#can you tell i love annie dillard's writing?

[emptyshellofanillusionwizard]

I was tagged by @dreamfall to post some quotes for an oc!

These are for Hasim, my Dark Urge from BG3.

tagging: @brother-genitivi @flashhwing @nacrelyses @ysali @shadowchloe and really anyone else who'd like to!

#hasim #dark urge #bg3 #dark urge origin #can you tell i love annie dillard's writing?

[thebemoon]

any advice on how to give up on idea once the shiny new feeling and motivation is gone? I feel like when things get hard I just stop writing it

DON'T GIVE UP!

This happens to me EVERY TIME when writing a long fic. I start out with great energy and everything comes easily, the jokes keep coming and the dialogue flows. Then around Chapter 10 or 20,000 words (whichever comes first) everything grinds to a halt. What happened?

Well, for me, it's time to bring in some plot. I thought I had a plot going, I thought it was okay, but it was weak, it could only take me so far. My idea and vague part was enough to jump start the story, but fades away after 10 chapters. Which is fine -- I needed that crazy spark to get going. But what now?

The writer Annie Dillard said it best:

When you are stuck in a book; when you are well into writing it, and know what comes next, and yet cannot go on; when every morning for a week or a month you enter its room and turn your back on it; then the trouble is either of two things. Either the structure has forked, so the narrative, or the logic, has developed a hairline fracture that will shortly split it up the middle – or you are approaching a fatal mistake. What you had planned will not do. If you pursue your present course, the book will explode or collapse, and you do not know about it yet, quite.

What you have planned will not do, she says. That's my trouble at this point. What I have planned isn't strong enough. But often I don't want to accept that, and so I force myself to keep writing, tell my writing worker bee to keep going. And this happens.

Your worker-your one and only, your prized, coddled, and driven worker – is not going out on that job. Will not budge, not even for you, boss. Has been at it long enough to know when the air smells wrong; can sense a tremor through boot soles. Nonsense, you say; it is perfectly safe. But the worker will not go. Will not even look at the site. Just developed heart trouble. Would rather starve. Sorry.

So what now? Well, I go back and reread the story, from the beginning, making notes along the way. And I look for the energy, the forward momentum. Where does this story want to go?

In my first fanfic, I realized that I wanted to write more than a simple romance. My couple had two choices at this point: to begin a straightforward love affair and I could wrap this whole thing up at 60,000 words -- or they push each other away because both have more growing and developing to do before they get together. There are tons of fascinating characters around them that have barely been introduced. So I had my couple fight rather than kiss and be adversaries rather than lovers, and I brought in another guy (because I adore love triangles) and a mystery (because I love who-dun-its). And the story leaped to life again and charged forward, ending up at about 175,000 words.

Now that story would have been perfectly fine at 60K, and there have been some readers who have pointed out -- with some justification -- that this fic is way too long. But I love it, it's the fic I wanted to write, with everything I wanted to add, and what is fanfic all about if it isn't for fun and self-indulgence?

Hope that helps!

#dramione

[lesamis]

Have you read any good books recently my dear?

hi love, this question actually motivated me to finish a book over the weekend just so that i'd have something to say! i've been quite an unambitious reader these past two months (read: spent all my downtime burning through [redacted] fanfiction to escape the agonies of thesis-writing), but there are two books i've loved a lot this march.

the unbalancing by r.b. lemberg, which an anon & @candlewinds were both kind enough to recommend, and which i finally read through this sunday. it's a special book, and that also makes it difficult to sum up what it's actually about: plot-wise, a romance storyline entangles with a much vaster and more difficult story about a dying world and those who try to save it. thematically, it dives into questions of identity and feeling; permission and responsibility; the possibility of kindness in the face of disaster. it is, i think, more invested in telling than showing in its character work, but also one of the most atmospheric and enchanting novels i've read in a long time. the worldbuilding in this, its idea of culture and community, is stunning and transporting.

teaching a stone to talk, an essay collection by annie dillard, which the very lovely @starkey sent me & which i've nearly finished! i recommend this book very highly and want to push it on everyone. the essays represent quite a range: some are long and challenging (polar exploration/catholicism essay you have brought me to my knees); some, like 'on a hill far away', are rich and quick and delightful, like a fancy dessert. most of the essays investigate aspects of natural observation and environmental witnessing, but it can be easy to forget that, because dillard is kind of a magician in her writing style. something unexpected, a phrase or an association, is always lurking there, ready to wake you up. it's an incredibly rewarding experience to be dazzled by her.

#these two books also worked together very well. both short with some challenging depths that make you drag the reading experience out #to enjoy them a little longer or understand them a little more deeply #next on the list is either strange beasts of china by yan ge or the nutmeg's curse by amitav ghosh! #and i'm always happy for recommendations outside of my v limited purview :') #(limited as in. book-wise i've been very lazy however if you're in need of a categorized and rated index of steddie fics 🙃) #(you need but speak a word. although i sort of hope no one will bc i'm trying to bury this part of myself deep)

[life-observed]

The Moral Peril of Meritocracy

Our individualistic culture inflames the ego and numbs the spirit. Failure teaches us who we are.

April 6, 2019

David Brooks

By David Brooks

Mr. Brooks is an Opinion columnist. This essay is adapted from his forthcoming book, “The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life.”

Many of the people I admire lead lives that have a two-mountain shape. They got out of school, began their career, started a family and identified the mountain they thought they were meant to climb — I’m going to be an entrepreneur, a doctor, a cop. They did the things society encourages us to do, like make a mark, become successful, buy a home, raise a family, pursue happiness.

People on the first mountain spend a lot of time on reputation management. They ask: What do people think of me? Where do I rank? They’re trying to win the victories the ego enjoys.

These hustling years are also powerfully shaped by our individualistic and meritocratic culture. People operate under this assumption: I can make myself happy. If I achieve excellence, lose more weight, follow this self-improvement technique, fulfillment will follow.

But in the lives of the people I’m talking about — the ones I really admire — something happened that interrupted the linear existence they had imagined for themselves. Something happened that exposed the problem with living according to individualistic, meritocratic values.

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Some of them achieved success and found it unsatisfying. They figured there must be more to life, some higher purpose. Others failed. They lost their job or endured some scandal. Suddenly they were falling, not climbing, and their whole identity was in peril. Yet another group of people got hit sideways by something that wasn’t part of the original plan. They had a cancer scare or suffered the loss of a child. These tragedies made the first-mountain victories seem, well, not so important.

Life had thrown them into the valley, as it throws most of us into the valley at one point or another. They were suffering and adrift.

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Some people are broken by this kind of pain and grief. They seem to get smaller and more afraid, and never recover. They get angry, resentful and tribal.

But other people are broken open. The theologian Paul Tillich wrote that suffering upends the normal patterns of life and reminds you that you are not who you thought you were. The basement of your soul is much deeper than you knew. Some people look into the hidden depths of themselves and they realize that success won’t fill those spaces. Only a spiritual life and unconditional love from family and friends will do. They realize how lucky they are. They are down in the valley, but their health is O.K.; they’re not financially destroyed; they’re about to be dragged on an adventure that will leave them transformed.

They realize that while our educational system generally prepares us for climbing this or that mountain, your life is actually defined by how you make use of your moment of greatest adversity.

So how does moral renewal happen? How do you move from a life based on bad values to a life based on better ones?

First, there has to be a period of solitude, in the wilderness, where self-reflection can occur.

“What happens when a ‘gifted child’ findshimself in a wilderness where he’s stripped away of any way of proving his worth?” Belden Lane asks in “Backpacking With the Saints.” What happens where there is no audience, nothing he can achieve? He crumbles. The ego dissolves. “Only then is he able to be loved.”

That’s the key point here. The self-centered voice of the ego has to be quieted before a person is capable of freely giving and receiving love.

Then there is contact with the heart and soul — through prayer, meditation, writing, whatever it is that puts you in contact with your deepest desires.

“In the deeps are the violence and terror of which psychology has warned us,” Annie Dillard writes in “Teaching a Stone to Talk.” “But if you ride these monsters deeper down, if you drop with them farther over the world’s rim, you find what our sciences cannot locate or name, the substrate, the ocean or matrix or ether which buoys the rest, which gives goodness its power for good, and evil its power for evil, the unified field: our complex and inexplicable caring for each other.”

In the wilderness the desire for esteem is stripped away and bigger desires are made visible: the desires of the heart (to live in loving connection with others) and the desires of the soul (the yearning to serve some transcendent ideal and to be sanctified by that service).

When people are broken open in this way, they are more sensitive to the pains and joys of the world. They realize: Oh, that first mountain wasn’t my mountain. I am ready for a larger journey.

Some people radically change their lives at this point. They quit corporate jobs and teach elementary school. They dedicate themselves to some social or political cause. I know a woman whose son committed suicide. She says that the scared, self-conscious woman she used to be died with him. She found her voice and helps families in crisis. I recently met a guy who used to be a banker. That failed to satisfy, and now he helps men coming out of prison. I once corresponded with a man from Australia who lost his wife, a tragedy that occasioned a period of reflection. He wrote, “I feel almost guilty about how significant my own growth has been as a result of my wife’s death.”

Perhaps most of the people who have emerged from a setback stay in their same jobs, with their same lives, but they are different. It’s not about self anymore; it’s about relation, it’s about the giving yourself away. Their joy is in seeing others shine.

In their book “Practical Wisdom,” Barry Schwartz and Kenneth Sharpe tell the story of a hospital janitor named Luke. In Luke’s hospital there was a young man who’d gotten into a fight and was now in a permanent coma. The young man’s father sat with him every day in silent vigil, and every day Luke cleaned the room. But one day the father was out for a smoke when Luke cleaned it.

Later that afternoon, the father found Luke and snapped at him for not cleaning the room. The first-mountain response is to see your job as cleaning rooms. Luke could have snapped back: I did clean the room. You were out smoking. The second-mountain response is to see your job as serving patients and their families. In that case you’d go back in the room and clean it again, so that the father could have the comfort of seeing you do it. And that’s what Luke did.

If the first mountain is about building up the ego and defining the self, the second is about shedding the ego and dissolving the self. If the first mountain is about acquisition, the second mountain is about contribution.

On the first mountain, personal freedom is celebrated — keeping your options open, absence of restraint. But the perfectly free life is the unattached and unremembered life. Freedom is not an ocean you want to swim in; it is a river you want to cross so that you can plant yourself on the other side.

So the person on the second mountain is making commitments. People who have made a commitment to a town, a person, an institution or a cause have cast their lot and burned the bridges behind them. They have made a promise without expecting a return. They are all in.

I can now usually recognize first- and second-mountain people. The former have an ultimate allegiance to self; the latter have an ultimate allegiance to some commitment. I can recognize first- and second-mountain organizations too. In some organizations, people are there to serve their individual self-interests — draw a salary. But other organizations demand that you surrender to a shared cause and so change your very identity. You become a Marine, a Morehouse Man.

I’ve been describing moral renewal in personal terms, but of course whole societies and cultures can swap bad values for better ones. I think we all realize that the hatred, fragmentation and disconnection in our society is not just a political problem. It stems from some moral and spiritual crisis.

We don’t treat one another well. And the truth is that 60 years of a hyper-individualistic first-mountain culture have weakened the bonds between people. They’ve dissolved the shared moral cultures that used to restrain capitalism and the meritocracy.

Over the past few decades the individual, the self, has been at the center. The second-mountain people are leading us toward a culture that puts relationships at the center. They ask us to measure our lives by the quality of our attachments, to see that life is a qualitative endeavor, not a quantitative one. They ask us to see others at their full depths, and not just as a stereotype, and to have the courage to lead with vulnerability. These second-mountain people are leading us into a new culture. Culture change happens when a small group of people find a better way to live and the rest of us copy them. These second-mountain people have found it.

Their moral revolution points us toward a different goal. On the first mountain we shoot for happiness, but on the second mountain we are rewarded with joy. What’s the difference? Happiness involves a victory for the self. It happens as we move toward our goals. You get a promotion. You have a delicious meal.

Joy involves the transcendence of self. When you’re on the second mountain, you realize we aim too low. We compete to get near a little sunlamp, but if we lived differently, we could feel the glow of real sunshine. On the second mountain you see that happiness is good, but joy is better.

#meritocracy #David brooks #spirit #individual #ego #community #love #success #failure #self #culture #happiness #joy

[iwillnotburnmyjournals]

What Are You Doing, Julie??

I made a decision that is vague and formless and without guarantee, and also requires attention, detail, self-awareness, and tirelessness.

I am not working for a month. No day job, no part-time. I am meditating, working through “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron, and writing music for a month. This may sound ideal to some, stupid or entitled or not a big deal to others. One of many motivations for this month was that I recently had a conversation with a friend who had decided to switch from being an actor to going back to school for social work and possibly an eventual law degree. When I asked her why the switch, she responded, “When I really sat down with myself, I just knew I didn’t actually want to spend my energy putting in the kind of work it would take to be an actor. But I’ll always be a performer at heart.”

And I thought, “Good lord, have I ever been that honest with myself about what I want to do?”

For me, this month is a small protest against my denial of past years as well as an experiment. For almost a decade, I have gone through a series of begrudging and slow admittances. At first, I pretended that I just couldn’t find the correct job or career path, I wasn’t sure of what I wanted to do. (This kept concerned adults off my back for a bit). And so I bought myself some time and meandered in a career-malaise for five years after college, working various and multiple jobs, none of them satisfying whatever I was craving. I had an ex tell me I was never going to find what I was looking for – which is laughable considering no one should ever say that to another person, and also considering that I was years away from saying out loud what I actually was looking for.

I wrote two songs in college. Stopped. Started again in 2016 and wrote most of the songs I have now, maybe 10 “finished” – (are they ever fucking finished?) – songs. Stopped. I didn’t write again for three years, but all the while was reading memoirs of artists and musicians, how-to-creativity books while deeply embarrassed that I needed a how-to at all. In 2019, I admitted that I at least wanted to move to New York City so I could be near music, so I could see live shows, so I could perform if I wanted to. I was inching myself closer to the edge, like a little kid who’s still in swimmies inching her way to dip her toes in the deep end. But I still wasn’t writing.

After having a conversation in April with a fellow musician about Charlie Parker locking himself in his apartment for two years to play music for 16 hours a day and do heroin, I said, “Fuck it. I’m tired of saying I want something and not doing anything to move toward it.” It’s easy to think that if you love something enough, you will magically just find a way to do it. This is not the case for me. It seems that I find every excuse I can not to write. When I told a friend a few years ago how writing for me was often like extracting an arrow lodged in my chest and that I ran away from it as much as possible, his response was, “Well, maybe you just shouldn’t write.” I’ve hated that response ever since he voiced it.

Annie Dillard was the one person who gave me permission to realize and admit that I was cripplingly afraid of writing, and rightly so. Her small masterpiece, The Writing Life, is a mortar and pestle to the ego if you’re stuck in the shadowlands of thinking you want to write when all you really want is attention (large neon blinking arrow to my head.) In representing the frustrating, often fruitless, painstaking process of writing, Annie uses the metaphor of an architect who has a sole worker who refuses to work on the architect’s building design, claiming it is faulty. She writes, “Acknowledge, first, that you cannot do nothing . . . Subject the next part, the part at which the worker balks, to harsh tests. It harbors an unexamined and wrong premise. Something completely necessary is false or fatal. Once you find it, and if you can accept the finding, of course it will mean starting again. This is why many experienced writers urge young men and women to learn a useful trade.” I’ve always hated when artistic types say, “If you can do without this [art], you should try.” It’s always seemed egotistical or pejorative to me. But now I get it. The thought of so much self-accountability, starting and failing and having to be one the one who declares you yourself have failed, terrifies me and seems so pointless.

But I really do have masochist in my bloodstream. Whatever terrifies me, I’m a bloodhound for. So, when I realized I kept saying I wanted to be a singer-songwriter while simultaneously sneaking out the backdoor of my brain and action to get away from just that, I figured I should test myself. At least I’ll know whether I’m a total fraud and attention-grabber, or whether this is what I need to do. Bob Dylan’s words that the world doesn’t need any more songs ring in my ears daily. But I guess that’s a good litmus test if I persist in writing songs while the greatest American songwriter repeats that mantra in my ear.

So, I am dedicating this month to meditation, working through “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron, and writing music. I will be giving updates, either written or video recorded, each day. Not for attention or because “this is so original” but because I read a book years ago called Show Your Work by Austin Kleon and one of his pieces of advice was to share your creative processes with others rather than wait to show a perfected result. That and I am so horribly cock-blocked when it comes to expressing what I truly think and feel that I’m forcing myself to put out processes/anything I’m working on where a roving eye could see it if it wanted. Seeing as how I’m pretty obsessed with people’s sketch books and rough drafts, watching people apply makeup on the subway, and existential crises in the midst of trying to get somewhere, I figured keeping some kind of public record was a good idea.

Good lord, here we fucking go.

#theartistsway #pullingaboniversanscabin #musicmonth #singersongwriter #anniedillard

[wehavethoughts]

How to Write an Autobiographical Novel Review!

How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Publication date: 04/17/2018

ISBN-10: 1328764524

Print length: 289 pages

Website 

Rating: 5/5 Hotteok’s

Summary: How to Write an Autobiographical Novel is an essay collection by Alexander Chee. He shares life events ranging from his teen years to current life: growing up as a biracial person in Korea and in the U.S., working as an activist in the LGBTQ community in San Francisco, struggling to make ends meet as a young writer, publishing his first book and much more.

Content Warnings for How to Write an Autobiographical Novel: the author shares his childhood sexual trauma and discriminations that he faced as a gay man.

Alexander Chee is a Korean American queer writer who has written the novels Edinburgh and The Queen of the Night (both of which I haven’t read yet but are definitely on my To-Be-Read list). I had heard about him through other Korean American writers, who all described him as a generous, kind-hearted, and talented author, colleague, and mentor. Of course, I do not know him personally, but through the small aspects of his life and thoughts that he shares through social media platforms, I could understand what they might mean. For example, I was finding warm joys watching his tiny kitchen scrap gardens grow.

So I finally set aside some time to read his essay collection, How to Write an Autobiographical Novel. It was in May 2020, two months into the COVID-19 lockdown in the U.S. Looking back, little did I know that the pandemic would keep me in isolation for the entire year, but back then I was already pretty devastated and shattered from helplessly watching the life I had envisioned for 2020 disappear right in front of my eyes. I was in search of a voice that could be with me through those dark days. Not something grand that could fix the state I was in, but something that could simply just sit with me. And I cautiously thought Chee’s words might be that.

The title of the book may make you think that this is a book with tips, guidance, and tutorials on how to write one's autobiographical novel. However, it is not that. It is a collection of essays with autobiographical events with the author's thoughts and insights on his personal life, as well as his nation's political events. Though, a short essay with the same title is included in the collection, which almost reads like a poem about the experience of writing an autobiographical novel.

In this collection, he writes honestly and beautifully about his life experiences, ranging from his stay in Mexico as a young gay man (“The Curse”), Taro-reading in college while trying to navigate through the grief from his father’s death (“The Querent”), his writing class with Annie Dillard at Wesleyan (“The Writing Life”), and cater-waiting for William F. Buckley, who had written an op-ed advocating “for the tattooing of people with AIDS on their buttocks and wrists” (“Mr. and Mrs. B”).

Each essay left me so overwhelmingly emotional that I had to take a break, especially the essay “1989”. In it, he shares the story about his participation in the march in San Francisco “to block traffic to protest government inaction in the face of the AIDS epidemic” on October 6, 1989. He ends the essay describing how he was standing at an ambulance with his unconscious and injured friend. He was told to put his hand on the ambulance so the police won’t arrest him. He writes: 

“I stand there, my hand on the ambulance, and a television news crew arrives and asks me to describe what I’ve seen. As I tell the story, I keep my hand on the ambulance the entire time. After they leave, I think about how, up to now, I have thought that I lived in a different country from this. But this is the country I live in, I tell myself, feeling the metal against my fingers. This is the country I live in.” 

Through his powerful storytelling, I almost felt like I could feel the metal too, as I read that last paragraph over and over again. Going through the unbelievable pain and grief at the end of May this year in this nation, I kept thinking about this essay. Tony Morrison wrote in 2015 that difficult times are precisely “when artists go to work... We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.” ("No Place for Self-Pity, No Room for Fear,” The Nation, March 23, 2015) There is still so much grief, and so much work to be done, but I’m grateful that those like Chee will be with us through their writing as we move toward healing.

In an interview with Subway Book Review, Chee mentioned that during this pandemic, he is holding onto words from authors who have gone through difficult times and picked East Goes West as the book he was relating to. (East Goes West is written by the first Korean American novelist, Younghill Kang. You can read more about Chee’s thoughts on East Goes West here.) To me, Chee’s How to Write an Autobiographical Novel was that book. If you are looking for a book that can help you navigate your own feelings, especially after this strange, lonely, and challenging year, I would highly recommend this book.

tldr: The author Roxane Gay writes on Goodreviews that this book is “nuanced, sophisticated, intelligent, intimate, sincere essays about writing, identity, and being alive” and I cannot agree more.

p.s. I have also read good reviews about the audiobook version narrated by Daniel K. Isaac. I will definitely be checking it out, too!

p.p.s. Here is another excerpt from the book. In the essay “Girl” he talks about Halloween in 1990 when he spent the night wearing makeup, a shoulder-length blond wig, a black turtleneck and leggings. Attaching as a postscript as I cannot fathom any words to accompany it, but would just like anybody reading this to feel all the feelings as I did.

“In this moment, the confusion of my whole life has receded. No one will ask me if I am white or Asian. No one will ask me if I am a man or a woman. No one will ask me why I love men. For a moment, I want Fred to stay a man all night. There is nothing brave in this: any man and woman can walk together, in love and unharassed in this country, in this world—and for a moment, I just want to be his overly made-up girlfriend all night. I want him to be my quiet, strong man. I want to hold his hand all night and have it be only that; not political, not dangerous, just that.”

#CoreaMod #book review #essay review #non-fiction review #Korean American author #queer author #How to Write an Autobiographical Novel #Alexander Chee #activism #LGBTQ experiences #reviewblr

[roamanov]

Class 1: The social aesthetics of confession.

Required reading 

Confessions by St Augustine (extract): Found here:  (Book 4 - http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/augconf/aug04.htm)

Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (extract)

Reality Hunger by David Shields (extract)

Recommended reading

Shannon Keating, “Am I Writing About My Life, Or Selling Myself Out?” https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/shannonkeating/personal-writing-social-media-influencers-caroline-calloway

Sarah Ahmed, The Cultural Politics of Emotion – introduction’: available in PDF on Blackboard and online via Google Books: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=QT8YAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA1&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=2#v=onepage&q&f=false

Marshall Berman, ‘Goethe’s Faust: The Tragedy of Development’ and ‘First Metamorphosis: The Dreamer’ from All that is Solid Melts into Air (on Blackboard)

‘But Enough About Me’ : what does the popularity of memoir tell us about ourselves?’ by Daniel Mendelsohn, New Yorker https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/01/25/but-enough-about-me-2

Class 2: The stylised self in the world. Aesthetics of the insertion of the self in the story. Style and world view

Required reading 

The White Album by Joan Didion (PDF provided)

Extract from The Birth of New Journalism by Tom Wolfe (PDF provided).

Recommended reading

'Gonzos for the 21st Century', http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/20/books/review/the-new-new-journalism-gonzos-for-the-21st-century.html

Tom Wolfe, The Birth of New Journalism: An EyeWitness Report: http://nymag.com/news/media/47353/index6.html

Martin Amis on Joan Didion’s style: https://www.lrb.co.uk/v02/n02/martin-amis/joan-didions-style

Class 3: The writer’s subjectivity and physical space. Melding Interior/Exterior worlds.

Required reading

A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit.

Recommended reading

Anne Carson – Plainwater (extract provided)

Anne Carson – The Autobiography of Red

Fernando Pessoa – The Book of Disquiet (extract provided)

Ian Sinclair – Lights Out For the Territory (extract – chapter 8 Word doc provided)

Italo Calvino – Invisible Cities

Olivia Laing – The Lonely City – extract on blackboard

Review of Lights Out for the Territory: http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/08/29/reviews/990829.29hoffmat.html

Class 4: Writing Nature/Nature of Writing.

Required reading

'In History' by Jamaica Kincaid - PDF supplied

'Findings' by Kathleen Jamie - extract provided

'Landmarks' by Robert Macfarlane - extract provided

'A Claxton Diary' by Mark Cocker - extracts provided

Recommended reading

'The Kusi' by Jean McNeil

'Soil Turned to Song and Dance' - the TLS on Mark Cocker's nature writing: https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/mark-cocker-naturalism/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1574952085

'The Thoreau of the Suburbs' - feature article on Annie Dillard

'The New Nature Writing' by Jos Smith - extract provided

'The Anthropocene Lyric: an affective geography of poetry, person, place' by Tom Bristow (book)

Class 5: The self, anxiety and history – the non-novels of Sebald.

Required reading

The Emigrants by WG Sebald

Recommended reading

Reviews/literary criticism of Sebald:

André Aciman: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1998/12/03/out-of-novemberland/

Cynthia Ozick – The Posthumous Sublime (on The Emigrants) on Blackboard

André Aciman: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/w-g-sebald-and-the-emigrants

Jonathan Coe: https://www.lrb.co.uk/v19/n06/jonathan-coe/tact

http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/30/reviews/970330.30wolfft.html

http://www.theliteraryreview.org/book-review/a-review-of-the-emigrants-by-w-g-sebald/

Class 6: Politics, alienation and self-displacement in South African and South American writing

Required reading

Summertime by JM Coetzee

Resistance (extract provided) by Julián Fuks

Recommended reading

Roland Barthes – The Death of the Author (on Blackboard)

Donald Powers, ‘Beyond the Death of the Author: Summertime and J. M. Coetzee’s Afterlives’, Life Writing, 2016. (on Blackboard)

Review: JM Coetzee, a Disembodied Man - https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/27/books/review/Dee-t.html?pagewanted=all

Damon Galgut’s In a Strange Room - Galgut is a South African writer of the next generation. I've given an extract of this book, which is made up of three long novellas, here. 'The Lover' is the middle section in Galgut's trio of novellas.

Class 7: Walking and writing the city in fiction and non-fiction.

Required reading

Teju Cole – Open City

Recommended reading

Walter Benjamin – Berlin Chronicle (extract), One Way Street (extract) and Naples.

Joanna Walsh - Hotel (PDF provided)

Lauren Elkin – Flâneuse

Review of Open City: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/aug/17/open-city-teju-cole-review

James Wood on Teju Cole: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/02/28/the-arrival-of-enigmas

Class 8: Irony - Unreliable and self-critique as narrative drama.

Required reading

10:04 by Ben Lerner.

Recommended reading

Ben Lerner: Leaving the Atocha Station

Review of Leaving the Atocha Station https://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n16/sheila-heti/i-hadnt-even-seen-the-alhambra

Jenny Offil - Dept of Speculation

Sheila Heti - How Should a Person Be?

Zadie Smith – Two Paths for the Novel (from Changing My Mind) on Blackboard

Zinzi Clemmons - What We Lose

Colebrook, Clare. Irony. New Critical Idiom.  Routledge, 2004

Alejandro Zambra – Multiple Choice (extract on Blackboard)

Class 9: Contemporary autofiction - two texts.

Required reading

Rachel Cusk – Outline

Amit Chaudhuri - Friend of My Youth

Recommended reading

Rachel Cusk  – Transit (extract on Blackboard)

Rachel Cusk, Kudos

Marcel Proust - A la recherche de temps perdu

VS Naipaul - The Enigma of Arrival

Geoff Dyer – Out of Sheer Rage

‘Rachel Cusk Gut-Renovates the Novel’ – profile in The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/08/07/rachel-cusk-gut-renovates-the-novel

Class 10. Shame and the self in auto-fiction. Domesticity. The Japanese I-novel.

Required reading

Karl Ove Knaussgard - My Struggle (in whole if you can buy the book, or in extract) provided here. My Struggle: book two, a man in love, introduced by James Wood: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-birthday-party

Recommended reading

Extract from Yuko Tsushima's Territory of Light (to be uploaded soon).

Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, ‘The Careful Craft of Writing Female Subjectivity’ https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/03/territory-light-yuko-tsushimas-vital-i-novel/585832/

Amit Chaudhuri ‘I am Ramu’: https://nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/i-am-ramu/

Review of Final volume of Knausgaard: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/aug/29/the-end-karl-ove-knausgaard

'How Writing My Struggle Undid Knausgaard': https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/11/knausgaard-devours-himself/570847/

'Each Cornflake' - Review of Knausgaard by Ben Lerner in the LRB: https://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n10/ben-lerner/each-cornflake

Class 11: The aesthetics and politics of the sexual self

Required reading

The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson

Recommended reading

Chris Kraus – I love Dick (extract on Blackboard)

Emilie Pine - Notes to Self

Catherine Millet – The Sexual Life of Catherine M. (extract on Blackboard)

Hélène Cixous – ‘The Laugh of the Medusa’ http://lavachequilit.typepad.com/files/cixous-read.pdf

‘Virgins or Whores – Feminist Critiques of Sexuality’, in Veronique Mottier, A Short Introduction to Sexuality (on Blackboard)

Henry Miller – The Tropic of Cancer

Sarah Ahmed – ‘The Performativity of Disgust’ from The Cultural Politics of Emotion (PDF here)

Chris Kraus ‘The New Universal’ https://sydneyreviewofbooks.com/new-universal/

Vivian Gornick http://bostonreview.net/books-ideas/vivian-gornick-good-feminist-solnit-rhode-cobble-gordon-henry

Kathy Acker – Blood and Guts in High School

Class 12:  Using 'real' people in fiction.

Required reading

Megan Bradbury – Everyone is Watching

Zachary Lazar –  I Pity the Poor Immigrant 

Recommended reading

Zachary Lazar – Sway

James Wood in The New Yorker on Lazar – The Punished Land: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/06/23/the-punished-land

Miranda France in the Guardian on Everyone is Watching: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jun/22/everyone-is-watching-megan-bradbury-review-novel

#nonfiction novel

[superscarymonster]

A Note To Self

            Yes, I know you. You’re the type who experiences a rollercoaster of world-changing and world-ending events every 24-hours. Each piece of new news is a drug – the email about a raise – an upper. That is, until you get that text about your roommate moving out – a total downer. Your emotions are tied to the latest event and somehow also tied to the past and present. If there isn’t a preoccupying thought to ponder from the day, you’ll find one to ruminate on from last month, last year or last decade- it’s all fair game if it’s not from the present.

The problem with this way, is that you never let your nervous system relax. You’re always on high alert and, like an animal being hunted, your vision is narrowed to the width of a cotton thread.  All you can see are these peppered problems everywhere – not the sun shining, not the panorama view of the world in front of you, but just these fibered issues that make up your twisted field of view.

This constant stress- it makes you uptight. You never relax and instead, hop from problem to problem. Some would call this chronic anxiety, but such a medical title perhaps can lead one to feel as though soothing is reliant on a prescription. Solutions aside, you indulge in this way of being because you think it will help you succeed. Once you can validate the behavior, it becomes even harder to change.

However, once you decide that being a stress ball isn’t serving you, the power to improve your way of being is in your hands. You are always practicing how you are. Your brain is but a spring. It always wants to coil back into the position you morphed it into, but if each day, you spend some time with heat and pliers, coaxing the curls of the spring, it can start to remember a new shape- a less stressed way of being. How can you start to shape your spring? Here is what I would recommend:

1.)   TAKE A VERY DEEP BREATH AND CALM YOUR NERVOUS SYSTEM

Our brain takes cues from the body. A dancing body tells the brain to feel joyful and expressive. A laying body tells the brain to be calm and a clenched body tells the brain that we are being attached.

Dr. Fred Luskin explained in our LIFE 101 class that we rarely deeply breathe, largely because we hold in our stomachs as though we’re just about to take a punch. This position communicates to our brains that we are in trouble and causes us to be on high alert. To immediately calm the mind, one can simply let out their stomach and breathe deeply.

Give it a try.

All the way in and all the way out.

Tell yourself through your breath that you’re not under attack and start to feel yourself loosen. Once you do this, try a small giggle – a tiny laugh.

Laughter forces repetitive deep breath and releases endorphins, which is why the practice of Laughter Yoga, as introduced In the TEDMED Live Talk by Dr. Madan Kataria , has the word “yoga” included. Whether it’s a laugh or a Lion’s breath, take a moment to settle your mind.

2.)   DISTANCE YOURSELF FROM YOUR THOUGHTS

Once you’ve calmed your nervous system, try separating yourself from your thoughts. As you start to do so, you might notice someone rather mean talking to you. In class, we discussed this voice, identifying it as the Buddhist idea of a Mara. It’s an inner “demon” that criticizes. It clogs your mind with negative chatter, wining randomly about this and that. It’s here, it’s there. It’s now, it’s then and being tied up in your thoughts, often painful thoughts, means you are always time-travelling. Distancing yourself from your thoughts allows you to be fully present and gain back the power of your own attention. You can watch the thoughts pass by like a river, associating deeply with only those that serve you. We can understand the power of this distancing when it comes to our well-being through Jennifer Aaker’s talk, “Rethinking Happiness”. In her talk, she highlights how those who are told to be happy or feel like they *should* be happy experience less happiness. She mentions that we “overshoot” in our efforts to find joy and one might assume this is because of the self-talk that comes with expecting happiness. We expect to feel a certain way and criticize ourselves when we don’t, reducing our natural and quiet feeling of happiness. Quieting that self -talk and that inner voice allows us to experience what is, rather than our narration of what is.

3.)   PRACTICE SELF COMPASSION

We try and get an A+ in feeling happy so that we can be good. However, like Mary Oliver’s Poem “The Journey” says,

“You do not have to be good. / You do not have to walk on your knees / for a hundred miles through the desert repenting./ You only have to let the soft animal of your body / love what it loves.”

This idea that we don’t need to self-flagellate or push ourselves to be martyrs is the idea behind self-compassion. It’s simply treating ourselves as a friend. In her talk, Jennifer Aaker continues to explain that the good isn’t as good and the bad won’t be as bad as we expect. We just mostly are. We just mostly will be. This unchanging means that no matter how much you punish yourself you will not be happier later as a result of suffering now.

As we also reviewed in class, you are probably quite fine. You might even be lucky and with this said, why punish yourself so deeply for gaining a pound or failing a test?  We are human and bad things happen to all of us.  

In our lack of self-compassion, we are often being illogical, thinking these bad things mean we are bad people with bad lives. Therefore, to avoid being wholesomely bad,  we try and protect ourselves from negative events by always being on high alert. It’s a strange way of being that completely skews our view of the world. We try and avoid suffering later by increasing our suffering every day. However, it simply doesn’t protect us against anything. The poem The Dakini Speaks, speaks frankly to this confused logic.

The Dakini Speaks

My friends, let’s grow up./ Let’s stop pretending we don’t know the deal here./ Or if we truly haven’t noticed, let’s wake up and notice./ Look: Everything that can be lost, will be lost./ It’s simple

…..

let’s give ourselves to it!/ Let’s stop making deals for a safe passage: …

                       —Jennifer Welwood

This idea that we should stop bargaining for a safe passage allows us to be compassionate with ourselves when something goes wrong and it allows us to compassionate with others when luck isn’t on their side.

After all, something will always go wrong and when it does, you will handle it.

And you will not blame yourself.

So while everything is okay, you can enjoy the day.

4.)   SETTLE IN TO WHAT THIS IS

In class, we reviewed the quote by Annie Dillard that says

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living. ― Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

At the moment, my friend, you are spending your life in hysterics. You are spending your life being stressed, and tired and angry and ecstatic. We sometimes think that hysterics mean we care, but this dramatic idea seems to be narrative more than anything else. To be truly present to what is and to be truly engaged in our lives is simply to be alert and observant. As a young person, perhaps you’re worried about your future, but just as we can engage fully in the now, you can engage fully in the future by being present and alert to what’s next rather than trying to control it. This full engagement and readiness – captivation with what is- is awe. Maybe like you, this surprised me.  This quiet calm is not the kind of awe I’m used to seeing when a child walks into Disneyland, or when someone proposes and the woman weeps, or when a basketball team wins, and the bar erupts in high-fives. This awe is calm.  It’s simply ready to see what’s next and open to seeing it wholly. This is beautifully put in the poem Is My Soul Asleep by Antonio Machado.

“…No, my soul is not asleep./ It is awake, wide awake./ It neither sleeps nor dreams, but watches,its eyes wide open/ far-off things, and listens /at the shores of the great silence.

-        Antonio Machado , translated by Robert Bly

Next time you hear bad news, or great news, perhaps you can take it in as a wave of life. You can see it as a new hint of your future appearing as you sail your ship instead of seeing it as a threat against which you must protect yourself, or a treat towards which you must run before it disappears. Remember that each day is yours to enjoy. This one day is the only thing that is sure for you, so spend it intentionally and in awe, rather than clenched and with a narrow view of this great big world.

[thewritingstar]

2k19 Writing Challenge #2

Prompt: “She reads books as one would breath air, to fill up and live.” - Annie Dillard

Pairing: Gajevy ( FairyTail) 

Note: I haven't written for this pair yet and I don’t know why. Let me know if these are too long or short.

----------

Her eyes danced across the page, filling her mind with thousands of thoughts. It was why she loved to read. She became transported to new worlds and found herself apart of fantastic adventures and epic battles. One day she could be sailing with dangerous pirates, claiming the seas as her own and the next could have her dancing in a gorgeous gowns, while a masked man twirls her around. Simple words captivated her, making her heart beat fast.

All the emotions of a fairy tale were at her fingertips and she was determined to explore every leather bounded book in her sight. 

The newly revamped library opened in the center of town and no one had been able to find Levy since, well find a away to get her out. Everyday she had gone from morning till night, enchanting her in an endless sea of stories that she desperately craved.

Gajeel entered the double glass doors, the smell of old and new pages filled his noise and he couldn’t decided if it was pleasant or not. He had to admit that it was very grand, three stories to be exact and each level bustiled with a small amount of people.

He found his way to the front desk. A man much smaller than his with big rimmed glasses that framed his face looked at the Iron Dragon Slayer, he of course knew who he was.

“Mr. Redfox, what can I do for you today?” His voice held a puzzled tone and he didn’t know why this man even entered the building.

“I’m looking for shrim-Levy, looking for Levy. Rumor says that she’s been glued to this place, don’t know why. You’ve seen her?” Gajeel asked as his eyes trailed his surroundings, trying to pick up the vibrant blue he had come to love.

The man let out a chuckle. “Ahhh yes, Ms. McGarden is certainly our most prized guest here. But you won’t find her out in the open. Second floor, turn down the romance section and you will find the hallway for the restrooms. At the end you will see the employees only sign, follow the stairs up and make a right, she should be there.” He said as wrote the instructions on an index card and handed it to Gajeel.

“Oh and take this too would yah? She’s been begging for it and I haven’t had time to give it to her.” Gajeel proceeded to grab the red covered book. “Thanks” he grunted and found the elevator.

Gajeel managed to located the place the man had said. Making a right he turned down a hallway that was dimly lit.

“Creepy.” He shuttered. But when he found the light at the end of the hallway, his eyes spotted his girl swamped in a pile of books.

The room had many bookshelves but they were heavy oak instead of the fresh metals ones downstairs. The sunlight that gleamed through the window revealed the thousands of dust particles circling in the air, no one had read these books since it was refurbished.

Like the dragon from her book, she was stacked on a pile of treasure. On a throne made of books and wrapped in a fluffy blanket, Levy didn’t notice her boyfriend lurking, watching her read the enchanted tale.

The sound of a throat clearing made her head snap up and a smile sprung to her face when she realized who was here and what he was holding.

“Gajeel, what are you doing here?” She asked and book marked her place, luckily she wasn’t in an action packed spot so she could afford to slip away for a bit. She made her way over to him, still wrapped in her blanket.

“Came to find you shrimp. Were you sitting on a pile of book?” He pointed.

A piece of her blue hair began to twirl between her fingers. “Ha ha yeah. There’s not chairs up here yet so I made it out of the ones I’ve already read. It’s pretty comfy, well for my size at least.”

“You read all of those?”

“Yes”

“Shrimp I’m not a math wizard but I can tell theses at least a hundred.”

“Correct”

“The library opened a week ago.”

“That is also a fact.”

“And you read...all of those?”

“Again yes, why are you surprised.” She giggled .

“Damn” He was actually impressed by this. He knew his girl could read a book quickly but this amount, now that deserved serious props.

“Oh I see my book came in!” Levy took the red book from his hands and waddled back to her lair of books. Setting it on a pile next to her throne, she cleared a small area of dust and motioned for him to sit with her on the ground.

Abiding to her command, he dropped to the floor and leaned against the oak shelf with a small pillow between his back. Looking around, Levy grabbed a book with a black cover.

“Here, I think you’ll like this book. It’s pretty short and it’s about a pirate thief who takes over a kingdom, and it’s not too sappy.”

“You want me to read?” He asked but he was already flipping it over to read the captions.

“Yes” she gasped, “A reading date!”

He laughed and pulled her against his chest, the white blanket covering them both, mostly Levy though. Together they sat in silence, peacefully they explored new worlds.

A few hours later and Gajeel managed to finish his book, Levy finished three but she was wearing her red magical glasses for some of it.

“Levy? Why do you like reading so much?” He asked. She placed her book down and turned to face him, taking the blanket with her.

“Well let’s see. I guess I enjoy getting lost in a story. Being able to leave this world and go somewhere new, like traveling. It’s fascinating to see how each author manipulates their language to turn it into a piece of art. Each story is different even if it’s similar. I get to meet so many new people even if they are fictional and I get to learn about different places and cultures.” Her hands were against her flushed cheeks as she kept rambling about books and adventures.

Laughing quietly, Gajeel took her hands and pulled her close. Kissing her softly, he pulled away and looked into her eyes.

“I think I love you just as much as you love reading.”

“Don’t be silly, I love you more than books.” She whispered and kissed him again.

————

This was kinda short and I hope y’all enjoyed it. I don’t think it’s my best one but it be like that sometimes.

#thewritingstar #writing #oneshots #thewritingstarwritingchallenge #2k19writingchallenge #fairytailoneshots #fairytail #levy mcgarden #gajeel redfox #gajeel x levy #gajevy

[ssfoc]

Hi, sea, I want to ask what you usually do or used to do when you feel alone? Like you have your friends and family and it's all good but somehow you feel a bit alone. Thank you!!

I’m INTJ by Meyer-Briggs, so I get you!

We have our tolerance for social interaction and sometimes we have to step back. It might be just to recharge your batteries, or it might be your intuition telling you you’re uncomfortable with the situation. In any case, listen to your mind and go to a quiet space, so you can understand what’s going on inside.

Try not to blame yourself or think negatively. You don’t owe interactions all the time to others. A good friend would understand that, especially if you explain, “Sorry, I need a moment for myself. I’ll be right back!”

Sometimes, it may be a sign of depression. If so, the first good thing is that you recognize there’s something going on, and you can address it. It’s very helpful to talk to somebody, either a trusted authority figure (a parent, teacher, therapist) or even just a friend.

Writing it all down in a journal is very helpful—especially if you write in an actual book. The time it takes to write often is a good way of thinking things through. It’s helpful to read other people’s thoughts as they go through times like this.

My recommendations:

Annie Dillard: Teaching a Stone to Talk

Cheryl Strayed: Wild

Marcus Aurelius: Meditations

Anne Lamott: Traveling Mercies

Here’s a quote from Ms. Lamott: Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up.

If you feel alone, and you don’t want to be alone, then I usually do a little preparation. I think about how things are going in other people’s lives, and ask about them— their interests, family, hobbies. I try to be open-minded. If you engage others, then they’re more likely to engage you.

Good luck, darling, and remember when all else fails, go for a nature walk! Love you lots.

#9 december 2018

[thetigarchives]

THE TIG ARCHIVES│LIVING│SUMMER READING LIST

“She reads books as one would breathe air, to fill up and live. Annie Dillard hit the nail on the head with that one. Because whether it’s to escape, to inform, to inspire, or to just turn off the world while you sit by a pool, I love getting lost in a good book. When I asked my Suits sister wives, Gina Torres and Sarah Rafferty, what literary finds they would be delving into between the scripts we read every week, I was tickled by some of their answers. As a matter of fact, when I told Gina I was surprised by one of her rather unexpected picks, her response was classic: ‘Lotta layers under all this hair.’ Well played, Mama G, well played.

Here are your TIG approved summer reads from the ladies of Suits:” - Meghan Markle, July 2014

Meghan’s Picks (as quoted by Meghan):

“The Opposite of Loneliness” by Marina Keegan

“I am undone by this book.  It’s a collection of essays written by Marina Keegan, who graduated Magna Cum Laude from Yale in 2012, had a job lined up at the New Yorker, and tragically died in a car accident just five days after graduation.  Her stories are raw and real, funny and relatable.  And she writes with a fluid conversational tone that makes you feel like you know her.  I truly wish I had been able to. Get this book – I couldn’t put it down.”

“The Dud Avocado” by Elaine Dundy

“I always go back to this book for summer reading because it’s light and fun, and exactly what I want when I’m laying on a beach. I love opening the pages and finding little flecks of sand from vacations past. It’s set in the 1950s and about an American girl in Paris who lives wildly and fully, and runs a muck. The main character Sally Jay Gorce is everything – a little Carrie Bradshaw, a little Holly Golightly, a lot of likable. One of my favs.”

“Where’d You Go Bernadette” by Maria Semple

“My friend, Benita, recommended this one to me and Sarah. B is an avid reader, and knows that during the summer it’s nice to escape with a book that just makes you laugh. Guffaw, even. This is that book.”

Gina’s Picks (as quoted by Gina):

“Rita Moreno, A Memoir”  by Rita Moreno

“Because she’s a true flesh and blood goddess at whose altar I have worshipped, my entire life.” - Gina

 “Doctor Sleep” by Stephen King

“I loved The Shining and love that Mr. King felt compelled to tell Danny Torrance’s story after all these years.”

“The Hotel on Place Vendome: Life, Death and Betrayal at the Hotel Ritz in Paris” by Tilar J. Mazzeo

“I love this hotel, and have had fantasies of going back in time, and being there when it was all new and exciting. I’m hoping this book will do that.”

Sarah’s Picks (as quoted by Sarah):

“The Goldfinch” by Donna Tarrt

“So I am reading The Goldfinch and likely will be reading it all summer since it’s almost 800 pages and I am a slowwwwww reader. It’s amazing, today’s Great Expectations.”

“Bittersweet” by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore

 “I recently finished this book.  A summer page turner. Kinda Gone Girl -esque. I mentioned it to you Megs – my friend Molly told me about it, and I happened to not be able to put it down.”

“Prayers for the Stolen” by Jennifer Clement

“About an incredible heroine who is wrapped up in the world of drug cartels in Guerrero, Mexico. Sarah says: I have [this book] bedside, waiting for me.” And for summer reading with her daughter (AKA the sweetest tradition I can think of), Sarah shares the below: 

“Oona and I do summer reading together—we did the abridged versions of “Anne of Green Gables” and “The Secret Garden” and she loved them. We started “The Tale of Despereaux” last week and I am in love with that little romantic mouse. Last summer “Wonder” was amazing and I would recommend it to kids and adults alike.” 

#meghan markle #the tig #the tig archives #meghan markle books #gina torres #sarah rafferty #summer reading list #tigliving #tigbooks

[bodyalive]

vivipiuomeno: Laurence Demaison ph. - Self portrait body water

*

From "Bookslut" Interview With Jeff Warren What's the origin of The Head Trip? From internal evidence, it seems to have been in the works for some time... The genesis of The Head Trip was an accident I had at 21, when I fell out of a tree and busted my neck on a street in Montreal. The hardest part of the recovery was psychological; when I returned to my studies I found I couldn’t write essays the way I once could. My style of processing had changed. My thinking went from being very linear and progressive to more lateral and associative. I don’t know how much of this interpretation is a flabby split-brain gloss on a problem I had long ago, but I can say that at the time I knew nothing about neurobiology, I only knew I couldn’t direct my attention the way I once could; the mental objects I did retrieve were often two preoccupations over from my main concern. It was like fishing for trout and hooking clams. My roommate tells me I used to bawl at my desk and moan about leaving “my brains on the road.” Eventually I developed a technique of color-coding my notes by tangent, so that when I veered off into 10 different tangents a day at the end of the week I could still string all the, say, purple tangents together into something like a coherent theme. After this transformation I became more attuned to inner experience. This was augmented by several years of tedious seasonal tree-planting work, where there was literally nothing to do for weeks on end but plant saplings, swat black flies and endure the shifting rhythms of my own shallow stream of consciousness. I became obsessed with how writers described the texture of everyday awareness, whether it was Edgar Allen Poe describing his sleep onset visions, David Foster Wallace on the fugue state of athletic absorption, or Annie Dillard talking about the unselfconscious moment. I began to collect these descriptions, with the vague idea that one day I would put together a taxonomy of elemental states of mind. A separate interest in the biological function of sleep led me into the fantastically variegated world of sleep and dreaming consciousness. In 2004 I started writing The Head Trip. ** Is it fair to say that a chief point of the book is to displace the mind/body (or, psychology/chemistry) distinction? On the one hand, almost all the science you describe is pretty nascent; on the other hand, it also seems as if they tend to point quite clearly to a reciprocal relationship between thoughts and chemicals. The chief point of the book is to re-empower the mind. The mind -- in the form of expectations, beliefs and, most optimistically, intention -- is a more-than-epiphenomenal driver of actual physical change in the body and brain. You can learn to create your own special effects. You have agency. As I write in the book, “this is both supremely hopeful and utterly depressing, since it means in nurturing, enlightened environments we may be able to cultivate whole new standards of mental health, but in violent, regressive environments we risk spawning awful new permutations of mental affliction. Technology -- that great onrushing field within which our minds are shaped -- compounds all of this, for better and for worse.” As far as the actual relationship between mind and body, that, thankfully, is still a mystery, despite the exaggerated claims of the neuro-reductos, whom I love, and the exaggerated claims of the quantum mysticos, whom I love. I guess the two other chief points of the book are: 1. to wake people up to the deliriously varied terrain of their nighttime lives, and 2. to help people look beyond black and white waking rationality, which turns out to be just one capacity on a very bright and colorful palette. Different states of consciousness seem to privilege different styles of knowledge. ** It turns out sleep is more interesting than we usually expect -- and that it even has a history! What are some key misconceptions about sleep? I would like to spiel about dreaming for a moment if you don’t mind. The writer Rodger Kamenetz tipped me off to a great Borges quote. Borges once wrote: “Lately I've been rereading psychology books, and I have felt singularly defrauded. All of them discuss the mechanisms of dreams or the subjects of dreams, but they do not mention, as I had hoped, that which is so astonishing, so strange -- the fact of dreaming.” The fact of dreaming. When you wake up in a dream and actually take a look around -- it’s bananas. It’s the absolute craziest goddamn thing in all of human life. Every night we beam down into an elaborate virtual world where we can pound the walls with our oven-mitt fists and sniff giant daisies and have elliptical conversations with archetypal bus drivers. From inside a dream there is nothing vague or washed out about the experience -- dreams are totally real, as real as getting off the plane in Lagos and ordering a beer from some guy at the side of the road. You are at this place -- you’re IN it! At the time it’s every bit as solid and real as waking. Except… and this is what’s so cool… except when you’re self-consciously aware inside the dream you can then squeeze up real close to the walls with your little magnifying glass and look for suture marks. You can conduct experiments. You come to realize that there is a set of laws operating in the dream world that is every bit as real as the laws of physics in the waking world. What are these laws? And why aren’t there as many scientists down here with their slide rules and theories as there are out there? We spend our lives in two worlds and yet we only pay attention to one of them -- the other is seen as an embarrassing curiosity, a forum for banality-rehearsal and botched sex. People protest: “but it’s not real, stop living in fantasy.” All experience is real. On the personal side, dreams reveal all kinds of junk about the self. On the scientific side, our dreams represent an unparalleled opportunity to examine the dynamics of consciousness. I mean think about it: without sensory input to dilute everything, you get consciousness in a pure culture. And it so happens that this pure culture -- The Dream -- runs like an underground creek beneath the waking world, muddying the ground in all kinds of interesting ways. And that’s just the conventional science. Who knows what else we may discover digging around in the dream world. For those interested in the wooly world of mind-matter speculation, the epistemological rabbit hole goes very deep indeed. This is going to sound hyperbolic but I really believe we’re at are at the dawn of a new age of scientific exploration. The external world is mapped; now the explorers are turning inward. The galleons have left port. They’re approaching a huge mysterious continent. They won’t be the first to arrive. There are paths already cut in the forest, where shamans and monks and others have set up outposts and launched their own expeditions into the interior. It’s a thrilling story, a lurid epic in the making, and yet almost no one has any idea it’s happening. As far as our misconceptions about sleep, I would say the biggest one is this idea that we lose consciousness when the lights go out. This couldn’t be further from the truth. At night consciousness just turns inside out. Instead of moving through a world constructed from sensory input, we move through a world constructed from memory and imagination. We do lose certain self-reflective properties, and -- critically -- our short-term memories are compromised so we don’t remember many of our experiences. But when you wake people up in the night most of them report some kind of mental activity -- either the strange snap-shot narratives of sleep onset, the fully immersive dreams of REM, or the low-level “mentation” of deep sleep. Even in the emptiest bliss-saturated realms of slow wave sleep the experiencing self remains. Consciousness is 24-hours. *** One of your key images is the "wheel of consciousness" (at least, that's what it's called in the illustrations and the title; early on you write that "the brain is a wheel, and consciousness is a pliant membrane pressed into the rim.")

[Thanks “Alive On All Channels” Archive]

#Alive On All Channels #bodymind #brain #consciousness

[anthonymbarr]

Abundance

Each year, I try to center myself around a word, given mysteriously to my attention through the contingencies of time, a word that can nourish my inner life. This year, the word arrived late, and yet also at the very moment I needed it. Here's the story of that word, and of the poet who gave it to me.

This year I underwent a disenchantment with language. I wanted reality and was given only words, mere words, words that fail, words that hide, words that deceive, words that are contingent, words that trap me in the particularities of my time and place in history. Is there meaning, actual, substantive, knowable meaning? Meaning that stands outside our language? Or are we all just making it up as we go along? And if so, what's the point?

I read Annie Dillard's slim but fierce memoir Holy The Firm in one afternoon. She writes: "for I know it as given that God is all good. And I take it also as given that whatever he touches has meaning." And then she asks: "whether God touches anything. Is anything firm, or is time on the loose?" And I placed my head on the table and wept - because that was exactly the question. And how on earth to answer it?

Christine Zubrod Perrin read poetry at my school, some of the best poetry I've encountered all year. And during the Q&A afterward, I asked her: "as a poet, are you tortured by the inadequacy of language, of the way it breaks down or fails to deliver what it promises?" And she said to me: "I'm so tired of talking about what language can't do. I want to talk about its abundance."

Abundance. I cannot tell you why that word entered me, or perfectly describe how it lodged itself within, how it calmed the turmoil and gave tranquility. Abundance, a word which mediated to me exactly what it promised.

This year I stood by a friend as he said "I do." Language does this. This year a dear friend held me, told me she loved me, read me a poem that I returned to again and again in the subsequent months as I sat with the weight of my grief. Language does that too.

Abundance. I'll end by quoting yet another of our poets, the ever lovely Mary Karr: "People usually (always?) come to church as they do to prayer and poetry—through suffering and terror. Need and fear. In some Edenic past, our ancestors began to evolve hard-wiring that actually requires us (so I believe) to make a noise beautiful enough to lay on the altar of the Creator/Rain God/Fertility Queen. With both prayer and poetry, we use elegance to exalt, but we also beg and grieve and tremble. We suffer with prayer and poetry alike. Boy, do we suffer."

[spookyscullies]

get to know me meme !

tagged by @viceversawrites thanks babe :)

star sign: libra

name: grace

height: 5 ft

put ur music on shuffle what are the first 4 songs:

arms - christina perrie

claire de lune - claude debussy

ruby blue - sleeping at last

what is this feeling? - wicked original broadway cast

grab the nearest book and turn to pg 23 what does line 17 say:

page 23 was blank

who’s ur celebrity crush:

gillian anderson of course lmao, not really interested in anyone else atm

sound you hate & one you love:

hate: the screeching of silverware against ceramic plates

love: the sound of my fingernails against my keyboard lol

do you believe in believe in ghosts:

not really

how about aliens:

i’d like to

do you drive:

well, i’m getting my license on monday even though i’m almost 17 now haha

if so have you crashed:

i almost went off the road once oof

last book i read was:

i literally just read an entire book today (it was only 111 pages but) called the writing life by annie dillard

do you like the smell of gasoline:

not really, it kinda gives me a headache

what’s the last movie you saw:

uhhhhhhhhh i’m pretty sure it was straightheads

worst injury you ever had:

i broke the smallest bone in my foot when i was in second grade but last year on the day before my birthday i got a second degree ankle sprain (it’s a long story, but if you wanna hear it, send me an ask and i’ll tell you lmao)

do you have any obsessions rn:

txf, gillian anderson, mY RED HAIR (OK I LOVE IT SO MUCH BC I’VE ALWAYS BEEN BLONDE bUT NOW IM NOT SKSKSKJS), thrift shopping

do you tend to hold grudges against people who’ve wronged you:

i mean............... kind of? like i don’t think anyone’s ever truly fucked me over before, but when someone hurts my feelings i remember like every detail about it somehow

i guess when someone wrongs me it consumes me and i try to figure out what actually went down in both our minds and resolve the issue. usually i’m the one who confronts people when there’s a problem 

in a relationship:

currently alone,,, but a gal can dream for a mulder to her scully (psa, mulder doesn’t have to be a guy lmao)

anyone can do this ! and tag me ! i’d love to know more about all of you :)

#get to know me meme #im so conscious now of how many times i've said lmao #yikes on a bike

[turtleiswriting]

day 29: final images

photo: Marc-Olivier Jodoin 

The image you leave your reader with is as important as what you start with. It can also be what you started with.

Ending with an image that’s similar to, or a transformation of, an image from the beginning of your story can be effective because it brings home the feeling of there being a larger arc encompassing the story within. By repeating an early image after the full story is complete, you can also imbue new meaning into it by giving the reader a chance to think about it again with the new perspective they’ve gained by reading your book.

Annie Dillard begins Pilgrim At Tinker Creek with the image of an old scrappy tomcat visiting her in the night and ends with that image. At the beginning she’s distant from the tomcat; he’s an unknowable stranger. But after the full story is told, she tells the story again and we see a kinship with the tomcat, a similar wildness between them. It’s the same image but given new meaning because the narrator has changed.

You can also end with similar settings or motifs—near the beginning of a piece I’m working on I write a party where one of the main characters runs away from the people they love, and at the end I write a party where they stay with them and everyone leaves together. It’s a bit obvious, maybe, but it does the job of providing a mirror to the beginning.

You don’t have to have a big wrap-up at the end, you don’t need to tie anything up with a bow for your audience. As an editor, this is one of the most common things I see writers do—they think they need to spell out what they mean, what the purpose of their story was.

This is where the repeating scene or image can come into play. Rather than telling, let the readers see your character in a similar situation to something from early on, and show how they act now that they’ve gone through the events of the story. No need to wrap up with a final message.

Speaking of endings (smooth transition I know), tomorrow’s the last day of this mini-challenge, and if you’ve been following from the beginning, I’m grateful! We’ll be talking about what to do once you have a draft finished.

Thank you for following along, and I hope at least some of this was interesting or useful for you!

B.

#amwriting #writing turtle #day 29 #final images #motifs #writeblr

[itsdarneel-blog]

cue me in starbucks reading This One Summer and start spontaneously crying because i realize that all the cute little myths my dad would tell about how they “got me from chinese gypsies” or “the kroger blue light special” etc all just deny the fact that i was created from some kind of loving union. like why would you ever tell your kid anything other than the truth, that they were litterally created via a physical expression of love between two people?? (unless that’s Not True) and how my whole life i have hardly ever seen my parents being genuinely affectionate (much less physically affectionate) to each other and how i’ve always identified with adopted characters even though i’m not adopted (and people have always told me i look Just Like My Mom) and that always makes me feel weird because I love her and by this point I am much closer to her than to my dad, and we do share a weird Brain Link, but she will continue to disapprove of me fundamentally forever. as will my dad. and how i’ve always felt a little homeless and Out Of Nothing (except maybe when i was very young). like i don’t think any of me has ever fully believed that i’m really their child. which hurts. because i definitely am. and i’m their only, so i’m their one shot. and i am just royally fucking that up. my dad and i are better now at knowing when to put the brakes on a conversation that we know is just going to go nowhere other than Hurt Feelings Town but the other day he really let it all spill out that i am “listening to the wrong voices and i need to be careful or i am going to end up with backwards views on everything and maybe once i mature a little more i’ll come back around” (to his Reformed Protestant Hyper-Conservative Nationalistic Creationist Subliminally Racist + Sexist and Openly Homophobic + Transphobic way of viewing the world). and if that had been said in a calm tone of voice, that might have been one thing. but from the rest of the conversation that “line” stood out because it was like. he was suddenly, for a second, letting his frantic fear show through. and i know that one day he will have to confront that. because he will have to confront Me. As I actually am, NOT the me that has had to appease and work for his goals instead of mine for 21 years. and that all sounds so Dead Poets Society. so white and rich and corny. and yeah we’re white and we (once - before my dad didn’t work for literally a decade and didn’t let my mom work either because Christian Patriarchy) had some wealth. but fuck it. i am tired of feeling like Me is Wrong. and if that means i have to throw everything out and start over, and even if i die before that’s over, i have to do it. i have always been afraid of dying young and i know some journeys do get cut off early but? i have to hope? that i’ll be around long enough to..... somewhat figure all this out. so yeah. idk.

i think i will just have to create some kind of myth of my own about where i came from. i have been thinking a lot about rublev’s trinity lately and that idea of the trinity filling three seats of the table and the viewer is in the fourth one. and even if it is too painful or unbelievable that i came from the love of my parents - a dead or dying love - i also - perhaps in an even more real sense - came about from a divine love. and i literally share that with every other corner of the universe. i was taught that we are like little Players on a game board and every move was thought out ahead of time by this Patriarchal Divine who is somehow Playing Us All (which u know can have different meanings lmao) and we have “free will” but Not Really bc hashtag john calvin. fuck his institutes. i used to think about how the arrangements of molecules in a specific blade of grass at a specific time were all PreOrdained and how if that’s true than like. what the fuck am i??? what the fuck are other people?? and you know. i just dont believe that anymore. i think God is responsive. and is in all things and fills all things which is also mindbogling in it’s own way because (* Annie Dillard pops out from behind a bush and says : *) NATURE IS CRUEL AND HUMANITY IS CRUEL SO HOW/WHAT/WHY THE FUCK IS DIVINITY???? IS CRUELTY A PART OF DIVINITY??? IF WE SAY IT ISNT ARE WE JUST TRYING TO SANITIZE THE MATERIAL WORLD?????? IS IT ALL JUST GODDAM FUCKING GNOSTICISM????? fuck. (annie dillard is no longer speaking and she never was speakin: all those thoughts are my own, idk if i am even interpreting her writing correctly but she is certainly more eloquent than Me, in starbucks typing with my T H U M B s

and i have no idea how to end this so i’ll just end it like this