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May 28, 2009

Story, Wikipedia, Story

Eight or nine years ago I submitted an essay to Sunstone that began "One day my companion Sister Knight and I met a 'weird funky lady,' as I described her in my journal, who tried to explain to me her adoration of some reincarnated Buddhist monk." It did not begin "One day when I was a Mormon missionary, my assigned working partner or companion (to use the term we employed for said assigned working partners) Sister Knight and I met a 'weird funky lady,' as I described her in my journal (which I kept because doing so was a religious commandment I was obligated to obey because angels might some day quote from my journal if I said something inspiring), who tried to explain to me her adoration of some reincarnated Buddhist monk, a conversations many Mormon missionaries wouldn't have had because they generally talked to rather than listened to other people about religion."

It's a good thing the essay didn't begin with the second sentence I offer above, because that sentence sucks. But if I had submitted that particularly essay to a mainstream secular journal whose readers weren't necessarily familiar with Mormonism, I would have felt obligated to provide lots of background and context--maybe not in the first sentence, but certainly SOMEWHERE in the essay. Whereas I knew that as soon as a Mormon audience was informed that I had a companion named Sister Knight, readers would assume, correctly, that I was a woman somewhere in my 20s who had elected to serve a mission.

Despite or perhaps because of their self-proclaimed and cherished status as a peculiar people, Mormons hate to be misunderstood. As a result, when they talk about their religion, they explain A LOT. Sometimes--perhaps usually--they explain TO EXCESS.

Two groups especially prone to excessive explanations are missionaries and Mormon writers.

Missionaries indulge in excessive explanations 'cause it's sorta their job. The missionary discussions are rudimentary introductions designed to make people see the church the way it sees itself. The goal is not to intrigue or excite, but to inform, and to do so in a way that is dignified without being pompous (though an individual missionary can certainly make the message pompous with very little effort).

Mormon writers who take Mormonism as their subject matter indulge in excessive explanation because they want readers to understand not only Mormonism, but what Mormonism means to the people they're writing about. They believe--with some validity--that readers won't understand their work if they don't understand certain things about Mormonism. But I have come to believe that while some explanation is order, Mormon writers should strive always for the barest, skinniest minimum.

And then there is a third group of excessive explainers: Mormon writers who write about missions. They over explain more than anyone else I have encountered. They 'splain, and then they 'splain, and then they 'SPLAIN SOME MORE, JUST FOR FUN. Except by that point, it has stopped being fun--for the reader, at least.

Several years ago another Mormon writer and I thought it would be cool to put together an anthology of personal essays about missions. We put out a call for submissions and got LOADS of essays in response. A few were phenomenonally good; several were pretty great; most were mediocre; a few more were egregiously bad. But with very few exceptions, all of them contained too much exposition, too many foreign words or terms unique to Mormonism followed by parenthetical translations or glosses, and little wikipedia entries about Mormon doctrine, practice or culture.

It was PAINFUL to read essay after essay with the same problem. It was also very educational, because I suddenly realized how annoying it was when I did precisely those things in my own work.

I thought that including Chinese terms throughout my text gave it color, flavor. It might--but it's also precious and pretentious unless a term is actually relevant to the narrative or argument. In order to keep my eyes from glazing over, I started skipping over all foreign terms in the essays I read, whether they were Spanish, French, Chinese, Korean. And when I finished, I went through my own work and started getting rid of any foreign terms, unless I felt they were absolutely necessary to the intrinsic meaning of the text. I would never again throw one in just for "flavor."

And the mini wikipedia entries, the three paragraphs complete with footnotes--about baptism for the dead, or the MTC, how you fill out your papers before going on a mission, what happens when you get your call.... I mean, yes, it all really MATTERS--to us. It really, really, really MATTERS. A LOT. I want the people who read my work to understood, fully, why a call is called a call. But maybe they can sorta get it on their own. Maybe even though I care, they don't. Maybe if they have to wade through my explanation of what happens when someone, anyone gets a call, they'll lose interest in the still more important details of what happened when I got my call.

Certainly that happened with the essays I read: I became impatient with long passages about baptism in general and so didn't care as much when I got to the account of an individual baptism. It's true that I already knew all about the stuff being explained, which might have made me more impatient. But it's also true that I had an investment in the subject matter and a reason to continue reading that many readers don't. I really want to know how other people talk about their missions. I would LOVE an anthology full of thoughtful, interesting essays about the good, the bad, the ugly, the miraculous, the tedious, the heartbreak, of a mission. So if I gave up on work that tried to provide that, well, it means something.

My co-editor and I didn't abandon the project in that we both still think, theoretically, that it's a great idea for an anthology. But we just didn't get enough truly strong work to fill it. We could have devoted huge chunks of our life into reshaping the mediocre essays into pretty good ones, and at one point we actually intended to, but it didn't happen.

Shortly before Christmas I read a really great blog entry by Stephen Carter, the editor of Sunstone, at the Red Brick Store, about the myth of the writer genius (later revised into a piece about the author bunny). Stephen claimed that he learned all sorts of important things about story craft from reading one single book on screenwriting, a claim that intrigued me, so I put the title on my amazon.com wishlist, and someone bought it for me for Christmas.

And then it sat on my shelf, for almost six months. Last weekend I read it. And I'm here to agree with Stephen: Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting by Robert McKee is a freaking great book, one I wish I had read not just when the postman dropped it off in January, but years ago. It's very wise, and I will reread it before very long, I think. A bit of advice that particular resonated with me is this:

Never include anything the audience can reasonably and easily assume has happened. Never pass on exposition unless the missing fact would cause confusion. You do not keep the audience's interest by giving it information, but by withholding information, except that which is absolutely necessary for comprehension.... Reveal only that exposition the audience absolutely needs and wants to know and no more. (335-337, emphasis in original)

That is one thing we'll have to achieve in order for Mormon literature to grow up: we'll have to stop EXPLAINING and EXPOSING and DEFINING to excess. Yes, we'll have to do some a little explaining, a tiny bit of exposing, and of course we have to acknowledge how weird it is that "elder" means someone who is very, very young instead of really old. But I sincerely hope that eventually I will stop reading works that go "story, definition, story, wikipedia entry, story, wikipedia entry, different wikipedia entry, story."

I especially hope I'll stop writing work like that. It won't be easy. But I'm determined to try.

Posted by holly at 10:17 PM | Comments (2)

January 11, 2009

One More Avoidance Technique

Sorry I've been incommunicado lately.... It's not for lack of interest in blogging, or good intentions. A bunch of things have happened and I've written notes on my to-do list, instructing myself to "blog about items A, B, C & D." And then I just don't.

I haven't even been all that busy. Instead, I've been unfocused, undisciplined, and worried. I'm done envisioning worst-case scenarios for the outcome of the election, and done being exhausted by what actually did happen. I am all freaked out about the economy and so forth, but who isn't?

So I've got my portion of collective concern about the future to nurse, but I've also being dealing with another bout of whatever afflicted me last January (is the January bit important?) when I found it really difficult to make myself start and finish a writing project I actually wanted to write. I recently started a new project and I like it, I have high hopes for it, but I just don't want to write it.

Earlier this week I cleared a day so I could work on this project, and then I wrote in my journal, "I wish I had a bunch of errands to run right now so I'd be justified in NOT working on this project." I didn't have errands, but I did discover that if I perused the friends of my friends on Facebook, I could find a couple dozen people to send friend requests to. That killed a few hours nicely, let me tell you.

The reason I'm writing this blog entry, finally, is that it's a way to not work on that OTHER project, which I ABSOLUTELY MUST DO TODAY. But writing this puts it off for a few minutes more, and I'll take any legitimate delay I can get.

OK. Time to make a pot of coffee, and then I've got to do you-know-what.

Posted by holly at 8:55 AM | Comments (4)

October 8, 2008

Please Congratulate Me Now

So, there have been several reasons I haven't blogged all that much lately, or have posted really short entries when I do blog. One is that I'm as obsessed as anyone else about the election, and I've been doing things I don't normally do, like watching debates and volunteering at a political campaign. (I refuse to go door-to-door, even for Obama, having already done that for the Mormons, so they've mostly stuck me with data entry. Fun. Not. But it's for a good cause.) Another is that I moved 2,000 miles across the country. (One of these days, I'll write about that.)

And another is that I've been working on a book.

And guess what: I just finished it--or at least, I finished a respectable draft, just now. It's 1:48 right now; I wrote the last sentence at 1:43.

Now I get to go back and revise and polish it, all 278 pages, which I don't mind because revising is my favorite part of writing, believe it or not. And my agent has to sell it, which could be tough--I'm sure the general financial crisis has hurt publishing as well. But it feels really cool that I had a goal and I accomplished it, and I also like this book. I hope an editor at some big publishing house will like it too. Who knows? Maybe it will sell well enough that someone might be willing to publish the two that are languishing in folders on my computer, folders I haven't touched in months.

The book, by the way, is the story of my relationships with gay men--in particular, it's the story of how I ended up being the witness at the gay wedding of my ex-fiance.

I hope you'll be hearing a lot more about this in the future.

Posted by holly at 1:57 PM | Comments (10)

March 17, 2008

Arguably Giants

Earlier this month I wrote about my interest in trying voice-recognition software. I decided I might as well go ahead and buy the program--it wasn’t that expensive, and I thought it might be helpful. It arrived last week, and having spent some time using it, I’ve decided, typing is better.

I admit I had some fallacious ideas about what using voice recognition software would be like: I thought I could roam around my house and speak my random thoughts aloud and the words I’d spoken would appear, almost like magic, on my computer screen. No such luck! I have to sit down at my computer and wear this annoying little head-set microphone thing that’s jacked into my computer, and then I have to speak VERY SLOWLY AND E-NUN-CI-ATE VER-Y CARE-FUL-LY or the program mishears half of what I say.

I’m a really fast typist--in the neighborhood of 80 or 90 words a minute--and I also like to type. I like how it feels and I like seeing words appear on a page and I like the way it helps me think as I compose. So this program is beyond useless in helping me compose or draft new material--it actually slows me down. However, it is useful if I have to transcribe a long passage of text I can read aloud, provided I am willing, once again, to speak SLOWLY AND CLEARLY--that is about as fast and easier on my wrists than propping the book open and trying to get everything right without once glancing at my screen. Still, the program makes mistakes. Here’s a passage I had to transcribed today, from Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen:

They shut themselves up to read novels together. Yes, novels; --for I will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom so common with novel writers, of degrading by their contemptuous censure the very performances, to the number of which they themselves are adding--joining with their greatest enemies in bestowing the harshest epithets on such works, and scarcely ever permitting them to be read by their own heroine, who, if she accidentally takes up a novel is sure to turn over its insipid pages with disgust. Alas! if the heroine of one novel be not patronized by the heroine of another, from whom can she expect protection and regard? I cannot approve of it. Let us leave it to the Reviewers to abuse such effusions of fancy at their leisure, and over every new novel to talk in threadbare strains of the trash with which the press now groans. Let us not desert one another; we are an injured body. Although our productions have afforded more extensive and unaffected pleasure than those of any other literary corporation in the world, no species of composition has been so much decried. From pride, ignorance, or fashion, our foes are almost as many as our readers. And while the abilities of the nine-hundredth abridger of the History of England, or of the man who collects and publishes in a volume some dozen lines of Milton, Pope and Prior, with a paper from the Spectator, and a chapter from Sterne, are eulogized by a thousand pens,--there seems almost a general wish of decrying the capacity and undervaluing the labor of the novelist, and of slighting the performances which have only genius, wit, and taste to recommend them.

That’s the passage as it appears in the book. But here’s what the voice recognition software first gave me:

They shut themselves up to read novels together. Yes, novels; – for I will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom still common with novel writers (inserted gratuitous line break), of degrading by their contemptuous and sure the very performances, to the number of which they themselves are adding – (here it missed an entire phrase) and scarcely ever permitting them to be read by their own heroine , who, if she accidentally takes up the novel is sure to turn over its insipid pages with disgust. Alas! If the heroine of one novel the not patronized by the heroine of another, from whom can she expect protection and regard? I cannot approve of it. Let us leave it to the reviewers to abuse such infusions of fancy at their leisure, and over every new novel to talk in threadbare strains of the trash with which the press now roams. Let us not desert one another; we are an injured body. Although our productions have afforded more extensive and unaffected pleasure than those of any other literary corporation in the world, no species of composition has been so much decried. From pride, ignorance, or fashion, our photos are almost as many as our readers (forgot the period here) and while the abilities of the 900th a bridger of the history of England, or of the man who collects and publishes in a volume some dozen lines of Milton, Pope and prior, with a paper from the spectator, and a chapter from Stern, arguably giants by a thousand pens, period (and then it freaked out and didn't get the last few lines)

As you can see, “are eulogized” was turned into “arguably giants,” which is a pretty big discrepancy. And even though I was reading quite slowly, the program couldn’t keep up with me and missed entire phrases. Admittedly, I went back and added them very easily later, but still, I had to do that.

I’m not sorry I bought the software, and I will use it. Furthermore, I’m sure that with time, I’ll get better at employing the proper commands and it will get better at recognizing my voice. And I imagine that for someone who can no longer type, this program is just about miraculous. But it’s not the really cool fix I thought it might be for me.

Posted by holly at 2:01 PM | Comments (1)

January 27, 2008

Because I Had Nothing Else to Do

Late Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning, I finally completed a draft of a writing project I’d been avoiding/ preparing for for weeks. I agreed in November to have this project done by the end of January, but I just couldn’t make myself start, really start. Oh, I did things like research Chinese characters, and try out different beginnings in my head, but I just couldn’t sit down in front of the computer and write it write it. I don’t know why not, because it was a project I’d wanted to write for years, and I was glad to have a reason to do it. I don’t know why not, because it wasn’t beyond my capacities or outside of my creative focus. I don’t know why not, because I certainly managed to write other things--blog entries and emails and journal entries and so forth--instead of the one thing I had promised to write.

Not only did I write other things, I got other tasks out of the way as well as I geared up to do this piece. The reason I finally watched that documentary on the Mormons was that it was a way of avoiding this writing project. In fact, in the ten days before I finally sat down and wrote this thing, I was super-duper productive. I worked hard on all sorts of projects--I even plan to post photos of a few of them tomorrow. It got to the point where, by early Tuesday evening, I really didn’t have anything else to do but this writing project.

So I sat down and drafted a letter informing the editor I’d promised to send the piece to why I couldn’t write it. And then I just said, “Fuck it; I’m gonna try; it won’t kill me; if I don’t write it now, I don’t know when I’ll ever write it; blah blah blah; ick ick ick; type type type.”

And in not that many hours I had a really solid draft that I liked a lot. I went to bed, got up and started fiddling with it the next day because I am a compulsive reviser; sent it to a friend who agreed to proofread it and give me feedback; got the feedback; made a few more changes; printed out a hard copy and wrote a cover letter. It all goes in the mail tomorrow.

And I just don’t know why I had this problem. I’ve had writer’s block before but that wasn’t what was going on here; I knew I could write the piece, I just didn’t want to. I didn’t used to have much trouble starting projects, but lately, I do. I don’t like it. That sort of shows in my performance here lately; my work ethic just isn’t what it used to be.

I have to think about this some more.

Posted by holly at 9:06 AM | Comments (1)

May 4, 2007

My Shower Curtain's Right

Here's what I'm told every single morning, via my shower curtain:

I admit, I don't always believe it. I admit, sometimes I want to believe it but know better. And sometimes I find, to my flat-out amazement, that some things really are all about me.

Take, for instance, the answer to the acrostic on page 68 in the April 29, 2007 issue of the Sunday NY Times Magazine. I learned, thanks to an email from a friend, that the various answers combine to reveal a quotation from one of my essays, the title of the essay the quote comes from, and my name.

I don't subscribe, so I had to track down a copy and work it for myself. Turns out she's right.

If you get the Sunday NY Times and haven't already sent the last Sunday's off to be recycled, check it out youself. Remember: the first five words in the clues spell out

h
o
l
l
y

It's the strangest bit of recognition my writing has ever received. Once I got over being astonished, I've been flattered beyond belief.

Posted by holly at 3:40 PM | Comments (5)

March 5, 2007

My Ethos of Conferences and Other Related Topics

Well, here's the thing, here's why I keep disappearing for weeks at a time:

I've been busy.

Busy with some stuff that was clearly, from start to finish, thoroughly dreadful; busy with some stuff I thought would be good but wasn't; busy with some stuff I thought would be tedious and obligatory but was actually Tony-the-Tiger, riproaringly loud, extendedly GRRRREAT!

In the last category was the 2007 conference of the Associated Writing Programs, which I returned from yesterday. I have this thing about conferences: when I go to a conference, I go to a conference. I stay at an official conference hotel; I don't arrive late or leave early; I'm there for the whole time, and even if I ditch out on sessions to hang out with people and talk, I'm still talking to people I meet up with at the conference, often about conference-related topics. I mean, it's great that I have an opportunity to go someplace I might not otherwise visit, and see people I might not otherwise see; but I am, after all, a seasoned world traveler, and if I want to visit friends or do the tourist thing, I'll do it without the distraction or time-constraints of some conference.

So I got to Atlanta on Wednesday night (which was good, because it meant I avoided weather-related travel hassles, as Thursday's hurricane in Alabama was really nasty rain in Georgia), the first night of the conference, and even though not much was going on, I was still overwhelmed by
how big it was–almost as bad as MLA–worse, maybe, because it was overrun with poets. (More on that later.) In my previous conference-going, I have tended to favor small, focused conferences, and this just seemed gross. I found myself in my hotel room, asking myself, "Why the fuck did I come here? Since I already spent my scholarly allowance on other stuff, this is going to eat the bulk of my tax return and I'm not even presenting!" I called a couple of friends and complained to them about my foolishness, yada yada yada, promised I would gird up my dutiful loins and try to have a good time, then went to bed.

And I really didn't have to try very hard at all.

Before I go any further, let me mention one of the benefits of not changing your look substantially for, oh, 18-19 years: people who haven't seen you for a decade or more still recognize you when you walk right by them. Half a dozen times someone said, "Holly!" And I turned and there was an old dear friend. Sometimes it was someone I didn't know would be at the conference and whom I would have recognized without their calling my name, had I not been intent on getting to the bathroom before a line formed out the door; other times it was someone I did know was at the conference, but who looked so altered–different hair, glasses when they only wore contacts before, significantly more or less weight–that I recognized them as much by their voice as their look. And perhaps there were other old friends whom I missed because when I was heading intently for the bathroom they passed me heading intently for the coffee counter; but I am nonetheless glad to have met up with as many people as I did.

So the people were the best part–isn't it always that way, really? But I also attended some interesting panels, and perhaps, if I can find time in this hectic week before spring break starts (that's right! I have next week off!), I'll write about some of them.

But what I should really write about, is the way I was inspired. I came home with so many ideas for my own work, so many new projects started, so many new perspectives on old, languishing projects. THAT is what is going to save my life.

Posted by holly at 9:07 AM | Comments (3)

July 11, 2006

Accompanied by a Drawing of a Burning Bridge

From that same journal as the last entry, this one on page 10. Dated 7 May 05. Accompanied by a drawing of a burning bridge, done by me in Crayola Crayons.

I love no spectacle so much as that of a burning bridge--OH the glowing beams, the leaping flames, all of that light reflected in the dark, rippling water--and then, when the fire burns through the structure and its timbers plunge into the water, so it bubbles and steams--

Well it's just so cool

Not that I've ever seen a burning wooden bridge, but I imagine it's quite a phenomenon

First you imagine the river. Deep, wide and rapid though it may be, you are looking for its narrowest, calmest spot. You construct a sturdy, serviceable crossing that stretches from bank to bank. Then you set it on fire.

And that's all.

Posted by holly at 10:48 AM | Comments (5)

July 10, 2006

Utility and Worth

Here's a strange little reflection I found on page one of a journal I started about two years ago. I avoided writing in it because it wasn't the format I generally prefer for a journal: heavy lined 8.5 by 11 loose leaf notebook paper. But for reasons I explain below, I finally started using this journal as well. I'm currently on page 13.

I have had this little book since before I graduated from high school in 1981. What the hell have I saved it for all these years? Good god, it's now 2004 and this book is still empty, unused-- not quite wasted (because it still has potential) but almost, since it is a thing that has a purpose and that purpose is going unfulfilled. And if that purpose is never fulfilled, well, then the thing is wasted.

Everything has a purpose, but we don't get to decide what those purposes are, necessarily-- only the purposes of the things we make. The purpose of a cow is not to be eaten, but to be a cow. However, the purpose of beef is to be eaten, and it would be wrong to waste beef. Once the sacrifice has been made, once a thing has been killed, then it's wrong to let it go to waste.

I'm thinking about issues of utility and worth-- I don't want to exploit things, and I also don't want to waste resources--

and that's it.

Posted by holly at 3:44 PM | Comments (4)

May 23, 2006

Better Than a Poke in the Eye with a Sharp Stick

In case you didn't know, a standard way to publish a book of poetry is to submit your manuscript to a contest. One of the most prestigious prizes is Yale Younger Poets (which I am now too old to enter), but no matter what the level of prestige, the system is pretty much the same: you send 50-70 pages of poetry, a check for $25.00 (or thereabouts), and a self-addressed stamped envelope. You then wait six months to a year, at which point you usually get your SASE back with a xeroxed sheet of paper telling you who won. Occasionally in the list of finalists, you'll notice your name, and wonder why they never bothered to tell you that you were a finalist.

A lot of people consider it a racket; there is even an "American poetry watchdog" website that "exposes the fraudulent ‘contest,'" and there is also a Council of Literary Magazines and Presses that has set up rigorous contest-judging guidelines so that there aren't fraudulent contests to expose. Anyway, the whole thing is costly, demoralizing and time-consuming, but it's also how the system works, so I sent my book to half a dozen contests earlier this year.

Here's an email message I got yesterday:

Dear Holly,

I am writing to congradulate [sic] you on your finalist status in the 2006 Small But Respectable Poetry Press Prize. Please confirm that you have received this email, and that your manuscript is still available for publication. Also, please provide your summer contact information, as we will be expecting a decision from the judge by Labor Day. This is very important: if we cannot contact you within 2-3 days of receiving word from the judge, we will have to give the prize to the runner-up manuscript, so be clear on the best way to reach you.

I forwarded the message to a friend, who wrote back and said, "I don't want to be a wet blanket, just a wet hanky, but shouldn't an editor know how to spell congratulate?" Yeah, it's true, there's a horrible misspelling in the message, but I didn't even notice it at first: I was too busy being mildly optimistic and not the least bit offended that someone out there thinks my work is better than the work of a bunch of other people.

This is by no means a guarantee they'll publish my book, but it's better than getting my SASE back with nothing but a single xeroxed sheet in it.

Posted by holly at 12:58 PM | Comments (4)

May 9, 2006

Fairy God Muse

My final official duty of the semester (aside from attending graduation this Saturday) happened Friday morning: I had to conduct the defense of a thesis I directed. It was 200+ pages of a novel, and it was pretty damn good. A prose thesis only has to be about 60 pages, so I was proud of this student I worked with, proud that she was so ambitious, proud that what she wrote was so strong.

But it wasn't finished--it wasn't even half finished. And as any writer knows, a work often changes shape and form and direction as you write it--it rarely turns out as you originally imagine, if indeed you have a particularly clear notion of what you hope to accomplish. Sometimes for short pieces I can be all about discovery, surprise, just seeing where the writing takes me, but I think that for longer works, some projected goal is useful, even if you find yourself doing something completely different.

Anyway, I wanted the student to discuss her plans for the work, how she envisioned ending it (there was a big mystery involved), and she was reluctant to do so, saying she wasn't at all sure how she'd end up resolving some of the conflicts. So I asked, "If you could put in an order with your fairy god muse to supply you with a perfect denouement that would satisfy both you and your readers, what would you ask for?"

And that phrase, "fairy god muse," was the best thing to come out of the defense for me. I am pretty sure I have a fairy god muse and I even think she's been hovering around lately, wanting to grant some wish, but I haven't bothered to ask her for anything. So I'm going to figure out what I'd like her to give me, ask for it, and see what happens.

Posted by holly at 6:38 AM | Comments (3)

May 8, 2006

The Last Word

In honor of the end of the semester, via Dr. Crazy, Dr. Medusa and Profgrrrrl, the last word of my dissertation:

place.

The dissertation is about place--about Taiwan and Arizona most specifically.

But I decided I didn't like the last line and cut it when I revised the diss for publication (yeah, still working on that), and now the last word is growth.

Posted by holly at 10:55 AM | Comments (6)

February 15, 2006

A Journal Worth Keeping (Whether the Angels Quote from It Or Not)

Frankengirl posted an entry about diaries and whether or not they are meant to be kept or burned. This is a topic that gets ME burning. In the December 2004 issue of Sunstone, I published an essay detailing my attitude about keeping a journal. It seems relevant, so I'm posting it here.

Although I am no longer a believing or active Mormon, I still live a lot like one. OK, I drink an occasional beer, though I have never been able to cultivate any interest in substance abuse. I don't worry about the ratings of the movies I watch, though I have enough sense to avoid films that are obviously crap. I don't go to church on Sunday, though I have tried to find a congregation where I feel at home, but I can't help noticing other meetings' short-comings when compared to a Mormon service: I hate having to stand, then sit, then kneel, then stand again; or I hate that other worshipers sing tacky devotional pop songs accompanied by guitars or recordings, like it's some group karaoke thing; or I hate that people show up in t-shirts and shorts, like it's the grocery store.

But I still write down goals. I still strive to be scrupulously honest in my business dealings and to give a good portion of my earnings to charity. I still buy groceries in bulk. I still can't throw away anything, from a scrap of fabric to a cardboard box, without asking myself, "Is there some possible use left in this thing?" I still keep a journal.

For many years I kept a journal for the same reason I flossed, made good grades and exercised: because somebody told me that when I was seventy, I'd be glad I'd done such things in my youth. In general, the journal has given me more pleasure than the flossing. I was 11 when President Kimball issued his encouragement to

Get a notebook...a journal that will last through all time, and maybe the angels will quote from it for eternity. Begin today and write in it your goings and comings, your deepest thoughts, your achievements and your failures, your associations and your triumphs, your impressions and your testimonies. (4)

I'm now on volume 14, and I still look at old volumes from time to time. For instance, volume five, my mission journal, is almost 100,000 words long and quite hefty. I wrote in it my goings and comings, my deepest thoughts, and things like this, from June 14, 1986: "I have decided that the angels will not even flip the pages of this journal, though imperfect beings might find something of interest here."

Many people consider a journal the most private and intimate of texts. In certain ways my journal is intensely intimate, in that it contains personal details and deep yearnings and struggles. Nonetheless, I was affected very early and very thoroughly by the Mormon view that journals are documents providing personal accounts of shared experiences--an example being the diaries or journals kept by those who crossed the plains--and are in some ways intended to be shared, just like the experiences they record. I took to heart the admonition that someday, when I am dead, someone, somewhere, might come upon my journals and use them--as faith-promoting stories, as cautionary tales, or simply as historical documents. Thus I have long been acutely aware of audience--it's a concept I understood instantly when teachers tried to explain it in composition courses. And even though I began to suspect early on that the angels would not quote from my journal, filled as it was with doubt and dissent, still, I couldn't help wanting, at the very least, to entertain and edify those other potential readers, the human ones--to give them an occasional good laugh, or pose from time to time a difficult question worth pondering.

In short, I wanted to give them reasons to keep reading, and give myself reasons to keep writing. I felt an obligation to make the record of my life relevant and compelling, both for myself and for that future audience, and I don't think that sense of obligation hurt either my journal in particular or my writing in general--or my cognitive skills, for that matter. I've learned that to be a good journaler, one must develop an eye for what is interesting and meaningful in one's daily life, as well as some skill and insight into analyzing one's own behaviors, utterances, and relationships. I believe that a journal should accurately capture not merely what happened, but the mood it left you in, the effect. Anyone who has kept a journal for very long knows that a journal that does nothing but record events makes for singularly dull reading--and yes, I have resorted to that minimalist strategy from time to time when I'm feeling lazy or overwhelmed; I do it primarily to maintain my habit, not because I imagine that such entries are particularly valuable in and of themselves.

I no longer attend much to a future audience (if someone really wants to read through all those thousands of pages once I'm gone, s/he is welcome to, but I'm not planning on it); these days I write my journal mainly for myself, but I haven't lost my sense that my journal needs to be, on the whole, worth not only writing in the first place, but reading again later--even if I'm the only one ever to read it. Which raises the question: what does make my journal, for me, worth the writing and reading of it? I won't deny that I find keeping a journal a pleasant and entertaining use of my time, and that I do it in part simply because I enjoy it. But I believe that a journal can indeed perform a spiritual function, and I find that aspect extremely valuable. A journal can be written with a specifically spiritual bent, as an inventory of our efforts to live morally and behave appropriately, what Catholics call "an examination of conscience." It can be a meditation upon issues that interest us, topics that trouble us. It can be a way to pose important questions and seek answers for them--as well as a place to record those answers when they come, so that years later, we can look back and be amazed by a youthful wisdom we somehow managed to forget.

As a writing teacher, I also believe that spiritual discipline can be built into the endeavor of writing well: although my students don't always believe me, I remain convinced that good writing is carefully crafted and coherent, and makes use of things like 1) transitions, 2) support for ideas in the form of specific and apt examples, 3) musical, rhythmic prose, and 4) syntax that is lively and varied. Any account of your life will, of necessity, be molded and shaped, whether poorly or well, and the transitions you use, the examples you select, even the vocabulary you employ, can help you see a pattern to your life you might otherwise miss. I can't imagine how I would make sense of my life without the profound and useful insights that come upon me as I wrestle to bring inchoate sensations and unconnected experiences, ranging from the devastating to the delightful, under the greater order of organized prose. Sometimes these insights arrive years after I've written a journal entry, when I'm thinking about a new situation that bears some similarity to an old experience. I'll haul out an old volume, read through it, and some mental flash will suddenly illuminate both situations in remarkable and useful ways--an event I often then record in the new volume, also quoting the old passage that sparked the insight.

In her essay, "On Keeping a Notebook," Joan Didion writes, "The point of my keeping a notebook has never been, nor is it now, to have an accurate factual record of what I have been doing and thinking." Instead, she says the point is to remember

How it felt to be me: that is getting closer to the truth about a notebook....I think we are well-advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends.

While I agree with Didion that it's wise to remain familiar with the people we used to be, I am, unlike her, interested in having "an accurate factual record of what I have been doing and thinking"–as the descendent of Mormon pioneers and geneaologers, how could I be otherwise? In Faithful Transgressions in the American West: Six Twentieth-Century Mormon Women's Autobiographical Acts, Laura L. Bush points out that

Mormon autobiographers pay close attention to ‘truth' and to ‘accurate' history. They often begin their narratives with recitals of their precise ancestry and exact place of birth, carefully researching and marking the progression of the story of their lives until ending the story with a formal testament of faith in God.... Mormon autobiographers' meticulous attention to testifying of God and to producing accurate historical details...follows biblical and Book of Mormon writing traditions. (9)

I confess: I've written an autobiography of sorts, a memoir of my mission, and I was not the least bit surprised to discover that my book adheres to the formula Bush describes, since I was very aware at the time of following a tradition. I wanted my book to be as accurate as I could possibly make it, especially since when I wrote it, I imagined it as the defense I would muster in my behalf at the final judgment, and God would be well aware of any conscious lie I might tell. I was trying to produce a work of art, but it was also a deadly serious moral enterprise. My first act in writing my book was to transcribe every word of my mission journal--in which I had meticulously recorded entire conversations, detailed impressions, and the dates, places and times of significant events; I had even included supporting documents such as letters, zone conference programs, and those yellow planners on which we scheduled our work.

At a writing conference in June 2004, I met a woman who, like me, is a scholar and writer of literary nonfiction, and who, like me, had her heart well and truly broken by a man she was ready to marry, and who, like me, suffers from insomnia. She told me that to help herself unwind, clear her mind and prepare to sleep each night, before bed she would write in a spiral notebook, usually about how upset she was with Michael, her ex, and how devastated she was that as soon as the engagement ring was on her finger, he turned into someone else, someone she couldn't marry. She wrote pages and pages, she said, about how she hated him, loved him, resented him, could never forget him although she wanted nothing more than to erase him from her memory. I sympathized, with the difficulty in falling asleep, with the heartbreak, with the confused writing. But then she mentioned that when she got to the end of each notebook, she threw it away. "You threw it away?" I repeated, dazed.

"Yeah," she said. "It was just my ranting about Michael. It's not like the world needs any of that."

"But what if there was...an insight? Or a good line? And you threw it away?" I asked slowly, attempting to resist the horror of it all.

"There wasn't," she said. And since I was having difficulty breathing, having just heard someone be so cavalier about an action absolutely inimical to my world view, I made no reply and the conversation moved on to other topics.

I tell this story to call attention to one part of keeping a journal: the keeping part. As I mentioned, my journal does contain boring, uninspired passages; I haven't deleted them and I don't intend to. For one thing, when I'm overwrought, it's kind of nice to remember times when nothing much happened; it's also good to remind myself how flat even the most exciting events can seem later if I don't render them fully. Furthermore, preserving what you produce is built into the activity: keeping a journal means you not merely write but hang on to the journal. And that keeping is also a spiritual practice: finding the discipline to make writing a habit, to live with a growing and on-going document that demonstrates who you were, who you thought you'd become, and who you actually ended up being. If you're lucky, it might also help you figure out who you want to be next, and how to achieve it.

I'll end with Job, who, if he lived at all, lived before paper was readily available:

Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book! That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever! Job 19:23-24

We don't have to be so desperate. If we want something written, we can write it. We've got plenty of paper, plenty of ink, and really fast computers. All of which make keeping a journal so easy that it's something of a luxury, a way of acknowledging how blessed--and I use that word advisedly--we are.

In conclusion, I bear testimony of the power of a journal to help us live with more awareness of who we are and who we want to be. I will always be grateful that I followed President Kimball's advice to keep a journal. It has enriched my life immeasurably.

Works Cited
1. Kimball, Spencer W. "The Angels May Quote from It." The New Era 5, no 10 (1975): 4-5.
2. Didion, Joan. 1968. "On Keeping a Notebook." In Slouching Toward Bethlehem. New York: Noonday Press. 131-141.
3. Bush, Laura L. Faithful Transgressions in the American West: Six Twentieth-Century Mormon Women's Autobiographical Acts. Salt Lake City: U of Utah Press, 2004.

Posted by holly at 8:45 AM | Comments (1)

February 5, 2006

My New Favorite Literary Mag

I recently mentioned a rejection letter that didn't entirely suck, so I thought I'd discuss what's usually the best part of the publication process: actually seeing the work in print.

A few days ago my got my contributor's copies of Poetry International, and it has become my new favorite literary journal. First of all, it's simply gorgeous. The production values are impressive: good-quality paper, nice graphics that don't overwhelm the content of the text, an attractive cover (even if it is mostly earthtones). The journal is also a little bigger than usual: 9.75 inches by 6.75 inches (as opposed to 9" x 6"), with 208 pages before the ads start.

More importantly, the poems in the journal are GOOD. I haven't, by any means, read everything in the 2006 issue (it's a yearly, not a quarterly), but everything I've read I like--the poems are about things that matter--or at least, about the things I think matter, like suffering and truth and pain, which I guess is one reason they were willing to print my work.

And a more personal satisfaction: my poem is on page 30, and on page 31 is a poem by Billy Collins. It's the first time I've been published in such close proximity to a poet laureate of the United States.

So get online a buy a subscription, or rush out to the periodical section of your large university or independent bookstore, and read Poetry International.

Posted by holly at 7:24 PM

January 23, 2006

My New Favorite Rejection Letter

That title is both ironic and a tad oxymoronic: it's not like I have an old favorite rejection letter, and I've never received a rejection letter I like as well as any of the acceptances I've gotten. Still, some rejections are less vile and upsetting than others. Here's one I got last week that doesn't make me want to give up not merely sending my work out, but writing poetry altogether:

Dear Holly,

Apologies for the delayed response! I really enjoyed "Portrait of a Bedtime Storyteller" but got a bit lost toward the middle. The ending is magnificent, though. Would love to see more of your work.

Very Best,

Poetry Editor

Apologies are indeed in order for the delayed response: this journal had my submission for NINE MONTHS. It's not at all unheard of for literary journals to hold your work for six months to a year before they get back to you, and that long response time is one reason journals that don't accept simultaneous submissions totally SUCK the putrefied body parts of long dead farm animals. This journal at least allows simultaneous submissions, so the poems they held practically forever were also seen by other journals, one of which is now going on ten months for its response time.

But at least the editor liked my work and want to see more. So one of these days I'll send more out.

Posted by holly at 9:27 AM

December 19, 2005

Enclosed Please Find

Yesterday I did something I don't particularly enjoy: I put together submissions of my poetry to send to literary journals.

Ugh.

The fact that I don't enjoy doing it means that I don't do it often enough. I tend to do what I've just done: wait until most of the journals I've submitted to have responded, gather up the poems that are left, and do another massive mailing. I'd probably be better off to keep things in circulation all the time.

Writing cover letters, printing out copies of poems and addressing a bunch of envelopes are not terribly interesting activities, and I won't bore you with any more details. But I will add that it's why I don't have much to say today, and I will also ask you to cross your fingers for me and hope that some of the poems get accepted.

Posted by holly at 9:03 AM | Comments (0)

October 26, 2005

My Mother Sends Me Stuff

My mother has begun doing this really annoying thing: she has begun emptying filing cabinets and drawers that haven't been opened for 20 years, and if the contents bears any relation whatsoever to me, she sends it to me.

Monday I got a big package containing my report cards from first, second and sixth grade; a bunch of my elementary school photographs, a few of which I'm posting just for the hell of it; the program from my kindergarten graduation ceremony (apparently I won the coveted role of Mama Rabbit in the classic play "The Little White Rabbits Who Wanted Red Wings," and I also got to play the Queen of Hearts in "A School Day in Storybook Land"--I actually remember the costume for that: it was this fabulous confection of a white dress with red hearts all over it, and I wore a tiara and carried a heart-shaped scepter); and lots and lots of really BAD poetry written before I had mastered cursive handwriting.

I can see why she saved that stuff. And I guess I'm glad she's sorting through it now, so we don't have to do it all after she dies. (I know my father is going to leave us a huge mess of papers, bills, uncashed but no longer negotiable checks--sometimes he just can't be bothered to go to the bank--and stashes of decades old sugar-free candy to sort through and discard.) But I admit I'm sort of resentful that I'm supposed to become the custodian of my own childhood at this point. After all, that's what parents are FOR: to maintain a shrine to our childhoods so we can grow up and forget about them, right?

I mean, what do I do with a canceled check for $5.00 dated December 16 1972, a birthday gift from my great-grandparents? On and around the memo line, my great-grandfather wrote, "Holly, always speak the Truth and you won't have to remember what you say because the truth is imprinted on your mind." I feel sort of guilty throwing it out but I lived 33 years quite happily without it in my possession, so why should I keep it now? Besides, if I stick it in a drawer or a box or a filing cabinet, I'll just have to discover it and have to deal with it later.

My mother also saved a bunch of stuff from HER trip to Taiwan. (My parents picked me up at the end of my mission and spent ten days touring the island with me.) She even saved a bunch of receipts for god-only-knows-what, just because they had Chinese characters on them, and now she has sent those to me. At least I don't have to debate about what to do with things like that: they went straight into the trash, because I already have enough stuff with characters on it.

But with the other stuff, the stuff that concretizes the vaguely pleasant memories that remind me how safe and privileged and valued my childhood was.... how could I throw it away? I admit I succumbed to...guilt or nostalgia or I don't know what that feeling was, and shoved the papers and photographs into an envelope, then shut them in a trunk in my extra closet--the trunk that also contains other remnants of my childhood, including my two favorite dolls and their clothes, my last pair of toe and tap shoes, and my favorite board game from when I was five, "Pig in the Garden."

As I mentioned the poetry is awful, and I thought about posting some of it here just for kicks. Unfortunately it's the kind of awful that seventh grade girls think is good, and it occurred to me that someone might come across it and think I'd put it up because I was proud of it. So instead I'm going to post a brief story, written probably when I was seven or eight.

The Bear

We went to the mountains and stayed one week. We stayed in our cabin. My father was fixing the roof so there was some tin roofing lying around. One night my father saw a bear jumping on the tin roofing like it was a trampoline. Then the bear walked across the porch railing and jumped into a tree, swung around then ran off. Then about two or three or four hours later, the bear came back. This time he poked holes in our garbage can lids and toys, and kicked our ball around. Then our father came to where my sister and I were sleeping. He shined the flashlight on the bear so we could see him. Then he ran away and did not come back.

Here are the photos I promised. Unfortunately they are quite large and I couldn't figure out how to shrink them, so you'll get a screen full of my very young face. Here's second grade:

View image

Here's third grade:

View image

Posted by holly at 8:58 AM | Comments (1)

October 12, 2005

Self-Portrait as Recluse

A piece salvaged from old files, this was written in August 2001, when I first moved back to Arizona.

"People look better back-lit," my photographer friend told me. It's also true of mountains. This evening I rode my bike down to the Gila River a mile north of town, which involved passing the old sewer pond and the new wastewater treatment facility, both of which smelled especially bad, perhaps because it has been so long since it rained. The clouds were orange for a long time and then they were gray. The mountains had contours for a long time and then they were just a stark, dark outline before a diminishing brightness. I had never noticed before how the Pinalenos and the Santa Teresas look like a felled dinosaur, the head pointing southeast and the massive tail jutting northwest.

These two ranges, connected by a long, low ridge, look like they could be one mountain range, but they're geologically different, I'm told. The Pinalenos, which are taller and thicker and longer, have nothing in them worth mining. The Santa Teresas contain gold, silver, copper, etc, and if anyone wanted those minerals badly enough, they could get them out.

I haven't done anything exciting in the past eight years except: get a PhD, fall in love and get my heart broken, write a book. Each of these activities has hampered the rest of my life in certain ways. Getting a PhD involved being in graduate school in the Midwest for eight years. I hated many things about being in a PhD program, course work being at the top of the list, poverty running a close second. Once I finished course work and could just sit at home and read the books I needed to read for teaching or for research, graduate school became a lot less vile. I had lots of time but not a lot of money. I started to knit and quilt again. I took up yoga. I began to garden. All of that was enjoyable but it doesn't exactly rank high on anyone's list of huge thrills.

Then there was the "fall in love and get my heart broken part." I am still somewhat bitter about that whole enterprise, as it could have been avoided: I knew when I first met the guy that he had all kinds of problems and issues; I knew better but for reason that seemed good at the time and seem really lame now I went ahead and fell in love with him, and he went ahead and broke my heart. That pretty much destroyed my desire to date anyone else. It did, however, make me feel like I should just shut myself up in my house and write a book, which is what I did, and why I succeeded in getting the PhD--they don't give you one of those unless you write a dissertation.

The problem with writing that book was that it took over two years and I got fairly good at writing it but I forgot how to write anything else but it. Except for email, which doesn't count.

In the past eight years I have not: traveled out of the country; bought a car; been arrested; given birth; profoundly disappointed anyone I love (having done enough of that in the previous decade or so); left a church or a political party; joined a new church or political party; attended many rallies or demonstrations (preferring to donate money to causes I care about, because I hate crowds); saved any money; found a lucrative post-PhD job; published a book. I have: attended two funerals (my favorite great aunt and my grandmother died on the day after Easter and the day after the day after Easter, respectively, seven years ago); buried a cat I really loved after she was run over and replaced her with a cat I merely like; begun practicing yoga, which has many benefits but which, I am beginning to think, is one of the reasons I haven't done anything exciting: I have moments of inner peace and contentment and don't really feel the need to amuse myself with exotic activities or to seek out the company of very many people.

Either I am a bit reclusive or I am more content with solitude than most people, which are perhaps ways of saying the same thing.

Posted by holly at 8:09 AM

October 6, 2005

It's Out

Yesterday I met a friend for coffee at Barnes & Noble. (Yeah, I know: how terribly corporate of me. But my little home in the Rust Belt doesn't offer much else. I have tried and rejected as thoroughly inadequate the various non-corporate alternatives for book acquisition, with the exception of my university library--that rocks. And even non-corporate coffee is hard to come by. The one entry in the corporate coffee delocator for this area was provided by me, and that place is a million miles away, with mediocre mochas.)

My friend was late, so I browsed the books. On the "New Arrivals" table, I saw several copies of Best American Short Stories 2005, but couldn't find the other titles in the series. Finally I located a sales clerk. "Where's the Best American Essays?" I asked.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"The same thing as this," I said, holding up the collection of short stories, "except with essays."

He led me to a display, and there it was. I picked it up and scanned the table of contents: twenty-five essays, by the likes of Jonathan Franzen, Edward Hoagland, Oliver Sacks, David Sedaris, David Foster Wallace--and me.

That's right: me. The last essay in the collection is something I wrote about my love of textiles and some of the homemaking skills I acquired as part of the training for wife-hood all Mormon girls get in early adolescence.

It's jarring to see my name at the end of that list--not bad, definitely not bad. But though I fully intend to get used to it at some point in the next 52 weeks (just in time for the issue without my name at the end of the table of contents to appear), right now the fact that it's really cool is still competing with the fact that it's jarring and unfamiliar, much as it was to run my tongue across smooth teeth unemcumbered by metal wires one magic afternoon after three traumatic years of intense orthodontia.

It's very strange. I'm 41, I've been writing since I was 15, I've produced two books though neither is in print, but I garnered this very cool honor. Part of me hopes this is an omen of good things to come, and part of me fears this is about as good as it's going to get.

The essay was rejected by any number of prestigious journals, and printed in a small, yearly journal of women's writing called PMS, for Poem Memoir Story. I turned to the list of Notable Essays and saw that my little offering was considered superior to (among other things) something by E.L. Doctorow printed in The Kenyon Review.

Yesterday afternoon at B&N, my friend insisted on buying a copy so I could autograph it, and since we were on our way out the door, she gave it to me to take home, so I could write a note instead of just signing my name. This meant I got to peruse the book at my leisure. (I'm supposed to get a clothbound copy, but so far it hasn't shown up--I'm guessing they sent it to my agent, and perhaps she hasn't gotten around to sending it on.)

I went to campus after that and ran into Tom. "It's out," I said, and handed him the book.

"Wow," he said. "Were you surprised to see it?"

"Nah, I knew it came out today," I replied. "I've been checking the release date on Amazon every so often."

"You're the anchor," he said, looking at the table of contents. "The very last one."

"I'm the end of the alphabet," I corrected.

"Yours has the best title," he said. I admit I agree: the title is great, borrowed though it might be from a shirt Tori Amos wore on one of the four different covers of her album Strange Little Girls, which I briefly owned.

"This is huge," he said.

"I hope so," I said. "I hope it does some work for me. But I can't help imagining these reviews where someone says, ‘All the essays are really good, except for that last one, about fabric! What's up with that?'"

"That won't happen," he said. "I can tell by the first few paragraphs that it's really good." He read for a moment, then said, "Wow! You've got a semi-colon right after the close of a parentheses! That's so adventurous!"

"Yeah, my flamboyant facility with punctuation gets all the editors hot and bothered," I said. "It's what everyone likes best about my work."

The collection, I should mention, was edited by Susan Orlean, author of The Orchid Thief--that's right, someone interesting enough to be played in a movie by Meryl Streep likes my work. I am intensely flattered and gratified and thrilled that she does--there is NOTHING about that fact that sucks. But I confess I read the essay and think, "OK, I like this and I'm proud of it, but I don't even think it's the best thing I've written. So why is this getting attention when my book, which I think is great, isn't even in print?" I can only figure that either I'm a lousy judge of my own work, or angst-filled stories about religious despair just don't strike the publishing world as big-time money makers.

I wish I could say that I have other exciting publications in the pipes, but I don't. The issue of Sunstone currently at the printer's has an essay by me on "Why I Go to Sunstone" and I have a few poems forthcoming in various respectable journals. But I haven't been very good about submitting my work lately, and there's also the fact that aside from a few pieces I have purposely tried to make really short, most of my prose is long enough that it exceeds the word limit imposed by many journals. You can get an idea of that from this blog, where pieces are often so long they have to be split up into two or three posts.

I don't know. I guess I just have to write more, then put it all in envelopes and mail it to editors.

Anyway, I would ask you all to rush out and buy the anthology, but I don't get royalties, just a small honorarium, so it doesn't make any difference to me if you buy it or just read the essay in the coffee shop. (It's a mere eight pages, one of those things I tried to keep short.) But if you do read it and like it, I would be grateful for praise and congratulations--it's the most prestigious publication I've ever had.

Posted by holly at 7:51 AM

September 7, 2005

Art That Fits in Envelopes

This post is dedicated to my new friend Tammy, whom I met through Friendster (yes, you really can meet interesting people that way) thanks to the suggestion of a mutual friend (SBJ, to be specific), who thought we'd get along. We've been corresponding for less than three months, and she has already written me several of the best letters I have ever received in my entire life.

***

I think one reason I like blogging so much is that it's the closest I can come to writing letters all the time. The letter is one of my favorite art forms and one I think I'm particularly good at. I have always placed a high premium on good mail, and while I've learned to appreciate the virtues of email--its immediacy, for one thing--still, in many ways it's a sorry substitute for a real, honest-to-goodness letter. Most people send such short, inconsequential notes over email, and I still miss opening my mailbox, finding an envelope bearing the return address of some cool person, and knowing that inside are a couple of pages that will entertain and delight me.

Email has also hurt another of my favorite art forms, the postcard. What a great thing to find in your mailbox: a few really witty statements on the back of an interesting photo! I love getting and sending postcards, and used to devote a lot of time and energy to building up an impressive postcard collection. But these days I have only one friend who sends me postcards: John C, who not only sends postcards, but sends them with postmarks from Thailand and South Africa and Austria and so forth. (I am chagrined to admit I send him, at best, one postcard for every four or five he sends me, and mine have BORING postmarks.)

In Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, the heroine, Catherine Morland, is teased by the hero, Henry Tilney, when she suggests that she doesn't keep a journal. "Not keep a journal!" he exclaims, adding that

it is this delightful habit of journalizing which largely contributes to form the easy style of writing for which ladies are so generally celebrated. Everybody allows that the talent of writing agreeable letters is peculiarly female. Nature may have done something, but still I am sure it must essentially be assisted by the practice of keeping a journal.

The "usual style of letter-writing among ladies is faultless, except in three particulars," he assures Catherine, those three particulars being "a general deficiency of subject, a total inattention to stops, and a very frequent ignorance of grammar." Whether or not journalizing contributes to the art of writing agreeable letters, I do know that my journal and my correspondence often overlap. I'm serious about journal-keeping. I use three-ring binders, and thanks to my industrial-strength three-hole paper punch, pretty much anything can be included in my journal. I used to put the best letters I receive in my journal, and given that I wrote drafts of letters (I typed them out on a typewriter, because my handwriting is so hard to read--even I have trouble with it)--I would keep copies of the more important letters I wrote as well. These days it's even easier: I write my journal on my computer now, and I just cut and paste important letters I've written or received from my email program to my word processing program. (Though I did get a notebook to dedicate entirely to Tammy's letters, because they deserve that kind of special attention.)

Here, for instance, are the opening and closing paragraphs of a letter dated August 22, 1990, sent to my friend Hakim in Seattle:

With such pleasure did I receive your postcard! I always wanted a depiction of the burning fires of hell. But even more than that, I was glad to know that you are alive, working for an entity that values you enough to give you raises, promotions, etc, even if you hate your job....

Anyway that's my life. Thanks again for the postcard, and drop me another line some time if when you feel like entrusting your deepest thoughts and feelings to the US Postal Service. (Isn't dropping a letter into that abysmal void known as a mailbox a real act of faith? It almost feels like flinging a paper airplane off a cliff. You never really know if it will arrive, be read, understood or even appreciated.... The feeling is even worse when you submit your writing to some literary magazine, but enough musings on the mail.) Anyway, send me some details on your life!

Or a letter to my sister Kathy, who sent me a map of Utah I needed for a class, along with some other stuff, including a stupid chauvinist letter somebody sent to the editor of BYU's "alternative" student paper, prompting me to send this reply dated May 1, 1989:

I received your charming map/BYU folder/sexist letter and commentary ensemble. THANK YOU. The map is exactly what I needed, the folder fills fantasies I had never dared express, and the sexist letter and commentary confirmed my belief that BYU is the stupidest university in the western United States. Nothing else is going on here. I haven't cut my thumb on a cheese grater in three whole days.

Sometimes, in the midst of writing a letter, I'll feel an excitement, an adrenaline rush. It's two things: the joy of creation, and the pleasure of performance. A good letter is art that fits in an envelope and is certain of its audience, which is a very good kind of art--not lucrative but still rewarding to produce. I believe that a good letter--even on e-mail--is more of a performance than it is a conversation, about on an equivalent with stand-up comedy or a good lecture. In these cases, you know your audience is there and you can strike whatever tone you like: conversational, intimate, formal. But you know that while there might be some interaction, it's really just you talking; you have to come up with the energy and ideas to sustain the entire discourse. You might get a reply, but it's still not really a conversation, because of the difference in position or the lapse in time; someone's on a stage speaking to a group of people who can zone out or walk out; or someone is writing to someone else who must receive and read the letter, and you have to say something that makes him/her want to reply.

I firmly believe in the restorative power of a good letter, especially when you're away from home. But few people seem to share my passion for composing quirky letters, or else they just don't see the therapeutic value in the practice, or else they're busy and/or lazy. I hate it when people ask a lot of questions as a substitute for thinking of any real response to whatever is before them in a letter. I like people who are funny and I like people who send enclosures (something else that has fallen by the wayside, thanks to email), whether they're poems or bookmarks or refrigerator magnets. I hate writing to people who think that e-mail forwards or excuses for why I'm not getting a more substantial letter constitute a real correspondence.

Aside from the time when I was in love with and unofficially engaged to a guy who lived 6000 miles away, mail was never so important to me in my whole life as when I was a missionary. On my mission, letters from home were addressed (in English) to the mission office in Taichung; the mission secretary would then stamp a missionary's current address in Chinese on the envelope, and forward the letters on. A few times he mixed up the address stamps and we got all of someone else's mail and none of our own. Once two of my letters arrived, for some reason, stamped MISSENT TO SAKARTA SOEKARRO HATTA. As if I knew where that was.

Despite the fact that families with missionaries in the field are supposed to write letters on a regular basis, many weeks went by when I got no mail from anyone in my family, and it always upset me. Mom insists that I have misremembered, that she wrote to me regularly, but I recorded every letter from home in my journal, and I also saved all the mail I got from her, and there isn't that much. My father sent me fewer than 20 letters the entire 80 weeks I was away. I was always begging for more mail from my family, but the pleas never had much effect. Instead, my mom informed me that "We are aware of the great sacrifice and inconvenience you are going through, but you would make yourself happier if you would be happy with the things you do receive from us....and we do have to lead our regular lives." The fact that they had to lead their regular lives was one of the reasons I was so upset: I felt so disconnected. Mom usually sent brief notes and would drop, casually, the information that my youngest sister had been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, that my second sister had some new boyfriend. But rarely did anyone take time to write a letter and tell me what was going on. It was a sore spot my entire mission.

I doubted very seriously that my family was aware of what I was going through. When my brother John went on his mission in 1991, my mother had learned her lesson and tried to send him two pieces of mail every single week, one a genuine letter and the other a postcard or a brief note. I wrote to him every other week, whether he had answered or not. But one week, about three months before he finished his mission, he wrote an irate letter home because he had received only two letters that week, and neither had been from anyone in his family. Even though I was 29, I couldn't help saying to my mother, "See? I told you missionaries need a lot of mail, and I wasn't just being nasty when I complained that you didn't write enough."

There are many ways in which I have shed my missionary zeal (and plenty of other ways in which I never had much to begin with) but I am still filled with evangelical enthusiasm when it comes to writing letters. I would love for any and everyone reading this blog to post a comment or write me a letter, but if you won't do that, write to someone else! Write a good, long, proper letter that will conjure delight and wonder and gratitude, and make someone feel that seeing your name in his/her inbox is one of the nicest moments a day can bring.

Posted by holly at 12:39 AM | Comments (0)

September 2, 2005

I'm Curious

Sometimes people complain to me that they find it difficult to have "important and meaningful conversations" as part of their normal, daily interactions with people. This often surprises me. I feel I manage to have important and meaningful conversations with Tom's five-year-old daughter (whom I'll call Princess, because she wants to be one), though they're of a very different nature from my conversations with Tom, which of course are among the most important and meaningful--not to mention entertaining and enlightened--conversations ANYONE could have.

Sure, there are conversations that bore me. I don't give a shit about football, for instance. I can talk about Barbies (I had plenty as a little girl) but I can't play them any more, not with my nieces, not with Princess–I can't become the consciousness that animates and moves a Barbie, which is what playing Barbies involves; I just can't make myself do it. And I don't pay much attention to the details of most people's jobs, since they're usually not interesting. Once I was talking to my mom about one of my oldest and dearest friends, and she asked what he did for a living. "He works in a bank," I said.

"Doing what?" she asked.

"I don't know," I said, shrugging in impatience. "Something with money."

Except for people who work in academia in the humanities or social sciences, so that I have a pretty clear grasp of what their jobs are like, I can't be bothered to remember most people's job descriptions, unless they're easy like "doctor" or "high school biology teacher," and even then I get sketchy on the details. But ask me about a traumatic breakup someone endured, or what religion they were raised and how they feel about it, or what their dietary quirks and preferences are, or when their birthday is and what their sun sign is, and chances are good I know.

I'm curious about what it feels like to be other people, and how we make sense of the workings of our minds. I ask what could be considered snoopy questions, but it's because I'm interested in the answers. And for whatever reason, people are usually pretty good about responding. They tell me stuff. I'm not just sitting at my computer blogging because I'm self-obsessed (though certainly that's part of it) but because I am interested in how we manage to communicate what it means to be US, our unique, individual, common, collective, human selves.

And it's one reason I love nonfiction. What does it feel like to be captured by Narragansett Indians and dragged around the vast and howling wilderness of a seventeenth-century New England winter, as we learn Mary Rowlandson was in Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson? What does it feel like to be a 21-year-old Marine private in the front lines of combat in the Pacific during World War II, a story E.B. Sledge relates in With the Old Breed? What does it feel like to be a Black Boy in the south in the 20s and 30s, as Richard Wright describes in his stunning memoir? What does it feel like to lose a third of your jaw to bone cancer when you're nine years old and spend the rest of your life dealing with profound questions of ugliness, shame and beauty, the story Lucy Grealy tells in Autobiography of a Face?

And what does it mean for the rest of us that these things are part of human experience? How do we make sense of the suffering, the joy, the humanity and the inhumanity of others?

Since I walk around thinking about these things a good deal of the time, I end up talking about these things a good deal of the time.

But the conversations that make me craziest, that I most want to avoid having ever again in my life, are arguments about religion. I love discussing religion; I HATE arguing about it. Almost nothing in the world interests me more than the question of how we rise above the defeats, defects and disappointments of our early religious training, to remain engaged in a search for the numinous, the transcendent, the divine, and committed to a quest for a spiritually inspired ethos of compassion and love.

But almost nothing in the world interests me less than trying to convince someone to join or leave a particular church. Having done my stint as a missionary, I cannot bear to listen to that kind of proselytizing, though somehow I got sucked into doing it again recently--"sucked" being the operative word, because that's what it did: IT SUCKED.

You can't bludgeon people--including yourself--into enlightenment, though god knows I've tried.

A few years ago I had a conversation with my mother that went like this:

Me: "I think the Mormon church is evil."

Mom: "It's not evil."

Me: "I think it is."

Mom: "It's not evil."

Me: "Mom, do you see how we're kind of at an impasse here? I'm not asking you to accept that it IS evil; I'm merely asking you to accept that I think it is."

Mom: "It's not evil."

This conversation reminded me that a frontal attack someone's most beloved institution is not particularly persuasive. I mean, yeah, I think that ultimately, the Mormon church sucks, and I'll be happy to provide anyone who asks with an entire catalogue of reasons as to why. But chances are, that won't be an especially meaningful or important conversation, because psychologically it's like kicking a miserable, skinny dog I've got chained up in some corner of my psyche; and politically it's like shooting rubber bands at an elephant's ass from a distance of 200 yards; and spiritually–-spiritually it's like drinking half a liter of Jack Daniels after someone really, really hurts you instead of just going to bed, so that you compound your original misery with a day or two of alcohol poisoning. (And yes, I've done that.)

I'd rather explore the range of possibilities I've got now that I've left the church. What gifts did the church give me? (And it did give me plenty, including an understanding of the art of exegesis and an ability to keep my cool in front of a very large audience.) How do I deal with the limitations it imposed on me? (There are plenty of those too.) How do I find compassion if not respect for those who are still dealing with those limitations--who, in fact, don't find them limiting at all?

That's a meaningful and important conversation I want to have both with myself and with other people. And I manage to have it, because I insist on it. If the people I'm talking to don't want to address questions like that, I leave them to discuss whatever they want, and I go talk to someone else.

Posted by holly at 9:35 AM | Comments (0)