Tell all the Truth

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I first encountered what is now one of my favorite Emily Dickinson poems in a class I took on memoir writing. Here’s the short, two-stanza poem:

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
 
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —

 

I’ve found that “tell it slant” has been great advice for me as a writer.

In argumentative writing, it means I don’t always come out with my argument from the gate. If you start with your argument (i.e. we need strong gun control) you can sometimes lose all hope of persuading an audience who doesn’t always agree with you. From the start they already know they disagree with you, whereas if you use a point last structure, you can start on common ground and at least get your audience to listen to you.

In creative writing, to me “tell it slant” means to focus on craft and character and dialogue, to not be overly didactic with whatever “truth” I think I know, to let both characters and my readers figure things out on their own, and allow them to learn their own lessons, which may or may not be what I had originally intended.

The book Tell it Slant takes its title from Emily Dickinson’s poem, explaining, “she meant, we think, that truth takes on many guises; that the truth of art can be very different than the truth of day-to-day life” (2).  The authors go on to quote Salman Rushdie:

Literature is where I go to explore the highest and lowest places in human society and in the human spirit, where I hope to find not absolute truth but the truth of the tale, of the imagination and of the heart. (3)

I hope that I can learn to tell the truth in my writing, to speak to the imagination and to the heart.

Writing is Like…

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The idea wasn’t originally mine–as is common in the writing classroom, I borrowed it from another teacher. Every semester, on the first day of class, each of my students has to complete the metaphor “Writing is Like…”

I’ve now heard hundreds of metaphors, many of them involving pain and suffering–for freshmen taking a required general education writing class, writing is often like opening a jar full of cockroaches. Or writing is like wandering, endlessly, in a maze that, well, never ends.

For me, writing is like a great many things, and I’ll share some of these metaphors over the coming weeks. But first, I’ll start with the one I share on the first day of class every semester.

Writing is like walking on a bed of coals, and then finding oneself on a tropical beach.

Yes, writing can be painful. I force out words and sentences that frustrate me–they’re poorly built, they’re not headed in the right direction, and sometimes, they’re simply the wrong words for the situation, a defilement of the empty page. Sometimes I burn myself while writing.

But my metaphor is more complex than that. According to Wikipedia, firewalking has been seen “as a test of an individual’s strength and courage”; this too is true with writing. And just like firewalking, in practice writing is not as painful as it looks: while I’ve never tried firewalking, apparently “the amount of time the foot is in contact with the ground is not enough to induce a burn” and “embers are not good conductor of heat.” In other words, writing doesn’t have to be painful.

Last February I watched a show featuring firewalking near the beach in Oahu, Hawaii. In the same way, when I’ve finished writing something, especially something that challenges my skills and creates something of worth, I feel like I’m vacationing on a tropical island.

What do you think? Is writing painful for you? Do you find anything redemptive about it?

 

Photo Credit: Aidan Jones, Creative Commons license

This page called Metaphors about Writing has links to all the other posts I’m writing in this series.

The Hardest Thing in the World

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Writing is the hardest thing in the world.

I didn’t think that when I started writing at the age of 5, but I often think that now. Some days, I feel like I’m pulling my toe nails out (don’t spend too much time visualizing it) simply to write 500 words.

My daughter is 6 weeks old, so I’m officially past “maternity leave.” Which means I’m back to the grind on my steampunk novel. Every day I must write at least 500 words. It’s not very much, and once I hit the 500 mark it often gets easier to write another 200 or 400 words. But it’s something I have to force myself to do, to push through on a daily basis. Since I’m at 15,000 words, if I keep it up, I’ll easily be done with this draft by the end of February, and potentially by the end of January.

I much prefer when I have a full draft and I get to revise, even though I know I’ll be rewriting most sentences.

But I should stop stalling. I’ve written 330 words, and have 170 words more to go before I’m allowed to go to bed. I even know what I’m going to write–I just have to buckle down and do it.

Dreams: A Haiku

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Lay your dreams in sand

Pretty patterns, bright colors.

Then watch them wash away.

 

Photo credit: penelopejonze

Living the Dream (of Homemaking and Motherhood)

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A few nights ago, I had a very vivid dream which involved me reading a pile of books to my toddler. I mentioned the dream to my friend Shann, and added, “And I’ve read a lot of books to Myra today.”

Without a moment’s hesitation, Shann replied, “You’re living the dream!”

(Photo by Marissa Strniste)

Many visuals and many roles come to mind with the phrase “Living the Dream,” and typically being a mother is not one of them. You might picture a tropical island, fame, riches, or a relaxing lifestyle. Or, like in the song from the film Tangled, achieving a lofty goal (becoming a concert pianist, collecting ceramic unicorns, crafting a fulfilling career in interior design, or traveling outside of the limits of your current experience).

Recently, several of my high school friends have become very successful in the business world. It’s led me to consider the question, “What would I do if I had millions of dollars?”

For one, I’d buy all the expensive, foreign cheeses I wanted, and we could afford to go on more dates. I’d also raise my book budget, which is currently capped at $10 a month. Oh yes, and I’d buy a house. With a lawn mower.

But besides overflowing bookshelves and fridges, how would my life really look different? How would I choose to spend my time?

(Photo by Oberazzi)

After much thought I’ve decided that I would still choose to be a homemaker.

Yes, that means 60+ hours a week changing dirty diapers, cooking meals that will appeal to both adults and toddlers, taping broken objects, and trying to keep the house from descending into chaos. And when my next child is born, that will include spending hours every day breastfeeding and a fair number of sleepless nights.

But those 60+ hours a week also include my daughter bringing me a book, climbing onto my lap, and listening as I tell her stories. It includes singing the alphabet with Myra, taking her on walks, teaching her to enjoy the pool, and playing tickle attack.

It includes precious little moments that happen all the time, if only I choose to notice them. For example, yesterday I found my daughter sitting in the bathtub, fully clothed, waiting for the water to come out. (She had already taken one bath, but was pointing at the faucet saying, “water, water.”)

Another precious moment: my daughter stuck in a cupboard, saying, “Mom. Mom. Mom!”

Am I living the dream?

It’s not the dream I had in high school, that’s for sure. (My answer my senior year when I received the question, “Where will you be in 10 years?” did not include children.)

And it’s still not my only dream.

I have a lot of dreams, from being a published author to becoming accomplished at Chinese calligraphy to designing crochet patterns.

I haven’t touched my bamboo brushes in years–I never have two uninterrupted hours, and toxic paints plus children are a bad combination. I spend time writing, but it’s bits and pieces of free time here and there. I slowly create projects with my yarn, but I still haven’t figured out how to visualize something without a pattern.

These dreams, like many of the other dreams I cherish and love, have been mostly put aside, because of another dream I’m choosing to work on.

I choose to be a homemaker, because I feel it is best for my children, especially in their early years, to have someone to teach them and guide them and take care of them on a constant basis. And while it would make a big difference to our finances and budget if we had two incomes, I’m lucky enough not to have to work.

Right now, being a mother and a homemaker is my most important dream. And like all dreams that are really worthwhile, it requires sacrifices. This year, I’ve struggled with a lot of the sacrifices I’ve had to make. But it’s worth it, because right now I’m living the dream.

 

 

(For a related post, see Guardians of the Hearth.)