creative process

poetry, Uncategorized

Against Resolutions

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pencil_redDon’t get me wrong: Anyone who has read this blog for a while knows that in years past, I’ve posted the “obligatory” writing resolutions post. This year, however, I have a new perspective. Not only are resolutions cliche, they are made to be broken. “I’m going to ________ this year” ensures that most likely, the sayer of the statement will not, in fact, do whatever filled in the blank. Resolutions, because they seem forced and common, fail for the very reasons people make them in the first place. Every January 1, people around the world become motivational lemmings, jumping over the same cliff as their fellow resolutioneers. Research proves that, for the most part, people fail at keeping these well-intended goals. “Everybody’s doing it” doesn’t stop at high school, and the broken resolutions of the majority prove that the artificiality of popular sentiment will not sustain us individually as we seek after objectives in our personal and professional lives.

So as a writer, to say, “I resolve to (get my new manuscript published by Knopf, get work into The New Yorker, win the Pulitzer, etc.)” is a silly endeavor at best. One, because many of the victories of the writing life depend upon a healthy dose of reputation, timing and luck; and two, because we as authors and creators should be constantly resolving to put forth our best, not just at one time of the year. If we desire to really resolve something (in every sense of that word), it should be a daily effort rather than an annual one.

Do I have goals for 2014? Sure. Am I going to increase my likelihood of failure by framing those goals in the dime-store filigree of a resolution? Definitely not. Fellow reader, if you’ve made your resolutions for 2014, good for you. I wish you the richest of success in the year ahead. May you shed those pounds, quit smoking, write the next Dover Beach, or do whatever it is that this day inspires you toward. Best Wishes, Happy New Year, and Cheers. I’ll be at my desk.

poetry, Uncategorized

Going Organic — A Floridian Perspective

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grove0001
A view of our grove from the top of our barn, January 1996. As a younger poet, I spent a great deal of time “pondering” from the old barn roof. This vista was my first real point of inspiration.

My family runs a citrus farm in south central Florida. My grandfather, who died in late 2004, began it well before my mother was born.

It isn’t a very big grove; only about 20 acres. We grow pineapple variety oranges, which are considered by the industry a “juice orange.” You won’t find our fruit in commercials for OJ, because they aren’t “table fruit,” meaning they aren’t the kind of oranges one puts in a bowl to make a centerpiece.

Now in Florida, we have another blow dealt to our crop: Citrus Greening. This disease causes the fruit to wither into hard little knots, and it causes trees to diminish in foliage and abundance. As bad as citrus canker was in the 1980s and before, greening now threatens family farms like ours even more. This disease, caused by a foreign phyllid, has brought Florida Citrus to its knees. As legislators and agricultural experts figure out what to do next, Florida orange groves are dying away, acre by acre. Ours is no different, unfortunately. Government officials have worked hard to get funding to eradicate greening, but it may not happen fast enough. No more 100 percent Florida orange juice is a very close and real possibility. Greening could mean the end of not only a product, but also a long line of family traditions, as well. Current farmers looking to pass on the family business may soon be without a family business at all.

I explain all this to raise another point, however: In the midst of the great greening crisis our state is undergoing, many farmers, including my family, are examining organic farming practices with greater intensity. No-till farming and other ideas are being investigated for their potential benefit, and 21st Century agriculturists are learning that the chemicals we relied upon for decades are doing more harm than good, especially in dealing with greening.

Poetry, much like citrus farming, equally demands a more organic approach as we enter a new era in literature. No longer can the writer be satisfied with language that sounds self-important and inflated; the words must flow, and there must be balance among the elements, just as sustainable agriculture requires the right balance of water, sunlight, and food. Too much alliteration or metaphor, and the verses will perish. Too little editing or revising, and the end product will be as hard and withered as a greening-affected orange.

It seems a little selfish to focus on writing artfully amid such a dangerous situation for family farms. But maybe, just maybe, some of the same practices that poets and artists employ on paper can be used by our scientific community to save our citrus — sometimes, the new, radical, and unconventional solution is exactly what a piece of writing needs. And perhaps that’s what our oranges need as well.

If you’d like to get involved in the fight against greening, please write your congressional representatives, and search online for ways that you may be able to help. Keep American Agriculture strong! Thank you for listening, and thank you for reading.

poetry, Uncategorized

Trash those dreadful drafts?

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trashdraftsRecently I tweeted about throwing away my rough drafts, and how posterity might frown on such a practice. The more thought I gave the subject, the more I concluded that tossing those old scribbled up legal pad pages isn’t such a bad idea.

However, I have writer friends who save every scrap that they’ve ever scrawled upon. “You never know when you might need to look back at your prior thought processes,” they defend, and while I see the point, I can’t help favoring efficiency and space over reflection. I wasn’t always this way. There was a time when I believed that everything had to be preserved “just in case.” I was well on my way to being the subject of a “Hoarders” episode.

These days, I’m a bit more pragmatic in my approach. Everything will eventually be dust anyway, so why not give myself some mental room and clarity? I’m not a fully devoted practitioner of feng shui, but I do see the merit in having “flow” in my surroundings. A bunch of old chicken-scratched drafts won’t help my process anymore than having a mulch pile in the middle of my writing room. Both are about equal in function.

Lest the reader think I’m a minimalist, allow me to clarify: If something adds beauty or merit, then it should stay. This is true in poetry as in life — lots of professors believe that adjectives and adverbs are tools of Satan, and in some cases, they are. They add fluff and window-dressing, often where none is needed. However, just as the writing room demands certain little accoutrements to make it home, so too does the poem. An occasional descriptive won’t kill the bigger message or theme, no matter what Dr. Killdarlings says.

The issue of tossing out drafts and prewriting is personal to every writer. Those of us with visions of Ken Burns documentaries based on our lives may hold on to those ugly reminders in the hopes that our penmanship, like that of Sandburg or Frost, will be looked upon as history. But for this writer, I’d rather people remember the final version. Time to go take out the trash.

poetry, Uncategorized

Hometown Fellowship — A guide to being inspired where you are

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downtown1
A view of Central Avenue from my new short-term writing space.

Recently, I decided to invest in my writing using a different method. Plenty of my writer friends pay some high-priced writing retreat or conference a handsome sum for the sake of privacy and different surroundings. Still others win residencies at noted creative spaces like Yaddo or The Studios of Key West. My objective was to experience this same “getaway” mentality without the hassle of airlines, rental cars, or questionable bathrooms.

I decided, simply, to invest recent prize winnings of mine in a “loft.” Here in my city, we have lots of historic buildings downtown with inexpensive space for rent. My thought was, by providing myself with a different perspective on a usual place, my writing would be renewed. So far, the new view has generated one piece, and I’m hoping, of course, for more.

I also gave myself a deadline and a project: for three months, I will use this office space as a creative venue outside my usual lake-view “writing room.” During that time, my plan is to produce a chapbook-size accumulation of work inspired by this new locale. Notice, I did not say “at least 20 poems,” or “at least 30 pages,” or any other precise measurement. By leaving the project somewhat open-ended, I have allowed myself the luxury of defining my own parameters as time proceeds. After all, I’ve only paid for three months here, and using the space judiciously is imperative.

By giving ourselves, writers and artists, permission to invest in our passions, we are assuring at least some level of productivity. There is also a tradition to be observed here: plenty of poets, novelists, and creatives have similarly allowed themselves the liberty of “lofts” or “studios” over the centuries. The views from these spaces have produced some of our greatest masterpieces. If I can achieve even some small slice of that same motivation, my objective will be achieved.

In the meantime, I would ask my fellow right-brainers to consider something similar if they’re in a funk or need a breath of fresh air.  A small getaway can result in the greatest returns, I’ve found. Hopefully, my little experiment will pay several creative dividends as the months pass. Updates, as usual, will follow.

downtown2
A second view of Central Avenue from the new writing space.
poetry, Uncategorized

Insomnia: The writer’s best frenemy

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Plenty has been written about writers and their lack of sleep. But since I’m awake anyway, I thought I might as well tackle the issue also.

Yes, being awake at 3 a.m. has its advantages — the house is quiet, and if I really need to get some writing or editing done, there is no quieter time. Everyone else is “a-snooze in their beds,” as Dr. Seuss would say, and meanwhile, my grey matter is churning and firing more thoughts than its daytime counterpart could ever conceive.

However, the price will come in the sunlit hours — my teaching will be less enthusiastic, or too much coffee will make me jittery/cranky/irascible/jumpy. I’ve heard all the remedies, from herbal supplements (melatonin once broke me out in a rash more severe than chicken pox) to yoga relaxation techniques. And there’s nothing more irritating than a hangover induced by over-the-counter sleep aids, by the way. The plain truth is, my mind wants to be up, and so my body follows.

Insomnia is a bit of a blessing curse — some of my best stuff gets written in the wee hours, and I guess there is an established literary tradition to be followed here. Poets across centuries have endured the same nightly conflict: get up and scrawl out what could be great revelation, or stay in bed, tossing and turning in the torture of some undocumented epiphany. Truthfully, it isn’t always some kind of great inspiration that rouses me. Some nights, it’s just “awakeness.” No pressing thoughts about pieces, deadlines or work-related matters; just the old thinker cycling thousands of disconnected, unrelated images through my mental cinema.

If I were to be perfectly forthright with myself, I suppose I allow insomnia to recur because it has its creative payoff. While other writers are snugly tucked in dreamland, here I am, cranking out poetry and prose. Sure, there are studies and advisory epistles that show how lack of sleep affects performance, thought clarity, and other aspects of life, but in the end, when I have a newly completed piece or an expertly edited work of my craft, I’m willing to endure a few yawns throughout the day. Time to go brew up a pot of the good stuff — have a good morning, friends.

poetry, Uncategorized

Daniel Pink’s Theories and NaNoWriMo

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I have never participated in National Novel Writing Month, and I do not plan to do so this year. I actually kind of object to the whole concept. I know: It works for a lot of people who ordinarily would not find the impetus to sit down and write 1,600 words per day (or whatever the “magic number” is). At the end  of one month, they find that they have created a lot of prose. Good for them.

Moreover, there are many success stories from writers about the manuscripts they created during this time of forced productivity. Several NaNoWriMo authors have found their books picked up by publishers, and some have even won awards. I congratulate them. But this post really isn’t about how NaNoWriMo works for other people. It’s about how it works for me, personally. Call it selfish if you will, but I think enough people share my quandary to warrant exploration of the topic.

When I was in my first round of grad school, I became an amateur philosopher for a while in the quest to make a John-Nash-like “new discovery,” only in the field of education rather than mathematics. I read works by Paolo Freire, John Dewey, Lev Vygotsky, Aristotle, and more modern names like Malcolm Gladwell and Daniel Pink. I related to Pink’s research because he consolidated and clearly stated exactly what I, and others like me, had known innately all along: We don’t do well what we aren’t motivated to do, and we aren’t motivated by a lot of things that corporate America has always used.

Pink identifies main “drivers” like autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Here is where my objections to NaNoWriMo come into play: Once I sense that something is “mandatory,” and I sense that it has been made that way by something or someone beyond myself, immediately I resist. I have had to overcome this instinct in the workplace and in graduate-level study — there are certain mundane tasks that others assign me that simply must be done, and so, my compliant “good soldier” self must supersede my most ingrained instincts to rebel against the compulsory. It is difficult, at best.

Why, then, if I know that I am “programmed” to shun the mandatory, would I choose to ruffle my own proverbial feathers? NaNoWriMo is a choice that quickly devolves into a chore. Engineered and engaged in by others, the purpose of NaNoWriMo is defeated by its “club-like” nature. When a self-improvement task begins to develop organizational properties, I then begin to hear its death knell. The only structure that truly succeeds is one decided upon by the individual, and in this case, the individual has given over that control to a group’s expectations instead. Failure for me as a writer would be inevitable. Some may call this assertion stark pessimism, but my own intrapersonal understandings tell me that it is valid. I have engaged in enough metacognition to know that my “rebel writer” within would sabotage any attempt by outside forces to control or “streamline” my creativity.

In addition, I could much more easily be devoting that time to endeavors I not only choose, but also design for myself. My fulfillment will be higher, my sense of accomplishment will be greater, and my enjoyment will make the tasks intrinsically rewarding. This reasoning is largely why I am a poet. My greatest contentment is found within the self-made structures, routines, and practices of an independent poetry writing life. I will probably never be a millionaire due to this simple satisfaction, but in the pursuit of my passions, I will be exponentially happier than I would be under the stressors and rigid constraints of affluence.

No, readers. I will not be participating in NaNoWriMo. When at last I sit down to begin “the great American novel,” it will be because the muse and my heart have impelled me to do so, not because I allowed a conjured-up contest to crow-bar its way into my creativity. Daniel Pink is right, and my right-brained life proves his correctness time and time again. I choose to succeed in my own way. How about you?

 

poetry, Uncategorized

The “Not Knowing” and its Value

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Sometimes, the question IS the answer.

After the recent success of my post about Arthur Flowers’s advice to writers, I felt obliged to write another quicker but equally applicable piece about something else that emerged during my last MFA residency: “The Not Knowing.”

It seemed this phrase was everywhere over the 10 June days I spent at University of Tampa. Fiction writers, especially, swore by it. They recounted tales of how their stories simply “took on lives of their own” after a truly boffo first line or a vague inkling concept drove pen to page. As a poet, I failed to see the relevance. After all, poets like me are in the business of crafting lines one by one, giving explicit attention to the sound, the sense, the structure, and even the symbolism of each individual word. “The Not Knowing” seemed to be something that prose writers did, and even then, with sketchy success at best.

Usually, I have a pretty good idea about where a piece is headed when I sit down to REALLY begin writing. My brainstorming methods are sort of standard: If there’s a central metaphor at work (as there usually is), I start with a two-column note chart. This is a T chart, for those in business. Using this visual organizer, I’m able to see similarities, differences, and relationships between two things, be they objects, ideas, or something else entirely. Then, as the prewriting begins to hum, I usually have a few real zinging lines come into my mind. I write these down. I’ll use them later. Once I have  a pretty good collection of these musical lines, then I’m ready to begin really putting pen to paper in the poetic endeavor. So, as you can see, I’m fairly methodical.

There are always a few surprises that creep into poems: pleasant wordplay or unforeseen ironies. But usually, the act of creating poetry goes pretty much according to plan. I know that sounds terribly boring, but it’s true. I have an idea, I explore the idea, I create a product from the idea. Then there’s the refining and the rewriting. I go through A LOT of drafts on legal pads, and usually 4 or 5 on the computer screen. In all this process, there isn’t much room for “not knowing,” as my prose-writing friends described it.

So when the great “not knowing” happened to me, I was pleasantly surprised, both with its advent and its outcome. I had a pretty decent first line written down on an index card: It was comprised of a single striking image that had a few different elements working within it. This line had occurred to me during one of those between-class lapses when the tardy bell has not yet rung, and students are idling about, yakking and poking at one another.

When I pulled the index card from my pocket later at home, I just started freewriting (something I virtually NEVER do) based solely upon that single first line that really sang to me. I’d like to tell you the piece that came from this inspiration won me a Pushcart and a Pulitzer simultaneously, and that Natasha Trethewey has written me envious hate-mail because of it. That didn’t happen. However, what did happen was this: I was now able to look at a “spontaneous” piece, one that was driven completely by the great “not knowing” I’d heard about, and I could relate. All I had to begin with was one line — one line that had beauty, had potential, and had heart. And that was enough.

I know, I know. You probably want to see the poem now, right? Here’s the letdown, reader: I’ve sent that poem out to several potential publishers with packets of other works I’ve generated, so, sorry about that. It’s going to have to remain “in the dark” for now. However, when it does find a home, please rest assured that you’ll see it here first. And in the meantime, please feel free to explore your own “not knowing”-driven work. I’d love to hear how that works out for people outside the literary realm. Who knows where the uncertain might lead us?

poetry, Uncategorized

The Necessity of Interruption

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So, this post probably won’t win me many writer friends. Be warned.

I have found over the years I have written poetry and prose that I am different from my colleagues in one regard: I actually prefer to be interrupted from writing.

Now, before all you secluded-in-solitude writers go nuts, let me clarify: My writing room has no “doors” to speak of. My children can come in at any time and speak to me, get hugs, whatever. And in retrospect, those interruptions have actually made my writing stronger.

Here’s what I mean: My brain actually has to work harder to power through the static and the outside influences, and thereby comes up with things that my brain at total ease would never think. In fact, when I’ve tried to write in areas that are too quiet (the library, my local college study room, etc.), I find myself encountering greater difficulty. There has to be some background noise, and it can’t be something like music with lyrics or that artificial white noise garbage. The sounds in the environment have to be things I know are real: the drip of the rain beyond my window (like right now), the TV in the adjoining room mumbling about…I can’t tell what, the coffeemaker gently whirring forth a stream of fuel, my boys playing pirates in their bedroom down the hall. These noises actually help me to focus better. And while many of my poet friends would cringe at the thought of such “racket,” I’ve found that writing locales without these sensations rob me of something. Maybe it’s the familiarity, maybe it’s a degree of undiagnosed OCD — I’m not sure.

Whatever the cause of this scientific fact, the thing that matters most is its effect. I know how and where I write best, and life’s little interruptions are as necessary as pen and paper. Do I still fantasize about being that “lone wolf” author who has blackout blinds and acoustic paneling just to ensure that his thoughts aren’t “tainted?” I suppose. But given my druthers, I’ll take my boys’ imagination-chatter and the soft hum of life in the suburbs over celebrity sanctuary any day.