Some New Poetic Speakers

Lately, the speakers in my writing (in my poetry, especially) have been feisty. Feisty and pissed off and not afraid to let everyone know it. In a recent poem, I have the speaker mailing back a blanket to an ex-lover, after a cat has given birth to six kittens on it. In another, Enya goes out the window to be replaced by Green Day shaking the neighbors’ walls. (For the record, I actually like Enya. Part of my childhood and new age-y aunt influences.) I don’t know where they’re coming from, these angsty, taking-no-shit, (and I think) very frustrated females. Because they’re distinctively female in my mind. (I’m still waiting for a good male speaker to show up, he’s there, just very deep and very quiet for now.)

Maybe one cause can be attributed to a quote I saw on Tumblr recently, taken from Scott Lynch’s Republic of Thieves that went thusly:

A boy may be as disagreeable as he pleases, but when a girl refuses to crap sunshine on command, the world mutters darkly about her moods.

I dabble in feminist readings/articles–I’d like to get more into it, the way some of my friends are. They know stuff. I know a little bit. I’m taking a Women’s Literature course this semester which has been phenomenal. Our white Western male perspective frustrates me, as much as I  know there are so many people working to bring new perspectives, new voices into the mainstream. It feels like swimming upstream–changing centuries of history. Sometimes it’s  hard to identify it in yourself–I caught myself wondering if I should post one of the more vengeful poems on Tumblr. Well hey, I said. The speakers in your poems aren’t you. If people read them as you, well, tough. And why be apologetic for having an angry female speaker? Buck up, buttercup. I posted them.

Another cause might be one of my female professors talking about how some of her male colleagues don’t understand why walking alone to the parking lot after her late class makes her nervous.

“Women really worry about that kind of stuff?” one asked.

Deep, deep sigh.

Here’s a third for possible female speaker frustration: in the last two months, various family/family friends (including my mother) have asked if I’m in a relationship, if I’ve “found” anyone yet, and expressed anywhere from mild surprise to profound shock at hearing that I am not, nor am I looking that hard. (My mom hastily countered her response with, “Well good. Don’t settle,” but there’s still a little bit of asdjf;kajs;sjdsa panic there too behind her eyes.)

And lastly, In the latest InStyle magazine, Jennifer Lawrence was interviewed and the journalist made the mistake of asking if “Have you given any thought to having kids?” The following scene ensues:

Her eyes go dull. “I love kids and I hope I have kids someday, but not now,” she recites.
“So you’d like to fall in love and have some babies? Any immediate plans?”

She glares at me. I’m reminded of her character in Winter’s Bone the scene where she’s showing her two younger siblings how to skin a squirrel and pull out the guts. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she says. (InStyle, December 2013)

I gave a giant eyeroll at the interviewer’s question. Like, really? REALLY? Lawrence’s response cheered me up though–I think I’m going to start using that tactic. I don’t want to talk about it. I have other, more important things to do than answer nosy questions about my relationship status, thank you. I also dislike that this question had to come up. It was unfortunately inevitable and I was waiting for it, and sure enough. Ta-da.

So yeah, I guess it makes sense that the female speakers in my poems are a little on edge. Kind of fed-up with the gooey romance stuff and the six rows in Walmart dedicated to make-up and other beauty products, and that so much of society is oblivious to the pressures put on women, 21st century notwithstanding. I’m lucky–I have some incredible male friends, my father identifies as a feminist, and I go to a pretty liberal school. But I repeat: I’m lucky.

At any rate: be on the look-out for some feisty speakers in the next few weeks. They’re here and they are loud.

The Countdown

The wind was changing, like the weather was making one final attempt at spring cleaning the sharper gusts of winter away. I don’t know what woke me, but I know I never sleep well when the seasons change. It’s like the universe shifts a little and small seismic ripples shudder through our conscious world in ways that only our unconscious can feel.

It was 5 am, I guessed, but I’d accidentally unplugged my iHome the night before and never bothered to change the clock back to the right time, so a fluorescent 11:04 blinked back at me. I could see the basketball court slivered from between my blinds, in a sort of strangled bluish post-dawn light. So barely morning then. The trees waved frantic newly green arms into the gray sky. I rolled over, back into patchwork dreams. 

**

I wake up with word fragments stitched somewhere between my ears, heavy and repetitive on my tongue in the morning. Ideas, or dreams of ideas, or maybe even just dreams flutter around my head like lost birds, trying to signal.

It’s the end and it’s the beginning. Sixteen days left to go (officially) in the semester, and twelve for me. My parents are coming to get me early and I’m both dashing towards that deadline and running away. I’m not ready to be a junior, but I mark my time in oddly significant ways and the words “junior” flash a myriad of things that make sense to no one but me in front of my eyes. I gain so much: a house, a TA position, an internship, classes I love. I’m trying not to think about the things I’ll lose: one of my best friends, being able to laugh off things like job hunts and grad school applications, regular Starbucks study sessions. Words start to bubble up and over my throat and then get squashed and swallowed back down, sitting wrong in my windpipe.

I am terrible with goodbyes. (I’m terrible with change, in general.) My goodbyes will be short and (bitter)sweet in person,  but I’ll mourn in writing for awhile. I’m trying to reconfigure my senses now, get everything in order in my head, accept change and loss as part of the whole cycle of life and living. Winter has to come to make spring more beautiful. I forgot the  fullness of green trees and how much color does me good.

I glanced at my calendar today and was half-surprised to see that finals began next week. I’ll be writing my final exams in a week. Part of me understood that saying I had twelve days left meant that I would, conceivably, be writing final exams within the next week or so, but a larger part didn’t quite succeed in connecting the dots. This year has moved so fast. I realized we were done with first semester in January and was disgusted to realize that it was already March  during second semester.  In some ways, I feel like I’ve been walking through this semester in a state of lucid dreaming. Where did the time go? Even as I wrote final exams for fall semester, I didn’t understand that I was halfway done with sophomore year. I’m sure I’ll be home for a week before I realize I’m actually on summer holidays (another summer of wearing white and black and smiling prettily for the more entitled). But this summer promises good things too–a week in Cape Cod and Boston with one of my best friends from home, a week in Maine, and hopefully a week or so in NYC and Long Island, visiting friends. One of my German friends will be in Cooperstown for a month, on “exchange”. I am going to write and write and write and submit and write more and amass rejection letters by the dozens, and maybe just maybe, get one lucky break.

The seasons are changing. Change, change, you lovely dread.

**

I woke up five minutes before my alarm clock hissed and shook on my bedside table, almost knocking off the bottle of water I’d precariously perched on the edge before I went to bed. The bluish dawn light had settled into a fine light gray, with skinny lines of buttercup yellow trying to get through. The weatherman said they were fighting a losing battle. But you never knew with Geneseo weather, it was always in flux. You could stand up by the gazebo and watch stormclouds roll in across the valley and estimate how long you had to get into a building before the storm came. Or you could be getting drenched and see sun stretch out over the valley and have hope that maybe you wouldn’t squish to your next class. 

I hit snooze three times, even though I was already awake. I didn’t have to get up (not absolutely) until 8:30, so I was going to lie in bed and lazily check my email and the three Words With Friends games that I was in the process of losing very badly. It was no lazy Sunday morning in bed, with a book and tea, but Monday mornings have a sort of briskness and business to them, even if you do hit snooze three times. 

My roommate came back from the shower, towing bathrobe and shower caddy. Time to actually get up. On cue as always, my alarm clock whirred annoyingly for the fourth time, like an irate stuck bug. I sat up and promptly fell forward, face buried in my blankets. So much for successfully getting up. The alarm clock still whirred behind me and I silenced it, finally hopping down from my bed. Feet have made solid contact with the ground. No going back now, to the blessedly foggy No Man’s Land between dreams and waking.

Second to last Monday morning. The countdown to summer has started in my head. Here we go. Twelve more days. 

Thought Fragments

I have netted about 12 hours of sleep in the last three days, but I feel like Hercules, digging his way out of the piles of shit stored up in the Aegean stables. I wanted to write something nice tonight, because of this weather–

The night descended, wet and shiny and sullen. March was still prancing around, shaking its mane and roaring every now and then, to remind us that spring was not quite here yet. Hiccups of snow fell from sunny skies every now and then, just to keep things from getting too boring.

I wrote that last night, and then got disgusted and shut my computer off. I’ve had my no-fucks face on all day, but surprisingly, I feel like I’m a nicer person when I’m sleep-deprived and glazy-eyed. Maybe because I’m trying a little harder to not go on a horrific rampage, but also because being tired enough to fall asleep at any given moment is equivalent to being drunk. (One of my professors called me sleep-drunk and told me I shouldn’t operate motor vehicles. Apparently, it was that obvious. Well, good.) I, at least, lose some inhibitions when super tired. My tolerance for horsepucky (credit for that goes to one of my friends who keeps churning out all these unusual, funny words that I’ve never heard before) goes way down. I don’t try as hard to be anything or anyone, because I’m focusing mostly on funneling as much coffee into my face as possible, and also not tripping over myself. (I got stuck in a door today and sloshed coffee all down my poetry application for upper-level workshops. Oops.) A few friends and I had a 137 comment thread on Facebook (I’m sorry everyone who got sucked into seeing that) last night–I don’t think any of us have had much sleep this week. It’s been a week of exhaustion and straight up willpower. A lot of coffee too, but that’s nothing new. And sandwiched between all the stress and papers to write and duties to the larger world, I’ve had fragments of thought too, things I save for rainy-days when I can settle down in a window seat with a cup of tea and my grandmother’s oversized sweater.

I banged out a creative non-fiction piece in a day and had anxiety dreams last night. I have a tendency to overthink things. I forget that people are often a lot less complicated than I think they are. I’ve been thinking a lot about coincidence lately. How people meet. How small encounters can change your life. How sometimes prayer is answered in the most backhanded ways. Also about safe, beautiful, untouchable boys, and how I feel about that. I rarely manage to slow my brain down enough for me to understand. I think about roads not taken and versions of me that I might have been, but now will never be. I think a lot about the constant striving to be a better person, to question the world more intensely, to love more, to get out there and really feel. To give more of myself away than I take from others. I think about what it means to be a good person and how some of the best people I know constantly tell me what terrible people they are. Humility, too, I struggle with. It’s easy for me to get wrapped up in my pride, tangled up like Christmas lights not properly put away. There’s been things I’ve had to agree to disagree with my mother on lately. The gay rights issue. Birth control. When I complain about intolerant people, she reminds me that we live in a country of free speech and I have no more right to take that away from them, than I have the right to express my beliefs. You say you’re so open-minded, she tells me, well then. Act like it. It colors our human experience. I think a lot about what it is to fall in love and how maybe you never really know what it is til you’re there. (I’ve seen a lot of engagements on Facebook lately–I’m reaching that age where the wedding invitations will be rolling in soon.) A friend recently told me I had to stop being so stubborn and I said I wasn’t. I’m a pragmatist, I said. I don’t believe these sorts of things happen to people like me. I’ll see it when I believe it. But I think of my other friend, who found the girl she wants to spend the rest of her life with, and I will dance at her wedding with wings on my feet, and it’s people like them who keep me wishing on dark night skies and the first flowers of spring.  I think if you find someone you want to spend the rest of your life with, whether or not they are male or female, then my God, you’ve found something most people spend their lives searching for. I don’t see the problem.

But enough deep thoughts. I’m off to go cuddle with my bed (finally) and perhaps actually sleep for at least one night this week. But just some thoughts for the universe at large.

xx

Happy *cough* Winter *sniffle* Holidays!

It’s the second full day of break.

I woke up at 12:20 pm, still sniffly and congested, but with the feeling that my immune system was just cleaning out, not waging war. I also woke up with the ferocious desire to bake. Pancakes, jammy muffins, cookies, brownies, etc., etc., had almost tantalized me out of bed, before I realized no one in my house probably wanted me anywhere close to their food.

The desire to get out of bed suddenly vanished.

The desire to bake has not. I’m considering if showering, doing laundry, and putting on real people clothes will convince my suspicious father that I am indeed well (ignore the hacking) and germ-free (disregard also the tissue box I bring downstairs with me) and able to bake. Hey, if I can go to work tomorrow and wrap a bajillion gifts for kiddies, I can probably bake a thing of muffins. The heat from the oven will burn off most of the germs? Right?

I also know my dad, who is twenty times more logical than me, and who will give me that nasty scientific glare, and ban me from the kitchen. Sigh.

On the other hand, I’m supposed to address twenty Christmas cards (we’re uh…always a little late on that) and otherwise function like a normal person. (My mom’s a nurse: if I’m not bleeding out, throwing up, or seizing, sympathy is hard to get in my house.) I get one day of death (I slept the entire day yesterday) and now enough is enough.

(Last night, when I emerged from my room at 10 pm, both my parents went–more or less in unison–“It lives!!!” You see what I put up with.)

There are a million errands I should be doing today–paying off my spring semester bill, going to replace my debit card (BECAUSE FUN FACT, on the last day of finals, with my head cold, I walked away from the ATM machine without retrieving my card, how stupid can I be), and starting on some of the editing for GREAT Day (heyy, internship!). What will probably end up happening is the functionality of me behaving as a real person will probably extend to me showering and putting on clean clothes, signing Christmas cards, giving proof of life to my dad, eating, and then slogging back upstairs for another nap, to the disgust of both parents later on this evening.

I’m a disgusting creature, I know.

But I think, given the events of the last two weeks, I deserve a nice coupla days in bed. I fully intend on taking them.

Mabel or Maud

I couldn’t care enough to wake up when I was supposed to.

So I woke up at 11:30 instead of 9:30 and still didn’t want to get out of bed. I would have been very pleased, at that moment, to spend the rest of the day in bed. I didn’t want the obligations to everyone else, I didn’t want to have to put on real clothes, or put on make-up, and I didn’t want to have my shit together.

But you know, as I said before: I am the motherfucking queen at having my shit together. It’s this little part of me that sits as ramrod straight as 19th century women, hands primly crossed in her lap, and who glares at me, over the top of her glasses. It’s the part of me that inevitably makes me put on my big girl panties and sexy boots and makes me kick some ass. (Her name is still floating between Mabel and Maud.)

(See this photo for reference.)

And today, that part of me informed my larger self that I was done wallowing, however much I was enjoying it.

“Stop feeling so sorry for yourself,” Mabel or Maud snapped. “You’re feeling entitled to sleeping away your feelings and shutting yourself off from society. And furthermore, eating all those feelings is going to make you fat. You are not entitled to any of these things. You’re becoming insufferable. You’ve been wallowing for three days. No one likes seeing you like this. Stop being a leech on humanity and get your shit together.”

She’s kind of a bitch, if I haven’t mentioned that already.

So I actually put on real pants today–I know most of the general populace does not consider leggings pants–and a real shirt. I put make-up on. I curled my hair. I put boots on, instead of sneakers.

I got my “Fuck you” face on, and started, however willingly, getting my shit together. No more wallowing. Normal me is making a comeback. You can thank Mabel or Maud–and pick a name for her too, while you’re at it–and I’m still accepting all hugs and donations of candy. (I will eat my feelings if I want to, eff you Mabel or Maud, you don’t have to truck up the hill to work every morning.)

The queen is coming back, for a hellbent spring semester.

😀

Miscellaneous Thoughts That Make Me Cackle

1. So, because my life is just a series of awkward events that snowball, I can never have minor mental breakdowns in private. Nope. My friend and I–who have netted about seventeen hours in Starbucks over the last three days–actually lost it today in a public place. We started uncontrollably laughing and couldn’t stop. It’s either lack of sleep or the gargantuan quantities of coffee we’ve consumed in the last 36 hours. Welcome to the last three weeks of the semester. Hi hell, nice to know you look like essays and exams and absolutely no fucking spare time.

The cause of our breakdown can actually be attributed to a rather unfortunate sestina that our group wrote as part of our poetry presentation on Friday. The class that we’re taking I really like–it’s the highlight of my week–and the professor is hilarious. Well, our sestina ended up being about the class, specifically: our professor. Specifically: the oddities of the class. Mrphm. We went in to clear the sestina with him, originally intending to share it in class. We couldn’t tell if he was offended or hurt or exactly what he thought of it, and after we left, I, naturally, began to panic.

“WHAT IF WE HURT HIS FEELINGS. WAIT, WHAT IF HE’S REALLY OFFENDED, BUT HE DOESN’T WANT TO TELL US. WAIT. WHAT IF WE CROSSED THE LINE? WAIT. WHAT IF…”

And so on.

This continued for about forty-five minutes, with continued profession of what bad life choices we make.

“Did we do a bad thing?!?!?!!?”

This resulted in a panicked, overly apologetic, and concerned email from both us, concerning the bloody poem. He wrote back, saying he wasn’t offended, but in between, we broke down into the aforementioned hysterical laughter.

2. The fact that most of the baristas in Starbucks don’t even ask for my name anymore. If anyone needs to ever find me, a really, really, really good guess of where to find me would be in Starbucks.

3. It’s one of the best parts of winter. I like December. It’s a gifting month. It’s also my birthday month, so I’m already partial. One of my favorite parts of Christmas is shopping for Christmas gifts that I know people are going to like. I just like gifting in general–I love watching people’s faces when they open a gift. Especially when I know I’ve got it spot on. It’s even better when they’re not expecting it. For instance: one of my friends’ birthdays is today and I got him a coffee mug with multiple kinds of mustaches on it. The look on his face when he opened it was extremely gratifying. So was my roommate’s face when she opened her birthday gift, which happened to be fuzzy socks. (Every college student loves fuzzy socks. Let’s be real.)

4. I am also the proud possessor of a fleece Disney princess blanket, made for me by my suitemate’s mom. She made everyone in our suite one, with our respective Disney princess. I’m obsessed with it.

5. I plan to spend most of Christmas break  starting Downton Abbey/catching up on the rest of my TV shows and reading books for FUN. (I know, what a concept.)

6. EVERYTHING IS DUE in the next three days. I accept the challenge. Three things are making this bearable: coffee, Michael Buble crooning Christmas music in my ear, and The Last Five Years soundtrack.

Time to get back to my essay revisions. Happy mid-week! 🙂

 

 

That awkward moment when….

….being a real person is much too difficult.

I’m currently in plaid sweatpants (…I know) with a crazy granny bun with a Kool Aid bottle in my mouth. No one can actually see me right now (HA, SECOND FLOOR, TAKE THAT), so my inner crazy is finally coming out.

My theory is that if I at least look put-together/functional, I’ll fool everyone else. I will also feel better about myself when I start capering backstage and doing Bartok voices over headset with my fellow stage manager.

On Monday, after getting home at 3 am, I crawled out of my hole and drank 54 ounces of iced coffee, allowing me to be upright and semi-functional. (Although admittedly, the chats over headset got rullll weird, sorry lighting booth.)

My ridiculous professor walked into class to see me on me face down on my desk, clutching a 30 oz. cup of coffee. He was extra nice to me after class when I scheduled an appointment for office hours; I think he was treating the crazy girl with extra caution.

On Tuesday, I called into work at 3 am (well, I emailed into work…) and still somehow managed to be five minutes late for class–a class I had skipped on Thursday, whoops–earning a death glare from my professor. She’s actually the nicest lady ever, which made the death glare so much more awful.

I think my quote of the day was: “You do realize that my gift to humanity today is that I both bathed and put clothes on, right?”

(And that I put deodorant on. You’re welcome. Thank me later.)

The thing is, I definitely don’t have it nearly as bad as the performers. I’m not actually expected to do anything but raise and lower the curtain (more about that particular topic in a minute), call light cues, sweep the stage, time rehearsals, and make weird faces from Stage Right over to Stage Left. They’re actually the ones who are out under the lights singing and dancing and sweating and doing work.

About the curtain.

Two fantastic fail moments.

One. First time using the curtain. I was given a quick crash course about ten minutes before–and I mean, come on. It’s raising and lowering a curtain. How hard can that be? WELL IF YOU’RE ME…

I’m up on the curtain catwalk, literally jumping onto the rope, trying to make my weight move the curtain.

“Wait. I can’t actually be this weak. I know my upper body strength is like non-existent, but it’s just a goddamn curtain. Yes, I know there are weights on it, but there’s not that many weights on it…”

So follows the internal conversation I had with myself while hopping up and down trying to get this stupid curtain down. Someone had to be sent up to help me, whereupon it was revealed that I had not released the lock that held the curtain.

Good Amy. Good.

Moment two.

Top of the run tonight and the officer number is called and I am cued from Stage Left to bring the curtain up. Except that I’m pulling down and the curtain is pooling on the stage.

“OTHER. WAY.”

“Ah shit.”

I am awesome at life.

Can we also talk about how I have no printer balance left? I destroyed not only mine, but my suitemate’s printer balance, meaning I printed about $60 worth of material this semester? Fuck me. English major problems.

Also the fact that I’ve been averaging one meal a day and 24+ ounces of coffee is a little ridiculous. I’m okay with it.

Also, for anyone in the SUNY Geneseo area, you should come see MTC: (Musical Theatre Club) Awesome Show, Great Job! It runs Thursday (11/15), Friday (11/16), and Saturday (11/17) at 8 pm, and admission is free! Come at 6:15 to get tickets in the Alice Austin Theatre, located in Brodie Hall.

Writing Fiction

Can I make a teeny-weeny confession here?

Okay.

Writing is exhausting.

I have a fiction piece to write that I’ve been whining about for the better part of a week. I’m probably making it a lot harder than it actually is. I mean, come on, all I’m doing is making stuff up, right?

HAHAHAHAHA.

Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

I’ve been writing creative non-fiction for so long that the idea of writing fiction, real, pure, unadulterated fiction is/was terrifying. Wait, you mean I actually have to come up with something completely original? Ah, crap.

I am, among other things, a professional staller. As such,  I sat in my corner of the common room and sipped on my peppermint mocha. Checked Facebook. Checked Tumblr and Flickr for inspiration. Checked my email. Twice, on each account. Decided I was hungry. Got up and made dinner. Washed dishes. Came back, glared balefully at my computer. Flipped through old short stories I’d started and never finished. Resisted urge to bang head against wall repeatedly. Contemplated napping. Realized I was stalling. Also realized that I was scraping the bottom of a dry, dusty, empty barrel.

“HELP MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE,” I wrote to a friend, desperation making its presence known in all caps and the excessive amount of “e’s”. “I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO WRITE ABOUTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT.”

(I get so whiny about writer’s block. I feel like it’s like that awkwardly over-opinionated relative that makes conversation just die. It’s this little voice in my head that says: “All you ever write about are the same things. Wow, you suck. You’re so unimaginative. Get some scope. What do you know about writing? You’re twenty years old. Hang on, you’re not actually even twenty years old. Stop lying to yourself. Wow, why haven’t you written more? This is due on Tuesday. You should be writing. What are you waiting for? Get your shit together.”)

“Write about me,” he joked. (I think he was joking.)

And our conversation evolved into this wonderful storytime and suddenly all these images just started flooding my mind. All the stories about growing up and childhood were somehow turning into a plotline, and I wasn’t moving fast enough to catch them and pin them down.

And now I’m halfway through my second vignette of this fiction piece and feeling slightly overwhelmed. There’s so much great material to work with. There’s so much I could do and so many places to go with it. There’s also this overarching, elusive sentiment that I want to capture, and I’m not sure how I’m going to do that actually. But I know it’s not going to be a good piece until I get that sentiment down on paper.

So first, I’m floundering in nothing and now I’m floundering in too much. (Although admittedly, I’d rather be floundering in the latter.)  And instead of writing the fiction piece, I am of course, stalling. By blogging about writing the fiction piece.

Woe betide anyone who says writing is easy.

“Oh you’re just an English major.”

I will drop you where you stand without a shred of remorse. And then I will probably write about you in horrible, scathing, writerly terms, and have my vengeance.

So, anyways.

Back to this fiction piece.

Shitty First Drafts

I was holding back a wince the whole time I delivered my monologue.

As my external monologue was being delivered, an internal one was going at warp speed. It wasn’t as eloquent as my external monologue, but it was perhaps a little more profound.

“Ah fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.”

I ended. Kicked my wince in the shins, told it to wait until I got back to my seat.

My professor opened his mouth and said exactly what I knew he was going to say.

“It’s a very nice creative writing piece. Very Plathian. It’s not a monologue.”

It wasn’t like I hadn’t been expecting it. I’d even warned him before class, in a horribly defensive attempt to make him understand that I couldn’t help doing this, making prose into poetry, while knowing quite well, that I could indeed help it. Moreover, I should have helped it.

“Cut out some of the description,” he continued. “You don’t need that.”

The wince must finally have escaped its prison to emerge on my face, because he backtracked  a little.

“You write well,” he said. “You have a good mastery of the English language. But this is a monologue. People don’t talk like this.”

I talk like this, I thought resentfully, as I sat down. My friends even say I talk like this. I’m an English major, a Creative Writing major no less, what do you want from me?

I started in with my black pen during class, grimacing as I cut out poetic, flowery bits I especially liked, but knew had no place. I was killing my baby.

And somewhere around my third runthrough of the piece, I realized something. It shouldn’t have been so overwhelmingly gratifying, but it was.

I had written a truly shitty first draft.

I mean, granted, it was a decent enough creative writing piece. But it was a shitty ass monologue. I forgot that in monologues, you can show things using your body. Using your voice. You’re acting, for God’s sake; no one is sitting down and reading this like a novel.

I started grinning a little.

I had written a truly shitty first draft.

It was electrifying. I could pick a few good pieces out of the wreck that was now my monologue, and by God, I could write a damn good revision. There was hope for me yet.

I went for a run after class, aware of the duality:  numbing cold on my skin and the inner, core warmth. It was a nice day (for November), at the bare minimum, the sun was shining. The early evening air sucked the warmth from my breath, sent cold air whooshing down my lungs, making me cough. I tuned out as I ran down the hill past Welles, eyeballing the sinking sun, and thought about shitty first drafts and how they get us to something really good.

Sometimes, you have to fail really horribly at something, to understand how to make it work. To understand what you’re doing wrong and how to fix it. There are always surprising, redeeming gems in the trash of your shitty first draft, that you can pull out and make a better second draft from.

I plan on banging out a really shitty first draft of a fiction piece tonight. I haven’t written fiction, real fiction, in a very, very long time. But I have a fiction piece due in Creative Writing next Tuesday, which means I should start my word vomiting, and see what comes out of that. Maybe just that one line I was talking about last night, that one line at the very end of my fifth paragraph that I’m going to end up using in my actual fiction piece, maybe that’s all I’m going to get out of this shitty first draft.

But that’s a start. Line by line. Bird by bird, as Anne Lamott says. Line by line.

“Sit your ass down and write.”

In her book,  Bird by Bird : Some Instructions on Writing and Life, Anne Lamott tells us to sit our asses down and write consistently, at the same time every day, for at least a little while. I am a college student. By default, my appointed hour seems to be around 11 pm, after all my homework is done, and before all the dinner dishes are washed. (It’s my dish night.)

I was slightly afraid of declaring that I was going to write every day for a month. It feels too much like I’m going to jinx it. I guess I forget that I don’t have to write one thousand word wonders every day. I just have to write. It’ll probably be a lot of shitty first drafts. A lot of word vomit. But maybe four days out of the thirty, I’m going to write something brilliant. Or even just good. Or I’m going to write a sentence I really like, that I’m going to think about before I go to bed at night, that I’m going to dream about, and that I’m going to come back to in the morning. Or I’m going to meet someone who will tell me an interesting story, or I may beg, borrow, and steal stories from the lives of my friends and professors and acquaintances.

I will try not to get cynical and bitter about the winter weather as November wears in.

I will also try not to get cynical and bitter about the topic of love, which, apparently, I’m becoming, if anyone takes a look at the monologue I just wrote for Acting I, or actually, hey, a lot of the pieces I’ve written lately. One of my friends was notoriously relationship-shy, and she just accepted the fact that she’s in  relationship, and she gave me The Look, a couple of days ago.

“You know,” she said, sort of ominously, “the minute you accept that you’re going to be perfectly okay by yourself for the rest of your life, is when he’s going to show up.”

I chased her out the door and shut it firmly behind her.

Which I think says quite a bit, right there. I like ideals. I like the idea of being in love. I like ideas much more than real people, I think.

So that rant, I suppose, was something that has been bothering me for a couple of days. That sneaking suspicion, as bright-eyed as the mice that run around my kitchen at night, that I don’t quite want to admit to myself. And that’s part of sitting my ass down and writing.

Admitting things to yourself.

Getting it out.

Transforming negativity into art.

The paper and pen are the two greatest confessors I’ve ever known.