’s, and a wild-card option that allows the die-thrower, also known as “The Librarian,” to choose the

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Above is an example of a genre card from which The Librarian would read. The other players would use this information to compose their fake first lines.

genre. The Librarian then draws a card from the rolled genre, and, withholding the fist line, which appears at the bottom of the card, reads off of it the name of an author, the title of the work, and a synopsis of the book.  Then, the other players are given time to compose a phony first line. They turn these in to The Librarian, who reads them, along with the actual first line, aloud to the group. Players are then asked to choose which first line they believe is the real first line. The phony first line that gets the most votes wins that round, and the player that wrote it moves ahead on the game board. Players who identified the correct first line also get to move ahead.

I wish you all a happy Thanksgiving!