Best Tuesday Ever?
So yesterday was a good day in many ways, although it was wrapped up with a debate that was exactly what I expected.
The day opened up for me at 12 when I got to my fiction writing class. I was there an hour early, so I filled up the time by putting the room together. I unfolded and arranged the tables and noticed that no matter what, I couldn't make the square that is usually made. I tried moving the tables around probably six or seven times, wondering if I was retarded when suddenly it dawned on me that someone may have STOLEN ONE OF OUR TABLES! This was needless to say an outrage, and I set them up in a broken circle and started placing the chairs. There's something about doing minimalist physical labor alone in a room while listening to the music from Hitman that just works for me for some reason. Anyhow, the teacher eventually showed up and shortly thereafter, the class began to fill. Now, my fiction writing class is 99% female. I'm one of three guys; one of them hasn't shown up the last two weeks in a row and another is the husband of a student who's sorta tagging along for the ride. And I would say in my class I can count on one hand the number of people in or near my age bracket. There are quite a few 40+ and even more 60+. This actually translates well. It's amazing to watch these people interact. They're all painfully polite and sunny and conversational, which has never ever EVER been my experience in a classroom. There's quite a few people so I'm still fuzzy on names but I am picking them up way faster simply because they are all very approachable, friendly in a way that isn't imposing. You know how it is when someone's trying to be friendly and they can quickly make you a social hostage. I've had none of that here; when people strike up conversation with me, I actually want to participate.
That last statement paints me as a sort of social weirdo, which I guess isn't entirely unfair, but I hope you get my point.
Anyhow, today was my day to read, along with two other students. The format is thus: I read, then people go through three stages of criticism. Stage one, people just say positive things that they thought and felt about the writing. Step two, I ask questions about the piece (e.g. was any of this confusing?) and the group responds. Step three is constructive criticism (e.g. I feel like you should expand this portion or this phrasing to me felt a little out of place). I chose chapter five of the story I'm writing, the first chapter with detective Jack. It introduces him through his views and investigations on suicides and how they affect people. It's a pretty uncompromising piece, sort of displaying the physicality of taking your life and the extreme negative affect it can have on people who are close. I've always sort of wondered how close I was to the mark, because while I've done a lot of research, a lot of listening to stories and whatnot, I have not had a suicide closely affect me, which has always made this chapter feel to me like a stranger looking in on a world. Like trying to get somewhere by instinct with no map. It doesn't help that no one who has read it before in its current form has been affected directly by suicide either.
Well, it certainly was received with more energy than I ever could have expected.
The general consensus was that it's a very good piece. Which is always what the general consensus is because the way the Three Stage Method is setup weeds out the harshness people could pull out, but also because honestly I don't think writers have the heart or lack thereof to really bag on other writers even if they aren't particularly impressed with the work in question. The only way you can gauge how good your piece is truly is by seeing how many people will volunteer a comment about it in stage one. Well I got a LOT of comments, including one from a woman who was tearing up as she was explaining to me how impactful what I wrote was. Everyone who had dealt with suicide was essentially saying the same thing, that I completely nailed the feeling, to the point where I felt like it was assumed that I was writing from experience rather than research and imagination.
I can't tell you how weird that feeling is. I mean on the one hand, I feel like in this case I've essentially succeeded as a writer. This is EXACTLY what I set out to do and it actually touched the emotions of people to the point where this character that is COMPLETELY fictional has all of this very real sorrow from the readers swirling around him. On the other hand, I don't know how good I'm supposed to feel about inciting that emotion because it is so negative and sad. My head was sort of spinning. After the three stages were done and we headed off to break, three different people handed me combined like 7 pages of notes. 7 PAGES! That's how long this chapter was double spaced.
This experience suddenly made writing as a career very real for me. I mean, I've wanted to be a writer for some time but I've always had doubts as to how effectively I could reach people with the skills I possess. This was above and beyond what I could have hoped for. My writing made a woman cry. That is utterly fucking insane to me, like Peter Parker finding out he can climb anything and throw cars fifty feet.
Anyhow, after break the roll continued and the next girl read what I can only describe as (someone else coined this) a female mythology story. To be honest I didn't really connect with it, but honestly, the piece didn't feel like it was written for me. There was some good and interesting material that could be expanded on. There was a line about the (I'm not kidding) consumption of placentas that was phrased in such a way that implied to me that all women eat their placentas. I mentioned in stage three that that should probably be addressed but I also tried to make it lighthearted by saying it sort of jokingly. Call me crazy or sick but to me placenta eating is ripe for a comment. Anyhow, my statement got a general laugh from the crowd but I shot a look at her (because as everyone who reads this knows, you have to confirm that your joke landed with the intended recipient) and lo and behold, there is not a hint of a smile on her face.
Uh oh.
Anyway, we go on to the next story, one that was surreal and very Alice in Wonderland. I wasn't particularly a fan of Alice but I appreciate the style. We discuss that for awhile and then all of the sudden class is over. As I'm getting up to fold the tables and put chairs away, the girl who I made the placenta comment to comes up to me and tells me that what I said was very hurtful. Now, this is one of my fears, having to explain myself to the "doesn't get the joke" guy (or girl in this case). I tried to explain that I wasn't dissing her, I was just attempting to wrap a comment with a joke to keep it lighthearted, and she gave me a sort of look like, "why would you ever think a laugh could be had from eating raw placenta," like it's one of the most normal things a person can do. But whatever, we ended up talking for like ten minutes because I felt bad. Something about this environment changes the nature of my interactions with people. I dunno if it's a writer thing but normally I would have told her to eat a dick.
Anyhow, I hung out with Luz again after class. We went to this little deli sort of place that her friend used to work at. We sat down and we talked for maybe an hour about all sorts of fucking intellectual shit, like the nature of people and psychology and how we've evolved over generations, how socially, technology has had a massive impact on the way we interact with one another, just all sorts of interesting shit. This is the kind of conversation you are supposed to have with girls. Strange as it sounds, it's situations like this that remind me I'm a smart person and if I engaged in this sort of conversation on a regular basis I'd be a lot more well-spoken. It always draws my attention just how rare these discussions are when I have them.
Anyhow she drops me off at BART so she can go to her next class and I run into my old partner in Drama class at AHS. For our final we did a scene from Reservoir Dogs, and it was awesome. He was a freshman when I was a senior so it was one of those things where I was sort of on my way out, which is unfortunate because I really like him and I think he'd get on with the group well. He has a bunch of crazy stories about his family and is just generally interesting and nice. We exchanged numbers and I made my way home. The day ended with the basically unsurprisingly dull debate. All in all, a good day I'd say.
The day opened up for me at 12 when I got to my fiction writing class. I was there an hour early, so I filled up the time by putting the room together. I unfolded and arranged the tables and noticed that no matter what, I couldn't make the square that is usually made. I tried moving the tables around probably six or seven times, wondering if I was retarded when suddenly it dawned on me that someone may have STOLEN ONE OF OUR TABLES! This was needless to say an outrage, and I set them up in a broken circle and started placing the chairs. There's something about doing minimalist physical labor alone in a room while listening to the music from Hitman that just works for me for some reason. Anyhow, the teacher eventually showed up and shortly thereafter, the class began to fill. Now, my fiction writing class is 99% female. I'm one of three guys; one of them hasn't shown up the last two weeks in a row and another is the husband of a student who's sorta tagging along for the ride. And I would say in my class I can count on one hand the number of people in or near my age bracket. There are quite a few 40+ and even more 60+. This actually translates well. It's amazing to watch these people interact. They're all painfully polite and sunny and conversational, which has never ever EVER been my experience in a classroom. There's quite a few people so I'm still fuzzy on names but I am picking them up way faster simply because they are all very approachable, friendly in a way that isn't imposing. You know how it is when someone's trying to be friendly and they can quickly make you a social hostage. I've had none of that here; when people strike up conversation with me, I actually want to participate.
That last statement paints me as a sort of social weirdo, which I guess isn't entirely unfair, but I hope you get my point.
Anyhow, today was my day to read, along with two other students. The format is thus: I read, then people go through three stages of criticism. Stage one, people just say positive things that they thought and felt about the writing. Step two, I ask questions about the piece (e.g. was any of this confusing?) and the group responds. Step three is constructive criticism (e.g. I feel like you should expand this portion or this phrasing to me felt a little out of place). I chose chapter five of the story I'm writing, the first chapter with detective Jack. It introduces him through his views and investigations on suicides and how they affect people. It's a pretty uncompromising piece, sort of displaying the physicality of taking your life and the extreme negative affect it can have on people who are close. I've always sort of wondered how close I was to the mark, because while I've done a lot of research, a lot of listening to stories and whatnot, I have not had a suicide closely affect me, which has always made this chapter feel to me like a stranger looking in on a world. Like trying to get somewhere by instinct with no map. It doesn't help that no one who has read it before in its current form has been affected directly by suicide either.
Well, it certainly was received with more energy than I ever could have expected.
The general consensus was that it's a very good piece. Which is always what the general consensus is because the way the Three Stage Method is setup weeds out the harshness people could pull out, but also because honestly I don't think writers have the heart or lack thereof to really bag on other writers even if they aren't particularly impressed with the work in question. The only way you can gauge how good your piece is truly is by seeing how many people will volunteer a comment about it in stage one. Well I got a LOT of comments, including one from a woman who was tearing up as she was explaining to me how impactful what I wrote was. Everyone who had dealt with suicide was essentially saying the same thing, that I completely nailed the feeling, to the point where I felt like it was assumed that I was writing from experience rather than research and imagination.
I can't tell you how weird that feeling is. I mean on the one hand, I feel like in this case I've essentially succeeded as a writer. This is EXACTLY what I set out to do and it actually touched the emotions of people to the point where this character that is COMPLETELY fictional has all of this very real sorrow from the readers swirling around him. On the other hand, I don't know how good I'm supposed to feel about inciting that emotion because it is so negative and sad. My head was sort of spinning. After the three stages were done and we headed off to break, three different people handed me combined like 7 pages of notes. 7 PAGES! That's how long this chapter was double spaced.
This experience suddenly made writing as a career very real for me. I mean, I've wanted to be a writer for some time but I've always had doubts as to how effectively I could reach people with the skills I possess. This was above and beyond what I could have hoped for. My writing made a woman cry. That is utterly fucking insane to me, like Peter Parker finding out he can climb anything and throw cars fifty feet.
Anyhow, after break the roll continued and the next girl read what I can only describe as (someone else coined this) a female mythology story. To be honest I didn't really connect with it, but honestly, the piece didn't feel like it was written for me. There was some good and interesting material that could be expanded on. There was a line about the (I'm not kidding) consumption of placentas that was phrased in such a way that implied to me that all women eat their placentas. I mentioned in stage three that that should probably be addressed but I also tried to make it lighthearted by saying it sort of jokingly. Call me crazy or sick but to me placenta eating is ripe for a comment. Anyhow, my statement got a general laugh from the crowd but I shot a look at her (because as everyone who reads this knows, you have to confirm that your joke landed with the intended recipient) and lo and behold, there is not a hint of a smile on her face.
Uh oh.
Anyway, we go on to the next story, one that was surreal and very Alice in Wonderland. I wasn't particularly a fan of Alice but I appreciate the style. We discuss that for awhile and then all of the sudden class is over. As I'm getting up to fold the tables and put chairs away, the girl who I made the placenta comment to comes up to me and tells me that what I said was very hurtful. Now, this is one of my fears, having to explain myself to the "doesn't get the joke" guy (or girl in this case). I tried to explain that I wasn't dissing her, I was just attempting to wrap a comment with a joke to keep it lighthearted, and she gave me a sort of look like, "why would you ever think a laugh could be had from eating raw placenta," like it's one of the most normal things a person can do. But whatever, we ended up talking for like ten minutes because I felt bad. Something about this environment changes the nature of my interactions with people. I dunno if it's a writer thing but normally I would have told her to eat a dick.
Anyhow, I hung out with Luz again after class. We went to this little deli sort of place that her friend used to work at. We sat down and we talked for maybe an hour about all sorts of fucking intellectual shit, like the nature of people and psychology and how we've evolved over generations, how socially, technology has had a massive impact on the way we interact with one another, just all sorts of interesting shit. This is the kind of conversation you are supposed to have with girls. Strange as it sounds, it's situations like this that remind me I'm a smart person and if I engaged in this sort of conversation on a regular basis I'd be a lot more well-spoken. It always draws my attention just how rare these discussions are when I have them.
Anyhow she drops me off at BART so she can go to her next class and I run into my old partner in Drama class at AHS. For our final we did a scene from Reservoir Dogs, and it was awesome. He was a freshman when I was a senior so it was one of those things where I was sort of on my way out, which is unfortunate because I really like him and I think he'd get on with the group well. He has a bunch of crazy stories about his family and is just generally interesting and nice. We exchanged numbers and I made my way home. The day ended with the basically unsurprisingly dull debate. All in all, a good day I'd say.
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