A short story

Last night, I finished writing a short piece of fiction that took me about two days to write and that was less than 1,200 words long. It may or may not be the final project I use for my creative writing class (because, even though I'm the teacher, I did all the in-class work with my students, and I want to do the final project - a complete short story - with them because I think that's a good idea). It's a silly, pointless bit of science fiction that involves a room full of doors that all lead back to the room containing them and two scientists who really dislike each other. I'll edit it today (or at least read it and see if I can make it more coherent or somesuch) and see if it's at all worthy to submit to literary magazines. I've been lately unable to accurately determine the quality of my own work, but I suspect everyone's like that.

Continuing

While teaching my writing class today, I was confronted with a fact I often talk about but seldom like to face the reality of: I hate to write. I do it fairly regularly, but not profusely, and it's almost always because I'm forcing myself to do so. I spend too much time agonizing over words whose placement most people will probably not care about, and I hate it a good deal of the time. About a quarter of the time, it's okay or even enjoyable, but most of the time, it's a chore. 

George R.R. Martin said, "Some writers enjoy writing, I am told. Not me. I enjoy having written." Unfortunately, I seldom even enjoy having written. I wrote a 10,000-or-so words-long novella last autumn. I keep forgetting about it, because I pushed myself to write most of it, and when I was finished with it, I was relieved, but only in the sense that one is relieved with having finished a long, tedious, uncomfortable chore. I was not proud of my work. I was glad to have it out of the way, but that was it.

When my students deviated from the subject of character development to ask me how I keep myself writing (such tangents occur frequently in this class, and I encourage them), I told them that mostly I have daily wordcounts for myself and I'm fairly good at forcing myself to do work even when I didn't want to. But something urged me to let on to the fact that I'm less of a writing role model than they'd believe, and I told them the truth.

"You know, I very seldom feel like writing. I have no love for the art anymore, and every time I sit down to write, I'm forcing myself. Every single time. I don't know why I do it, other than that it's the thing I do. But really, I'm personally drained as far as writing goes. It's remarkably difficult and I don't know why I do it. May I get morbid? I'm going to make a morbid analogy. For me, giving up on writing is a bit like giving up on life. I force myself to do it, and I don't feel like doing it anymore, even though the people around me think I have such joy and skill at it, and I guess I could choose to stop, but I realize that figuring out how to quit and actually following through with it is much more hassle than I need, so I keep at it."

This whole thing was being overseen by a teacher who worked at the school I was teaching this at, and while she didn't interrupt my morbid comparison between ending my writing and suicide, she did say, "But you know, I think this proves that you're really a writer. Because your inspiration ebbs and flows, and you keep going on anyway and making yourself write. And one day, your inspiration will come back, and you'll have written throughout that whole time."

I was taken aback at this potentially true and startlingly hopeful statement. I gave her some sort of thank-you before breaking the prior line of conversation and got back to the point of the difference between static and dynamic characters.

After class was done, the kids thanked me and went off, and the teacher approached me and said something much like, "Your ability to write even though you don't feel like it is admirable. It shows you're a true writer. You don't quit, you keep doing it. And someday your inspiration will return. You're just going through a dry spell now. Did this start when your mother died?" (She died about five months ago.)

"No," I said. "It's gone on for over a year now."

"It'll end," she replied. "I was reading about Ernest Hemingway and how he was the same as you. He hated writing sometimes, but he always made himself do it. It proved he was a writer. You're a writer."

And maybe I am. Maybe a writer isn't someone with a bunch of brilliant ideas that they write out but someone who's able to make themself write out the ideas when there's no desire or even brilliance. Maybe a writer is someone who doesn't have the sense to give up. Maybe a writer is the person who decides that it would be harder to quit this life than carry on with it, and they choose the lesser of two difficulties and continue doing what they were doing.

I tell people that, by this point, I'm writing because "it's what I do, and by this point, it's so much of who I am that I can't stop". Maybe that makes me more of a writer than anyone who does it for love and who couldn't continue if that love went away.

Upcoming class

Well, I'm really very excited about tomorrow, because tomorrow is when my writing class starts. Yes, I am teaching a creative writing class this week. I'm teaching a bunch of homeschooled children from my little sister's homeschool program about creative writing. It consists of lessons about the different aspects of creative writing. Topics we'll cover include structure of a story, how to make realistic characters, the importance of setting, etc.

As I teach the class, I will probably make blog entries about the things I teach. I'm also going to give the kids a long speech at the end of the class about things that I personally learned because of writing, in some way or another, and that are good things to bear in mind when going about life. I believe I'll make a post featuring that list of things. It's actually a rather interesting list, and I think people would benefit from it.

Small but Amazing Goals

Ladies, gentlemen, and variations thereupon, I have a new goal on my bucket list. And unlike my other "goals" (such as going to outer space or seeing a giant tube worm in person), this one is actually realistic.

My challenge - get work accepted by publications from all six inhabited continents (and Antarctica, if they have literary magazines there).

I already have poems accepted on four continents (North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia). Getting work accepted in Africa and South America shouldn't be amazingly hard. It's difficult, but it's possible. And being able to say "I've got poems published on all six inhabited continents" - wow, that'd be amazing, wouldn't it?

There's something really nice about setting small but amazing goals for yourself, isn't there? Even if it's something that's not that big to the world at large but that's big or important to yourself. It's not THAT hard to get work published in all six inhabited continents, but man am I going to feel proud of myself when I do so. What if everyone had a small but amazing goal that they set for themselves that would make them incredibly proud and happy when they'd succeeded at them? People might be slightly happier.

Short stories and scarf-making

Well, today's my last day in the mountains. I go back home today (in a few hours, actually).

I started and nearly finished a science fiction "short story". I say "nearly finished" simply because it's not quite finished yet, , and I use "short story" in quotes because I'm a little over 6,000 words in and I don't know if this makes it something that's not a short story or what.  It'll be regrettably hard to sell, but fortunately, it's sci-fi, and that's not amazingly hard to sell. (What's wrong with me. All I think about when writing a story is "can I get it published somewhere".)

Also, I finished making a scarf that I will probably end up selling to someone. (It's for the dad of a friend; my friend has two Doctor Who scarves that I made, one of which I financed, and he requested I make him one that was "more manly". I have no clue how to make a "manly" Tom Baker scarf given that it's already associated with a male character, but I used smaller needles and made it shorter, and maybe the obvious differences will trick him into thinking it's manlier. I'm good at tricking people into thinking things, especially if I'm supposedly an expert on said things.)

It's been a very productive holiday after all, and I'm very pleased with myself and what I've done.

Fourth of July and anthologies

Happy Fourth of July, everybody! I'm writing this entry from Idyllwild (which is a place in the mountains in California, which is where I happen to live). I'm here on holiday for the Fourth and I seem to be getting a fair bit of writing done (including - gasp! - some fiction, something I've not been very good at for a while).

Anyhow, I've got some exciting news relating to my writing. I've previously mentioned the Romanian litmag Nazar Look, which has in the past accepted two of my poems. Well, I got something in my e-mail the other day, saying there was a contract I ought to sign. I didn't know what it was at first, but when I looked at it, I found out that it was an agreement for usage of my two poems in a poetry anthology Nazar Look is putting out. This is significant. Not only is my work going to be anthologized for the first time, the publishers asked to be able to anthologize it. This isn't like submitting something and hoping they'll accept it. It's the difference between an actor auditioning for a role and an actor being called by a film studio because they want them to play that role. Man, I love progress.

So that's how things are going. For anyone reading this who lives in America, happy Fourth of July, because independence is awesome. For anyone reading this who doesn't live in America, I'm a happy American having an American holiday. And for anyone reading this from any country, I'm personally pleased for the state of my writing career, so at least hurrah for something!

Humor in Other Languages

It’s fascinating and a little sad how I will probably never be able to fully appreciate Russian humor.

A friend of mine (who happens to be Russian) was over yesterday, and at some point, the subject of Russian humor came up. She explained to me what Russian humor is like – often dark, self-deprecating, and full of wordplay or at least amusing phrases that are very funny in Russian but astonishingly not-funny in English. Some of the jokes she translated into English, I found amusing, but for the most part, I understood on an intellectual level that they should amuse me, but the emotional level (the level that makes you actually laugh) just wasn’t getting it. The “humor” part of “Russian humor” was lost on me because I’m simply not Russian. Yes, I suppose I could learn Russian and then experience the jokes in the language in which they are actually funny. But currently, I do not speak Russian, and Russian humor continues to frustrate me with how I know it’s funny but I don’t feel it.

The way language works is a tragic marvel. People who appreciate it (and this includes writers) can look into its various nuances and mine tremendous wordsmithing value from it. You know your own language and you know what sounds amusing and what doesn’t. You know your native tongue’s inherently funny words, and since you get it on an emotional and intellectual level, you stifle the urge to crack up when you hear them in serious contexts. Fellow speakers of your language will understand. They share your understanding of it.

People who don’t understand your language, however, will not find your humor so amusing. Much like something will sound hysterically funny in your head but incredibly stupid out loud, so the comedic value of a phrase or joke will be lost when you have to translate it into a foreign language. No one can really say the exact reason this so, which is a testament to an indescribable, ineffable quality that languages, individually and as a whole, have in the psyches of those who speak them.

As a result, my friend tells me Russian jokes translated into English, and I know they’re funny but I don’t laugh.