Usually one of the first assignments in a Columbia College fiction class is the dream story. If you’ve gone through the program chances are (and I’m willing to bet) that you've been assigned to write at least five of those stories. I was never good with the dreams stories, I’m way too conventional a writer to write ‘em. But I’m always assigned.
The dream stories are the stories told with your hair down, without any inhibitions, disclaimers, reasoning, sense or logic—I’m talking persistent exaggeration. Cut throat. Gully. Gutsy. Ruthless; fertilizing the desert with a new born pigmy from Guinea and up springs pandemonium-type-shit. Outta control, crazy type-shit. I remember my first semester here, Fiction One—a total virgin to this type of serious approach to writing, I didn’t know how to go about writing a “dream story". Sure Felicia, my teacher, read a few examples, forged a few ideas but insisted that we let the idea to create fuel the only momentum we needed to pursue the assignment. What a crock of hippie-shit! I came out of my first dream story, in Felicia’s class, scared clear with a body of work that was soooo traditional it had a corset. I was too squeamish to write anything else. Low and behold five core courses later I have a better handle on who I am in relation to the “voice” (there goes that word again) of my work so now I feel able to write with that certain GRRRRRR: not appropriate for children under the age of 12. In fact looking back t’where I was then, t’where I am now…I’m proud to see change—a visible change. The me now wouldn’t have written what the me then did. To hell with censorship!—I say raise your quill and write!
Before, everyone’s stories read the same. It's always been boy meets girl, girl likes boy, boy climbs that ever-shimmering braid of streaked blonde hair and slays the menopausal dried prune of a dragon. They wed—he's knighted, she's queened; they pork—reproduce, he gets an office job in the city, she trains the offspring at home and they live happily…forever. Unimpressive, I know, right? We haven’t been given anything. When I open a book, or sit under that light at the dining table with my newspaper and/or magazine I’m looking to either be taught, entertained, or intrigued. I’m daring the author, of whatever material, to illustrate what I haven’t seen, gossip what I haven’t heard, prove what has yet been questioned, and let me know, with each line of your prose, who you are and be present in every word—make that connection. I wanna be connected! I’m expecting by sight of the last period in the last paragraph of the last page, after your last word has been punctuated therein lies a revelation of sorts.
Being an active writer myself I know the extremities, I know just how stressful it is having to cross reference every single idea in order to manifest at least one of those ideas into something “fresh”(my Beginning Poetry Workshop instructor uses the word fresh. I hate that word). And I’ve learned that searching for that fresh idea—that numero friggin’ uno, that no one’s ever committed to story is virtually impossible. Chances are Palahniuk’s probably written it. So I’ve gotten over it…suffice to say I won't ever find the needle in the haystack! So to put that burden on someone else would be most unfair. I’m understanding that the importance of reading rests not solely in respecting/enjoying the “ideas” being presented but in how those ideas are being told, the individuality of the storytelling. And what that does is allow for the same stories we grew up under to be resurrected and retold in a different voice, in a very different way.
What I like about time is that it affords change. Change my thinking! Journaling has always been that resource—that box full of little fortune cookies, in the back of my mind, where I pull most of my ideas/fiction from. I believe a successful writer is a writer that writes, a well-practiced writer, a well-rehearsed writer, a muddy, gutsy, undertaker-type son of a bitch! And always, if you can, use the word bitch. Bitch fits in just about every scenario except for the Bible (the Holy one). But, sure... I remember before I began writing how I refused to let my writing be dictated by how black I was or by how gay I was. I always figured such stories were already being told, who would care to listen to another black gay man ranting? I didn’t want to be that typical of a writer—to only conjure up sad love songs about my life in the Lifestyle. I wanted to reach a “broader public” (secret: I still don't know what that means). One with hair sparkles and pleated skirts sitting in diners with their legs crossed, sipping from coffee cups, I suppose. Boy, was I such a prude!
First rule of writing is to write whatever is taking your attention. Whatever comes to your mind, whatever your pen is itching to scratch, whatever story you’re ready to tell—tell it! Write it!—and write it until your fingers bleed with the best of your voice. So know yourself. You have to know yourself!
I don't go to fuck parties cuz I don't like getting fucked. I don't play in traffic because I don't like funerals and I don't eat carpet cuz it gives me the runs. I know myself!
When its a question of prose I love sentences. The long ones, the short ones... the compound sentences with semicolons and dashes with commas oozing from verb to pronoun. The fragmented ones. The one-worded ones. The ones without any punctuation at all, and the ones with too much. The well written ones, the ones not so well written. The rhyming ones, the complex ones, the ones underlined in green by Microsoft Word that has every grammatical error imaginable but reads oh so well. I. Love. Sentences.
Writing is a craft as much as it is an art. Grab that boy meets girl story and toss in a couple of aliens, add a few brewskies and weasel in the word bitch, and you’ve cooked yourself something authentic!
Its about reclaiming your platform and making the story your own! Taking charge of the lyricism (which is a very good word) and crafting your work. Know yourself! Think: How would I read?—and get that down on the paper because you can’t be able to thoroughly transpire those other awesome ideas (that Palahniks probably written) into Nobel Prize winning material until you’ve successfully mastered yourself. I believe as writers we have to remember that we are the product of our circumstances which is an experience just as relevant, if not more so, than any fictional idea ever created. So know yourself, and write what you know however you love it.
Did I lose focus!?
So I go into class prepared for when the instructor says : Dream story. Next class. 5 pages, pronto!—I'm prepared for scribing all those eccentric ideas—being consciously incorrect, chronologically abusive, maddening, zany, enthusiastically unrealistic, ballsy, ballistic, and totally without reason. Fiction at its purest! So imagine t’my surprise, will you, when we (the class) get assigned the Infamous dream story, due ‘top of class next Friday, with its gutsy allure stripped from the occassion.
Polly, my instructor, instead wants a real dreamt dream...untainted with all the extra. And I thought to myself: self: how droll… I dream in gray **ken sighs*** what fun is that!? You can't just give me lemons, I'mma skinny bitch, I can't make lemonade! We cain't cook!
Surely she'll learn, Damnit!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment