Category Archives: creativity

Politically Incorrect

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overshare

Is There Such A Thing As Oversharing? – Blog Her

This.  All of this!  I could have easily written this blog post.  Fortunately, this past year in particular, I’ve tried to be more discrete when it comes to what I share online.  There is always – and I do mean always – so much more I would love to say.  In fact, it ended up biting me in the butt once or twice.  The funny thing is that in one case, one side of my family thought I was referring to them when in reality, it happened to be about something else entirely.  In the other case, the blog post in question was over five years old.  Five years!  It is the only blog post I’ve ever taken down.  I took it down more for personal reasons than any other concern.  It was definitely a case where I wrote out of raw emotion more than anything else.  The bottom line is this:  Aside from close family and friends, I really don’t care what people think about me.  Life is too short.

I’m struggling with this issue again.  February is Turner syndrome awareness month.  As a result, I want to write about my personal experiences with Turner syndrome.  Whether I acknowledge it or not, it has a profound impact on who I am.  The piece will be shared via a Facebook Page for a non-profit organization called A Walk for Ferrial.  I have so much to say, and not everyone will want to hear it.  In the past, I’ve actually left Facebook groups designed for women and girls with Turner syndrome due to conflicting issues.  How do I manage not to be misunderstood?  I’ll have to tread lightly, but if just one girl or young woman with Turner syndrome comes across my writing and recognizes that she is not alone, that there is someone else out there who has had to deal with the exact same issues, it will have all been worth it.  I am fed up with political correctness and not discussing issues that need to be discussed.

My Life in Books – Back to Square One

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read-writer

As part of my original blog, I religiously kept a log of books I read.  When I began keeping track, my reading life took off, particularly after I read Reading Like a Writer by Francine Pose.  I finally recognized that what I read is just as important as what I write if I am ever to be a successful writer.  It is still true.  Unfortunately, as I became so focused on my classes, I simply didn’t read quite as much.  Fortunately, I still read to keep up with book club and a few of my writing courses.

Even though I did keep reading over the last couple of years, I do feel as though I’m starting over as an intentional reader.  I used to plan my reading.  There was a method, although I wouldn’t be able to fully describe it.  I wish I had kept better track of what I read over these last few years, although I may attempt to recreate the list (thanks to my book club lists and an old syllabus or two).  It will be interesting to see how well I succeed.

There is another component to all of this though relating to my theme of “home.”  I have a fairly large personal library that needs to be cataloged and organized.  I need to somehow manage working my way through my personal library, both traditional books and e-books, with discovering new authors and titles.  So many books, so little time.

books

“The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets” By Eva Rice

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Book Review:  “The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets” By Eva Rice – Write Meg!

Lost Art

Even though I read The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets by Eva Rice several years ago now, it never really left the back of my mind.  On the surface, it is dishy and a guilty pleasure in the best sense of the term.  As easy as it is to write off as a beach read, there has to be something more there in order for it to stick with me for so long.  That is partly why it stuck with me:  I’ve been trying to figure out exactly what it is about this book that fascinates me.  I finally think I have it figured out.  The book itself is set in post-war, 1950s London.  While there are still vivid memories of World War II and the Blitz, there is a contagious sense of renewal, hope, and general optimism throughout the book.

That atmosphere, used effectively as a backdrop for an interesting group of teenage characters (Penelope and Inigo Wallace, Charlotte Ferris and her cousin Harry), allows them to shine and adds to the excitement of early rock and roll in London.  So much of the novel revolves around the music!  Inigo is obsessed with Elvis, while Penelope and Charlotte adore Johnnie Ray.  In fact, one of the pivotal events in the novel involves a Johnnie Ray concert at the London Palladium.  I can just imagine the excitement and what it meant to be a teenage girl waiting to see your rock and roll idol in concert.

I think that is why I love this novel so much.  It takes place during a period of time that influenced the likes of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, David Bowie, and countless others.  The music I know and love simply wouldn’t exist without the likes of Elvis, Little Richard, or Johnnie Ray.  Knowing the history of rock and roll and what takes place in the late 1950s and early 1960s makes this book that much sweeter.  I definitely need to reread it.

London Palladium, 1950

London Palladium, 1950

Personal Heroes

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Little Richard

We all have personal heroes, whether we want to admit it or not.  Personally, most of mine are people I know well in real life, but there are exceptions.  One huge exception for me is the Beatles, Paul McCartney in particular.  There are bands and musicians I like, and then there are the Beatles.  I bring this up because a friend of mine just lost one of hers on Monday:  David Bowie.  In fact, she wrote a moving piece on what his music, and more importantly, his persona, meant to her on Facebook.  I get it; I truly do.

The thing is, until he passed away, I never thought of David Bowie or his music that much, although my friend’s enthusiasm for his music is contagious.  Now that I have a better understanding of what his music represented and the risks he took with his career, not to mention the generations of artists he inspired, I can say that David Bowie belongs alongside people like Elvis, Johnny Cash, and yes, the Beatles, in a category all their own.  All of those artists broke barriers, created – or helped to create – new genres of music.  They also crossed genres and inspired new generations of musicians.

So why do we care so much about people we’ve never met?  I think that is part of the mystery of art, music in particular.  We feel as though we know the artists when we’ve spent decades listening, discussing, and analyzing their work.  We invest so much time and energy in the things we love – art, books, music, TV, films, etc. – that when their creator dies, a part of the magic is gone.  For example, in my life, there was never the possibility of a Beatles reunion.  John Lennon died ten days before I was born.  My generation will always wonder what Kurt Cobain would have accomplished musically with or without Nirvana had he lived.  Instead of wondering what an artist will do next, after his or her death, fans are left with a finite catalog of music, writing, films, paintings, etc.  There is nothing new to discover, only memories of what it felt like to await a new release.

Middle Grades Versus Young Adult Fiction

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LIW Quote 2

The topic of young adult literature fascinates me.   As part of her MOOCs discussing the life and work of Laura Ingalls Wilder, Pamela Smith Hill, an author herself, explores the development of the YA genre, as well as the ever-shifting boundary between middle grade and young adult literature.  As a writer who intends to eventually write in both genres and as a future middle school/high school teacher, her explanations of both genres left me wanting to learn more.  It also left me feeling as though there are no hard and fast rules.  Pamela Smith Hill credits authors such as Mark Twain, Louisa May Alcott, and Laura Ingalls Wilder with creating the young adult genre, even though the modern classification didn’t formally come into use until the 1950s.

Until I watched this series of videos, I never thought of the Little House series as divided into middle grades and young adult fiction.  I classified it all as middle grades, even though I reread the entire series, including The First Four Years, as an adult.  However, throughout her series of videos, Pamela Smith Hill makes a compelling case for considering On the Shores of Silver Lake, The Long Winter, Little Town on the Prairie, and These Happy Golden Years among the first young adult novels.  While I always knew that The First Four Years could not rightly be considered a part of the Little House series, I now have a much better understanding as to why.

According to Pamela Smith Hill, the book was Wilder’s attempt to write for an adult audience.  Indeed, it does deal with adult themes such as marriage, choosing a vocation, and economic hardship.  Interestingly, the book only came to the attention of Rose Wilder Lane, Wilder’s only child and literary heir, upon her mother’s death.  There are several theories as to why, but what I find interesting as a reader is that The First Four Years just feels different.  There is a different tone, and in many ways, it is sparse where other novels in the series are not.  As a writer, I understand why it was not published in Wilder’s lifetime, even though it is a good book.  It simply did not fit her literary legacy.

All of this leads me to a few conclusions.  First, it is possible to allow a series of books to grow with the reader.  As a child, this is what left me disappointed with mystery series.  The main characters never seemed to grow.  This is also why the Anne of Green Gables series and the Little House books remain among my childhood favorites.  Second, rules in publishing can be broken.  What it is important is to tell the truth, even if it isn’t the whole truth.  Dealing with difficult issues honestly is particularly important in YA literature.  Laura Ingalls Wilder did this well, even if she did fictionalize some aspects of her story to conceal identities or to simply make a better story.  Finally, it is important to control one’s literary legacy, even if only during one’s lifetime.  As a child of the ‘80s, I am completely conflicted when it comes to the Little House on the Prairie TV series.  I loved it as a child.  As an adult, I question the liberties taken with the source material, among many other things.  That leads to an overarching question:  How much control can a writer exert over his or writing from the grave?  If nothing else, it is an interesting topic.

Refining My Creative Process

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art love

Cultivating the Creative Process – Ellen Vrana

If you happen to be a writer, you are missing out if you are not reading Ellen Vrana’s blog.  It is simply beautiful, and yet relatable.  In other words, it makes me want to run off to London.  In this particular post, she addresses an issue that I’ve thought about quite a bit lately:  How place affects the creative process.  After Christmas, I had the pleasure of meeting up with one of my local writer friends for lunch.  Our conversation made me realize that I am in a place where I need to seek out new places to write.  One’s surroundings affect the writing process, and I need to do something new.

As a student, I seemed to naturally seek out places to study that both feed my creativity and allow me to focus on the tasks at hand.  As an undergrad at Michigan State, I absolutely had the best of both worlds.  When I needed creativity and wanted to dream, I could head over to the women’s resource room in the MSU Union.  It is simply a large, beautiful room set aside for women to study in silence.  Occupying one corner of the Union building, its windows overlook the approach to Beaumont Tower and some of the most beautiful parts of MSU’s gorgeous campus.  Best of all, if I needed a change, the energy of the rest of the building was just outside the door, the type of energy that can only be found on a bustling college campus.  If I needed to concentrate on simply getting a project completed, there was always the business library.  No distracting beautiful views, just a quiet cubicle that allowed me to shut out the rest of the world while I worked, without all of the social aspects of MSU’s main library.

Today, as I finish up my second experience as an undergraduate student, I find myself doing the same thing.  There are places on both SVSU and Delta College’s campuses, their libraries, where I know I can go when I need to concentrate wholeheartedly on the task at hand.  What is lacking is a writing space where I can feed off of the energy.  This is precisely why I would feel right at home living near a college or university.  Instead, I live in the smallest city in Michigan.  There are no true coffee shops where I could spend an afternoon just watching people and maybe write a word or two.  There are no places to really just spend time alone in public.  In my quest to find such a space, I’ve tried two small local libraries.  Unfortunately, they are too quiet for my taste, and they are not particularly comfortable.  If I want that much silence, I might as well be comfortable at home.

As I spend this year concentrating on the very idea of home, developing my own creative writing process is just as much part of my concept of home as my bedroom.  If I am ever going to succeed as a writer, I need to explore my creative process and how physical space affects it.  Given that I live in such a rural area, I may have to get creative.  Without internet access, such a task would become much more difficult.  Fortunately, I also draw a lot of my inspiration from music as well.  I would be lost without my playlists.

What Ellen does so well in her blog post is explain the difference between inspiration as a writer and the actual physical task of writing.  Maybe it is because of our shared heritage (her father and my mother are first cousins), but I can imagine her writing process working well for me too.  I can relate to drawing inspiration from experiences in the city and writing in the country.  This is why I renewed my passport this summer even though I have no plans to travel at the moment.  Much of my inspiration has always been drawn from the very idea of travel, of being able to reinvent oneself and start over.  The idea of having my passport handy is enough.  Throughout all of my study abroad experiences at Michigan State, I wanted desperately to capture it all in writing.  Unfortunately, it didn’t work out as I planned, although there were a few exceptions during my time in Spain.  Quite simply, there was too much to take in, too much going on to capture it well.  Now that I have the desire, time, and space to write, the inspiration isn’t as immediate.  Hopefully I’ll be able to find what works for me in 2016. untold story