We were all shocked by the honest attempt Mike made in his blog last week. It rang true to me the attempt to try to put in the effort for our class, while trying to balance the other things in life. I thought it was brave and on point, an honest discussion of what it must be like for him to attempt this intense class on top of 3 jobs and 5 writing classes. Dr. Kopp passed on the task to us, to get to the core about what holds us up in our own sense of integrity to fulfill the goals we set out for ourselves. I don't want to read anymore, I hit these blocks, more like writer's blocks than anything I have ever experienced. I know why. I picked the hardest things for me to read. My first choices, while I know are important for my work are emotionally charged things for me. I have come a long way. I have to give myself credit for that. Just a year ago I would never have allowed the discussion of my work to hit on a personal note. Haven't I written fiction to mask my own story all these years? They say your first novel is always somewhat autobiographical, and while the story is completely fictionalized, the themes are mine. Things I own, feelings I own, worlds I created to retell the lowest parts of my own psyche. For example the very line of text I give to show my character Lettie's voice in my blog is so clearly me, someone who knew me on the surface could even see me in it: I wished I didn’t need everyone to like me, why can’t I just hate Scar? I looked in the mirror and saw blemishes tiny and bumped on my skin. Like the blemishes on my soul, you had to get so close to see them |
I have tried to get through Lolita but I put it down. It isn't that mimetically it is a hard read. I had a lot of trouble reading it because of the unreliable narrator. I want to see lines in it that draw away from the pedophilia. I wanted poor little Lolita to be more chaste, a complete "victim's victim." Sapphire's American Dreams I have read but have had trouble formulating the appropriate blogs. I am having a really hard time trying to distinguish the Codes at play in a big group of poetry. I figured the answer as I wrote this complaint- take one poem and explicate it for appropriate codes. In Scarlett Splinter , it is the age old story, maybe I am not really ready to finish my novel. Ugh, I hate to say that! I just need to work through it. But really it is the same with all of them, I am holding back what I need to do because it is hard. It isn't even that I am afraid of being wrong, or looking stupid. I just don't want to be done with any of them. It is so obvious to me by my own page structure, look at each book as it's own thing, own blog. Leave them open, analyze them more. Because to me, I realized I'd prefer to take a deep emotional journey with a few books where I learn from them and explore the writer's devices than to surface read many novels. I wanted each reading to give me something. I wanted each of these novels to give me it's riches. Unfortunately, I get lazy when I want more. I had for the longest time placed unfair expectations on myself. I wanted every shirt to hang in color length of sleeve order in my closet, white to black, short to long. And if it couldn't be perfect it would be a mess instead- like clothes on the floor mess. I think I have clothes on the metaphoric floor of my literary attempt, because I am unwilling to just hang them up knowing at some point I will get them in order, or live with a little confusion. |