Wednesday, July 07, 2004
What if Cinderella had left the ball with both shoes on?
I'm having an identity crisis.
When it comes to creative writing, I've usually identified myself as someone who writes poetry. I wrote some angstful stuff in high school, and it was usually picked up for publication by the editors of the school literary magazine. I won the prize in English my senior year. In addition to a playwriting course, I took poetry writing seminars in college and completed an independent study in poetry writing during one semester of my senior year. Unlike high school, my submissions to the college's literary magazine were often returned. However, I did eventually manage to get two poems published in it. And my senior year someone - probably the poetry writing professor I had worked most closely with - nominated me for the English Department's award in creative writing.
So I left college thinking of myself as someone who writes poetry, and I entered grad school in order to complete a degree in Russian literature, first, and comparative literature, eventually. At the time that I was making these decisions, I considered applying to MFA programs in creative writing. But I couldn't. Even though I thought of myself as someone who writes poetry, I didn't believe enough in myself or any talent I might have to try to do anything more than "write for the drawer" - and not in that noble, samizdat kind of way but more out of cowardice and (at least a little bit) embarassment. (I cannot rhyme or produce a reasonable verse in a classical form like a sonnet to save my life. Give me sestinas to play with any day, however.)
Writing poetry was one creative outlet. I also wanted to write narrative - the next Great American Novel, in particular. But how scary is that when the longest thing you've ever written is either a one-act play (creative writing) or a master's thesis about Jungian archetypal analysis of the early short stories of Nikolai Gogol (academic writing)? What's a girl to do? Well, don't do any creative writing at all, of course. But that's not really a solution to anything. Eventually not doing any creative writing became not doing any writing. That's really not a good thing for an academic career, particularly when you're supposed to be doing research towards completing a book-length dissertation.
So here I am, several weeks into a critique deal, writing short stories and sending them out into the world; planning to produce something for the Eberron open call; and re-reading my old poetry files and wondering, just a little bit, why I came to think of myself as someone who writes poetry. Yes, some of that work is, I think, good and should be brought out from the drawer to the light of day. But some of it really isn't. Reading through some pieces yesterday, I was struck by just how personal the poetry I've produced has been. And the "spice" that Ed usually says he wants to see more frequently in my prose tends to show up in the verse.
Maybe what I'm learning is that I don't have to be someone who writes poetry or someone who writes prose or someone who is writing her dissertation. Maybe the emphasis should be on the verb. Let me be someone who writes.
When it comes to creative writing, I've usually identified myself as someone who writes poetry. I wrote some angstful stuff in high school, and it was usually picked up for publication by the editors of the school literary magazine. I won the prize in English my senior year. In addition to a playwriting course, I took poetry writing seminars in college and completed an independent study in poetry writing during one semester of my senior year. Unlike high school, my submissions to the college's literary magazine were often returned. However, I did eventually manage to get two poems published in it. And my senior year someone - probably the poetry writing professor I had worked most closely with - nominated me for the English Department's award in creative writing.
So I left college thinking of myself as someone who writes poetry, and I entered grad school in order to complete a degree in Russian literature, first, and comparative literature, eventually. At the time that I was making these decisions, I considered applying to MFA programs in creative writing. But I couldn't. Even though I thought of myself as someone who writes poetry, I didn't believe enough in myself or any talent I might have to try to do anything more than "write for the drawer" - and not in that noble, samizdat kind of way but more out of cowardice and (at least a little bit) embarassment. (I cannot rhyme or produce a reasonable verse in a classical form like a sonnet to save my life. Give me sestinas to play with any day, however.)
Writing poetry was one creative outlet. I also wanted to write narrative - the next Great American Novel, in particular. But how scary is that when the longest thing you've ever written is either a one-act play (creative writing) or a master's thesis about Jungian archetypal analysis of the early short stories of Nikolai Gogol (academic writing)? What's a girl to do? Well, don't do any creative writing at all, of course. But that's not really a solution to anything. Eventually not doing any creative writing became not doing any writing. That's really not a good thing for an academic career, particularly when you're supposed to be doing research towards completing a book-length dissertation.
So here I am, several weeks into a critique deal, writing short stories and sending them out into the world; planning to produce something for the Eberron open call; and re-reading my old poetry files and wondering, just a little bit, why I came to think of myself as someone who writes poetry. Yes, some of that work is, I think, good and should be brought out from the drawer to the light of day. But some of it really isn't. Reading through some pieces yesterday, I was struck by just how personal the poetry I've produced has been. And the "spice" that Ed usually says he wants to see more frequently in my prose tends to show up in the verse.
Maybe what I'm learning is that I don't have to be someone who writes poetry or someone who writes prose or someone who is writing her dissertation. Maybe the emphasis should be on the verb. Let me be someone who writes.
