A Personal Narrative

[dedalus_1947]

Most editors are failed writers -
but so are most writers.
~T.S. Eliot

 It is impossible to discourage the real writers -
they don't give a damn what you say,
they're going to write.
~Sinclair Lewis

There's nothing to writing.
All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.
~Walter Wellesley "Red" Smith

A word is not the same with one writer as with another. 
One tears it from his guts. 
The other pulls it out of his overcoat pocket.
~Charles Peguy

I felt like a wet-behind-the-ears freshman standing in the cellar hallway of the Engineering Building of California State University, Northridge (CSUN), waiting for the professor to arrive, on the first day of an upper division class. I tried acting cool and aloof to the tensions that were welling up inside of me. After 18 years free of the temptation, I even longed for a cigarette as a prop to feign indifference. Other hesitant students arrived, gazing at the room number, the posted sign, and then silently took their places along the wall. We were a motley display of wallflowers; a jumbled frieze of young, old, and middle aged strangers waiting along the wall in the Fall of 2003. Except for an occasional question, “Is this Extension Course X605”, no one talked. We just caught brief glimpses of each other as we pretended not to look. There were about 25 of us, standing about and praying for the teacher to arrive quickly, so we could get started. I’d experienced these insecure feeling before, many, many years ago in my first days at UCLA, UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico) and CSUN; but this was different. This time, my discomfort was not due to lack of age or experience with universities, or college classes. I was 55 years old, a middle school principal, with a BA in History, MA’s in Latin American Studies and School Administration, and 35 years experience as a teacher and administrator. My insecurity, and, I believe, that of my fellow companions, was coming from a lurking fear of pending trials. We had registered to take a Writing Workshop from a published author. We didn’t know the rules, procedures, or protocols for this type of class. How did these workshops operate? How much were we expected to write? Who judged the quality of our work? Were we good enough? Our common desire was obvious; we wanted to improve our writing. The unspoken question was how would our work be evaluated, or criticized? Until that day, all my writings had been personal or professional. I made private entries in my daily journal and I could produce clear and concise business memos. My work hadn’t been judged since I submitted my Master’s thesis in 1975. I didn’t know how my literary efforts were going to be treated, and the uncertainty was killing me. I recalled those forgotten fears of criticism, when I recently read the personal essays of a very interesting blogger I discovered online.

Since registering on LiveJournal three years ago, my blogs have become progressively longer (my brother Tito would say “long-winded”), more varied, and less and less like the short, diary-like musings of the genre. Although I enjoy the timely reports of certain family members and friends, most online blogs don’t interest me. I enjoy the rare exception that tells a lengthy story, describes characters, uses words in novel ways, and contains subtle themes. I find those blogs engaging, and worthy of reflection. This is the type of writing I am trying to post in my online Dedalus Log, and I was convinced others wrote them as well. Kathy calls this narrative style “personal essays”, or “personal narratives”. I was intrigued by her terms, and I wondered if they really represented a recognized genre I could access and read. So last week I decided to investigate them online. After entering the words personal essay in a search engine, I found a quick hit on Google titled The Art of the Personal Essay , by Dervala. The posting quickly answered my questions about blogs and genres by stating “If you’re getting tired of blogs – and Christ knows, there’s fluff in these navels – I recommend Phillip Lopate’s anthology, The Art of the Personal Essay”. It was a great sentence, with great imagery; it was gripping, clever and straight-forward. I read all of the blog, promised myself to buy the recommended book, and linked to the Dervala website to find more essays and information. Eureka, I had done it; found a blog I could relish and savor! I was a happy man for about three hours; engrossed in a story world of chickens, weddings, and Ireland. Then slowly, over the course of the afternoon, the first small fissures of critical judgment began appearing in the fault lines of my enthusiasm. Beginning as a questioning tremor, my thoughts gradually gained seismic force as I found myself judging the style and content of this new blogger: How good was she? What is with her fascination with chickens? Little things, petty things, were coming to mind; spurred by a creeping mist of envy. That’s when the memories of the writing course I took in 2003 came to my rescue.

Dick Wimmer began the class the way he starts his novel, Irish Wine: the Trilogy(Penguin Books. 2001), the required “text” for the course. He described writing as a thrilling car chase of ceaseless pursuits, driven by a passionate necessity to create something that never existed before. He believed that the desire to write grows with the writing, and that with practice, it becomes as natural as breathing. He spray painted symphonic allusions and impressionist metaphors throughout his provocative course introduction. His demands were simple, and rules short. In the 7 weeks remaining, we were to produce a short story (or a goodly portion of one) by writing a single-page, and reading it in class each week. As little as that may seem now, the pressure of producing, and reading aloud, one page of written material a week resulted in restless nights for me, and over half of our classmates dropping out. The remaining 10 students stuck it out to the end. Even though a mandated syllabus was distributed on the first day, listing the weekly topics, lectures, and assignments, Wimmer never followed it in the succeeding meetings. I must admit that watching him “work”, from my perspective as a professional educator and school administrator, set off a cacophony of pinball machine klacks, dings, chimes, and alarms in my mind. As a teacher, he never really “taught” in a didactic manner, the way one remembers their Western Civ class, with a traditional stand-up lecturer. In fact, Dick didn’t WORK at all; he seemed to assume the role of head writer in a T.V. series writing team of neophytes. He would walk in, dressed in white Bermuda shorts, Hawaiian shirt, and wearing sock less loafers. He lounged back in his chair, listened to us read our weekly creations, and then ask questions. He never gave overt suggestions, or recommendations, and he never criticized or critiqued our work. About the only DIRECTED action he took, was asking an Irish émigré student to read a selection of HIS stories, so we could hear the effect of his brogue on the words and descriptions. It took me a long time to fully appreciate Dick’s approach to writing and what he was offering us in his class. In essence, we practiced his two major tenets: 1) Writers write, they don’t go to classes to learn how to do it; and 2) Writers don’t criticize other writers, they learn from them.

e neHBy the end of the course, I produced a naively ambitious, short story, and learned that the point of reading and listening to the works of others is to learn from them, and grow as a writer; not criticize, teardown, and diminish their efforts. I especially liked the work of one student in the class, and I assume he found something intriguing in my work as well. He struck up a conversation about my story one night after class, and a casual friendship developed. Steve is a bear of a man, with the soul of a poet, whose stories got my full attention the first time I heard and read them. His rhythmically flowing narratives and colorful similes were vivid and fresh. He could string words and phrases together in such a natural way that I was compelled to see, smell, and hear the sights, sounds, and actions he was describing. When he read aloud, his soft, smoky country accent also reminded me of other American writers who evoked uniquely southern images: warm Georgian nights on backyard verandas; forests of gossamer-like Spanish moss swaying from ancient elms in Savannah orchards, and reverential drinking reunions of old high school buddies, hoisting shots of 40 year old sipping Bourbon. But appreciation wasn’t the first emotion I felt at reading and hearing Steve’s unique style of writing and expression – my first response was envy. I wished I could write like that, and sound like that. I wanted to combine words, and use them the way he did. However, this wasn’t a corrosive jealousy that consumed and poisoned me; it was a prod to do better.

Thinking of my old writing course and the people I met there, gave me a much better perspective on my feelings about Dervala’s writing. I’d broken Dick Wimmer’s second tenet because I’d forgotten the purpose of professional jealousy. I believe this type of envy is the correct emotion to feel as a writer when confronted with better (or different) writing. It’s the magnetic attraction drawing us to the true North of real talent. If I’m envious, the writer must be very good, and there is something in their style and technique that I want to emulate and absorb into my own. Dervala’s writing is very good. She has that free flowing narrative style that is comfortable to read and picturesque in its clarity. I plan on reading many more of her blogs (personal essays), and hope to learn from them. Her techniques are easier to spot than the elaborate efforts of more polished essayists – like Joan Didion. Didion is great! I’m envious of her too.