Author: JennyDetroit (Page 20 of 43)

Poem #10

March 19, 2021 / / 0 Comments

She’d said she wanted to go back to Naples one more time.

She’d said FDR would always be her president.

She’d said things about my Uncle Leonard

that I didn’t quite understand.

At her death, I was home, the football game on TV.

They’d said she had died.

I’d said something unremarkable because

that was all my lips could say.

It came out all wrong.

It was like the salt sea waters had choked me,

the waves crashing the shoreline of Ischia,

and gray water and rocks.

 

[This poem came from a writing exercise that we did in the Exeter Humanities Institute online pilot program that I’m participating in. We started with a poem written by someone else, and then after reading it aloud several times, each of us taking turns with a line or a phrase or a sentence, we had to choose one line or one fragment of a line and make it the start of our own poem. I took the simple fragment of a line: “she’d said.”

The original poem had been about an aunt, so then I thought about my own great-aunt. I had been thinking about her earlier in the day, while showing a film to my students. It was an old movie — 1934’s Imitation of Life — and the movie famously ends with a funeral procession. During the film, I had been thinking about — and regretting — that I have often been absent from the deathbeds of my family members. As the day wore on, however, my mind moved on to other things: grading papers, making dinner, getting the kids ready for their sleepover at Grandma’s.

I knew I had this online class to attend, but I hadn’t been thinking about Imitation of Life or my great-aunt or anything beforehand. And then we read the original poem together, which really had nothing to do with my own aunt, but it triggered memories for me. It helped, I think, that we had to go around the Zoom at the beginning of class and name our race, ethnicity, and heritage. I named my heritage as being, in part, Italian, and that must have started my brain thinking again about my great-aunt.

When the poem was read over and over, the simple line — “she’d said” — stuck out to me. The things we say can seem unimportant, just off-hand remarks, but other times, those same remarks can have a kind of resonance. They can take on new importance when we hear them again, or think of them again. It was with all of this swirling around in my mind that I began my own poem, the result of which is above.]

Why I Blog, Reason #17

March 15, 2021 / / 0 Comments

My daily blogging has taken a hit lately. Part of that is due to being more focused on my fiction stuff at the moment. When I only have 40 minutes each day to devote to writing, those minutes are better spent working on my stories and novels. The cool news is that I finished “The Wind Masters,” I’m almost finished with “Things” (which is being re-titled “Berserker” or “A Good Defeat,” not sure yet), and I’ve written several chapters for my novella, Avalon Summer, and two chapters of a new novel (The Gates of Illvelion). I’m just writing what feels right, so each night I sit down and see where my subconscious takes me.

I do miss blogging though. It’s nice to write my thoughts and see where my mind wanders. The process for the blog is that I usually steal stuff from my writer’s notebook and type it up here, maybe adding or tweaking a bit. But generally, I start with my notebook and then formalize or expand on those thoughts here on the blog.

Sometimes, however, I just craft a blog post without any previous drafting or anything. That’s what this post is. Just me writing random stuff. Sitting down with the WordPress dashboard open and typing away. I’m not sure what the point of this post is; there is no point, really. But I’m old school, and that means I think of this blog more as my personal space than as some kind of marketing thing or whatever. I’m not trying to get “traffic.” Maybe I should be, but I’m not.

(Note: This wasn’t always the case. Early on, when I first set up the website, I thought the blog should be some kind of marketing or “branding” thing and I tried to fit my writing into that model. After struggling to add “content” and finding the whole thing burdensome, I gave up that approach. When I restarted blogging these past few years, I did so with the intent to write more personally, more randomly, and more authentically. Thus you get blog posts like this one, which are little more than idle thoughts.)

Is it self-indulgent to write all these random thoughts and ideas? Perhaps. I mean, if I’m not writing for some specific audience, or about some specific topic, then one may ask, “What’s the point?”

But I’d like to think that if — on some off chance — someone stumbles onto my blog, they might find solidarity or comfort or interest in my odd ramblings. Maybe this hypothetical reader is also a struggling writer, and maybe this hypothetical person might enjoy reading about my travails and ups-and-downs and whatnot. Or maybe they like the blog posts about the different writing exercises I use in my classroom. Or maybe they like to laugh at my poetry. Who knows.

I don’t really write for anyone, though. Just myself.

Confessions, Part 2

February 27, 2021 / / 0 Comments

I know I’ve mentioned on this blog my dream of working from home, but as I’ve been thinking about that dream more and more, I realize I need to refine it. It’s not that I want to work from home, it’s that I want to work from home as a writer. I want writing to be my work.

(Readers are now thinking, “Yeah sure, you and about ten million other people. Quit yer dreaming, lady!” And I would echo their sentiments. My working-class, Midwestern upbringing has instilled in me a kind of ultra-realism that considers it highly irresponsible and borderline insane to pursue a career in the arts. I have spent many years trying to shake these sentiments, but they return to me time and again. Like, it’s hard to lose the values of your childhood.)

Anyway, the reason why I want to write for a living is because I like it. It’s fun. That’s as simple as it gets, really. I mean, I could blather on about feeling “called” to write, or thinking I’ve got a bit of a knack for it, but those are secondary to the fact that I really enjoy writing and think it would be awesome to spend my days doing it (and getting paid to do so).  To tell tales and string sentences together sounds like just about the best kind of work there is.

Now, I’m ultra-realistic enough to know that making a living as a writer is a HUGE long-shot. So I’m not banking on it. But since Covid (and perhaps even a bit before), I’ve been thinking about whether or not I should stick with teaching or start working from home as a freelancer of some sort. The idea being that if I worked from home, I would have more free time to get my writing done. For awhile — when schools went remote last March — I got a taste of what it would be like to work from home, and not gonna lie, I loved it. I started craving it, even when my school returned to in-person learning in the fall.

But the more I’ve been thinking about it, the more I realize what I loved about being home last spring wasn’t the working from home part, it was the fact that I had more time to do my writing. What I was craving wasn’t necessarily a remote job; what I was craving was time. Covid allowed me and many others to suddenly have more time on our hands. I filled that time with my writing (and reading and going on walks with my daughter and playing in the backyard). And ever since school started back up in the fall, I’ve been trying to recover that feeling of having time on my hands to do my writing. For awhile, I thought that this writing time could be recovered if I worked from home as a freelance editor or something. But I’m starting to see that a change in job isn’t the answer. The answer is a change in myself.

I recently read Atomic Habits by James Clear and have been implementing some of his strategies in my life. One such strategy was to write everyday. I “habit-stacked” and made sure that as soon as I put the kids to bed, I would go down to my desk and start writing. I started this habit toward the end of December and I’ve been consistently doing it since then. Which means that I’ve finished a short story, begun another one, written two chapters of my novella, and blogged nearly everyday in January and ten days in February.

Recently I started challenging myself to write 1,000 words per day. By my calculations, that could get me 306,000 words written by the end of this calendar year. In years past, I would have said 1,000 words EVERY DAY wasn’t doable because I just didn’t have enough time in my days. I work almost-full-time and have three children ages six and under. “No time!” I would say.

But the funny thing is, once I started organizing my day around small habits, I found that I stopped running out of time. The hectic, wasteful days that seemed to plague me were suddenly gone. I could pray everyday, write in my writer’s notebook everyday, read a book everyday, grade papers everyday, exercise everyday, and write fiction everyday. And I could do all this without skimping on my other responsibilities, like taking care of my kids, spending time with husband, and looking after the house.

So I started thinking: Do I really need to abandon teaching and start up a freelancer career in order to have more time to write? Or can I continue teaching AND have more time to write?

I don’t want to get all mushy and start slobbering all over the Atomic Habits book, but honestly, it’s helped me realize that I can do the things I want to do without having to rearrange my whole life or making sweeping and dramatic career changes.

And look, I would still love to work from home because I’m an introverted homebody who enjoys hanging out in sweatpants, but I want to work from home as a writer, and that might never happen (that old ultra-realistic Midwestern upbringing dies hard). And even if it does happen, it won’t be until I have several books written and published, and that won’t happen if I don’t write several books. So the “writing books” part has to be at the center of what I do and how I spend my time. Whether it’s Covidtide and I have time on my hands, or it’s now and I’m working outside the home. Either way, I need to write.

The insight I had recently is that I HAVE been writing: my new habit-filled days have allowed me the freedom to do just that. I want writing to be my work, but I don’t have to wait for some far-off future for it to be a reality. It’s a reality right now.

Creative = Make

February 22, 2021 / / 0 Comments

I’m rereading Tom Hodgkinson’s How to Be Free. I find this book, and its companion, How to Be Idle, eminently re-readable. Both Hodgkinson’s style and his philosophies are so buoyant, so carefree and merry, that I always feel emboldened and inspired when I read his books.

So I’m rereading How to Be Free, and this afternoon I read the chapter entitled, “Reject Career and All Its Empty Promises.” This chapter is relevant for me because I’m thinking about just such a thing (i.e.: chucking my career).

Anyway, the thing that struck me was how Hodgkinson implored his readers to do more manual work — not for money, necessarily, but simply for its own sake. For instance, there’s something quite wonderful about gardening or whittling a piece of wood or knitting or whatever. Not all of our work needs to be “mental work,” and not all of our time needs to be spent focusing on our narrow and restricting “careers.”

This whole thing got me thinking about creativity.

In one of the classes I teach, we spend some time trying to define creativity. Most often, my students come up with some variation of this: “Creativity is figuring out a new way of doing something or an original way to solve a problem.” It’s all about “thinking outside the box” (a most unoriginal expression if there ever was one).

I’ve always rebelled against this definition, though I don’t often say so to my students. I might prod them a little bit with Socratic questions, but I never outright dismiss their ideas. But what annoys me about “originality” and “newness” as central pillars of creativity is that it elevates novelty above all else, AND it ignores the root word of creativity itself: CREATE. Not that newness and originality aren’t aspects of creativity, but they aren’t the center of the thing. Creativity means creating.

To create. To make. To bring something into being.

When looked at this way, creativity is less about ideas and much more about THINGS. When we are creating we are making. And if creativity is making, then anyone can do it. It’s not something that only the rarefied among us is any good at. It’s open to all. Anyone can make something. And thus, everyone is creative.

Being creative, i.e.: CREATE-ive, could mean baking a cake, or drawing a picture, or throwing a party. After all, what does throwing a party really mean? It means creating a party. You gather people and food and drinks, you decorate the place, you make up a list of games and activities for everyone to play. Where once there was no party, you have MADE a party. Brought it into being.

Same thing for knitting, or gardening, or dancing. Or making music, or tinkering, or writing, or building something (or making a baby!). Anyone who does these things is being creative: where once there was nothing, something has been made.

I often hear students remark that they “aren’t very creative,” as if it’s a special skill or something. But it’s not a special skill. It’s simply the act of making. A creative person is one who creates.

And everyone is capable of creating. Everyone can make something.

Leave out whether it’s good or bad; that’s not important. The creating is what’s important. The making.

If I could implore my students to consider one thing, it would be to realize they are, in fact, creative. And that they should spend a good chunk of their time making things, whether it’s a cake or a song or a fabulous party. When we are making things, we are imitating our own Creator. I can’t think of a better way to live.

A Book Within a Book

February 16, 2021 / / 0 Comments

In one of my current works-in-progress, Avalon Summer, the main character, a young girl named Sarah, finds a book that captures her imagination. She starts to see parallels between the book and things in her own life.

Anyway, as part of the story, I make reference to chapters from the book, as well as story-lines and characters. Today, I decided to come up with titles for each chapter in the book, just in case I wanted to use the chapter names in my story.

Well. Now that I’ve made the chapter names, I’m starting to get excited about this made-up book. It’s just supposed to be a plot device in my novella, Avalon Summer, but the chapter titles are so evocative that they make me want to write THIS story too.

Is it a good idea to write a book that will then play a role in another book’s plot? Does that even make sense?

Here are the chapter titles for the totally-non-existent novel, The Gates to Illvelion, which I created as a plot device for my in-progress novella, Avalon Summer:

Chapter 1: “Faerie Night”

Chapter 2: “A Heart Wrought with Spells”

Chapter 3: “Gwenhivar‘s Choice”

Chapter 4: “The Glass Pool of the Hidden West”

Chapter 5: “Oak Abode”

Chapter 6: “Gallien, the Unicorn”

Chapter 7: “The High Cliffs of the Mud Lord”

Chapter 8: “Agravaine’s Curse”

Chapter 9: “The Never-ending Melody of Night’s Enchantment”

Chapter 10: “The Blood Sword”

Chapter 11: “The Iron Key”

Chapter 12: “The Sea-foam Bird”

Is my desire to write The Gates to Illvelion a form of procrastination? Should I take a break from Avalon Summer until I finish writing The Gates to Illvelion? Should I write them both in tandem? Should I just keep The Gates to Illvelion as a plot point in Avalon Summer and leave off writing anything beyond these chapter titles?

I just came up with these chapter titles today, so maybe I need to give myself time to see if this is a real possibility or just my excitement overwhelming me right now.

Input Update 2/15/2021

February 15, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Reading: Kothar: Barbarian Swordsman

Also reading: Out of the Silent Planet

Also also reading: The Twilight Realm

Listening to: The Raveonettes

Watching: Cadfael

I really should do a post about The Twilight Realm and that curious fantasy sub-genre of “friends-who-unexpectedly-get-transported-into-a-role-playing-game.” Part of my fascination with this sub-genre is that as a kid, I remember reading one of these books and feeling as if the book was perhaps “too adult” for elementary-school me, and reading it secretly because I figured my parents wouldn’t approve. (Of course, I never realized my parents wouldn’t have known what was in the book, nor would they have ever tried to find out. But somehow, I was convinced this book was verboten, and thus I would sneak around to read it. Gosh, I was a weird kid!)

Anyway, whatever this book was from my childhood, I’ve never forgotten the feeling I had while reading it. Trouble is, I can’t remember anything else about it! I know it involved kids getting sucked into a role-playing game, but that’s it. So now, with the help of the internet, I’ve begun making my way through mid-80s to early-90s books that involve people from our world getting transported into a fantasy role-playing game world. As I make my way through these novels, I’m hoping one of them will stand out as the one that was so scandalous to nine-year-old me. So far, The Twilight Realm is maybe, kinda fitting the bill, but none of it makes me go, “Yes! This is the book!”

I’m not sure what I’m expecting with this project, other than I just really want to KNOW what that book was.

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