Introduction
May. 5th, 2009 11:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fairjennetI guess I ought to begin with some kind of introduction. If I plan to make long, rambling posts about writing--an exercise almost designed to annoy any casual reader--common politeness demands that I at least make some sort of attempt to explain why I'm doing it in public.
Part of the reason is that writing things down helps my thoughts to stick in my head in some kind of organized fashion. I suppose I could do the same in a secret notebook somewhere; but writing for an audience, even if it's mythical, at least ensures that I'll use complete sentences instead of fragments that won't make any sense when I try to read them later.
So, why am I writing about writing instead of spending this time trying to write fiction? That one is a little bit more difficult to explain.
Writing fiction is hard for me. My stories never fly straight and true from my head to my pen, they always get tangled up in the words. Which words should I use, and why, and precisely what am I trying to do with this sentence, anyway? I edit obsessively. It's almost hopeless, the way I get caught up in my inner thesaurus. I think it's because my first love is textual analysis. Don't laugh. I know exactly when it began.
Picture this:
There's a round table in the corner of a first grade classroom, the child sized chairs are orange and blue, the posters on the wall brightly colored, and the whole of this scene is blocked from the rest of the busy students by two cleverly placed bookshelves. Three children sit at the table, a girl and two boys. I'm the girl. Big pink glasses, a smocked dress, stockings and black patent leather shoes make me so different from the boys in their t-shirts and sneakers.
It's a big day because we're going to learn to read for the very first time. I'm nervous and trying really hard not to show it since the boys are there. Boys are gross. I sniff and prop my chin in my hands as the boys punch each other and laugh at the incomprehensible things that boys laugh about when they're six years old. They don't settle down until the teacher appears in her red flowered dress.
She passes out three little books with identical panda bear and rabbit pictures on their covers. "Quiet down now, Josh, Michael, and all of you open the books," she says brightly. "Lori, why don't you start first? Read the first page to me."
I open the book, but refuse to look at the page. "I don't know how."
"Just try. You can do it."
Trying bravely not to cry, I look at the first page. The panda and rabbit are holding hands under a yellow circle. I'm pretty sure the story will be about friendship, so I open my mouth to guess that it says, "Panda and bear are good friends." The teacher interrupts before I can say anything.
"Look at the words," she says.
I look at the words. It says, "The sun is up." I'm astonished. I know those words already, I don't know how, but I recognize each one of them one after another after another. All together they say something. "The sun is up," I say in the tone of someone who's just witnessed something impossible. "I can read!"
"I knew you could if you tried," she says mildly."No, no, don't turn the page yet. Let's let one of the boys read it now. You can follow along."
So I sit there, staring at the miraculous words because she won't let me try again until the yucky boys stumble through the first page. I'm just dying to try to read more in a hurry--I'm afraid I'll lose this startling new ability if I don't--but I'm a good girl, and so I stare at the words instead. It takes forever. I panic when the words stop making sense. The sun is up? The sun isn't up. The sun is the sun. Up is up, and isn't down, and up can't be the sun. The sun is hot? The sun isn't hot, and hot isn't sun. Don't touch the stove, it is sun! The sun is risen? They say that in church, but they mean the other kind of sun. Sun, son, sun. Jesus is up. Up where? In heaven. I sigh in relief when the teacher finally tells me to turn the page.
See? I was forced to analyze text the very first time I read a sentence. It's no wonder I'm neurotic. (Incidentally, I think this is why I'm so enamored of Storm Constantine's Swift, with all his, "shehesheheshehe." I WAS that child, only without a Cobweb figure to understand what the heck I was babbling about. :D) Later, I learned to read words without considering their every possible meaning--I suppose I loved stories too much not to get caught up in them--but I never learned to disregard that kind of thing when I had to choose my own words.
I have this theory. I think if I spend enough time thinking about the mechanics of writing, enough time to really get all that stuff straight in my brain, that eventually it will become as unconscious for me as the mechanics behind reading. So, that's why I'm spending my time writing about writing instead of trying to create new stories. I hope it will help. And hey, maybe it won't be too boring. I don't know.
Thoughts anybody?
Part of the reason is that writing things down helps my thoughts to stick in my head in some kind of organized fashion. I suppose I could do the same in a secret notebook somewhere; but writing for an audience, even if it's mythical, at least ensures that I'll use complete sentences instead of fragments that won't make any sense when I try to read them later.
So, why am I writing about writing instead of spending this time trying to write fiction? That one is a little bit more difficult to explain.
Writing fiction is hard for me. My stories never fly straight and true from my head to my pen, they always get tangled up in the words. Which words should I use, and why, and precisely what am I trying to do with this sentence, anyway? I edit obsessively. It's almost hopeless, the way I get caught up in my inner thesaurus. I think it's because my first love is textual analysis. Don't laugh. I know exactly when it began.
Picture this:
There's a round table in the corner of a first grade classroom, the child sized chairs are orange and blue, the posters on the wall brightly colored, and the whole of this scene is blocked from the rest of the busy students by two cleverly placed bookshelves. Three children sit at the table, a girl and two boys. I'm the girl. Big pink glasses, a smocked dress, stockings and black patent leather shoes make me so different from the boys in their t-shirts and sneakers.
It's a big day because we're going to learn to read for the very first time. I'm nervous and trying really hard not to show it since the boys are there. Boys are gross. I sniff and prop my chin in my hands as the boys punch each other and laugh at the incomprehensible things that boys laugh about when they're six years old. They don't settle down until the teacher appears in her red flowered dress.
She passes out three little books with identical panda bear and rabbit pictures on their covers. "Quiet down now, Josh, Michael, and all of you open the books," she says brightly. "Lori, why don't you start first? Read the first page to me."
I open the book, but refuse to look at the page. "I don't know how."
"Just try. You can do it."
Trying bravely not to cry, I look at the first page. The panda and rabbit are holding hands under a yellow circle. I'm pretty sure the story will be about friendship, so I open my mouth to guess that it says, "Panda and bear are good friends." The teacher interrupts before I can say anything.
"Look at the words," she says.
I look at the words. It says, "The sun is up." I'm astonished. I know those words already, I don't know how, but I recognize each one of them one after another after another. All together they say something. "The sun is up," I say in the tone of someone who's just witnessed something impossible. "I can read!"
"I knew you could if you tried," she says mildly."No, no, don't turn the page yet. Let's let one of the boys read it now. You can follow along."
So I sit there, staring at the miraculous words because she won't let me try again until the yucky boys stumble through the first page. I'm just dying to try to read more in a hurry--I'm afraid I'll lose this startling new ability if I don't--but I'm a good girl, and so I stare at the words instead. It takes forever. I panic when the words stop making sense. The sun is up? The sun isn't up. The sun is the sun. Up is up, and isn't down, and up can't be the sun. The sun is hot? The sun isn't hot, and hot isn't sun. Don't touch the stove, it is sun! The sun is risen? They say that in church, but they mean the other kind of sun. Sun, son, sun. Jesus is up. Up where? In heaven. I sigh in relief when the teacher finally tells me to turn the page.
See? I was forced to analyze text the very first time I read a sentence. It's no wonder I'm neurotic. (Incidentally, I think this is why I'm so enamored of Storm Constantine's Swift, with all his, "shehesheheshehe." I WAS that child, only without a Cobweb figure to understand what the heck I was babbling about. :D) Later, I learned to read words without considering their every possible meaning--I suppose I loved stories too much not to get caught up in them--but I never learned to disregard that kind of thing when I had to choose my own words.
I have this theory. I think if I spend enough time thinking about the mechanics of writing, enough time to really get all that stuff straight in my brain, that eventually it will become as unconscious for me as the mechanics behind reading. So, that's why I'm spending my time writing about writing instead of trying to create new stories. I hope it will help. And hey, maybe it won't be too boring. I don't know.
Thoughts anybody?
