Sunday, September 21, 2014

Literacy Narrative Draft (I Mean Rant)

I guess I got into writing because no one had written the specific stories I had wanted to read.  That’s probably why I’m still here.  It seems like I’ve got stories inside of me that I just really want to experience, and I have no other alternative than to write them myself. 
            What I’m really talking about here is fiction writing—apparently that’s what’s most near and dear to me.  It seems more genuine in a way, less presumptuous than creative non-fiction (which I do like if I’m feeling chatty), more coherent than poetry, and less boring than regular non-fiction.  When I think of “writing” I think of storytelling.
            I probably would be an actor if I had the self-confidence.  I would probably direct movies or TV if I had the social skills to coordinate that many people without my head exploding, or the desire to learn nit-picky things about cameras.  I’d be a painter, if I had the patience to learn advanced techniques or the money to spend on supplies.  Writing is the easiest tool I have to get my stories out there.  Not necessarily for other people (recognition is nice), but probably just for myself.
            I don’t adore language, I’ve never opened a dictionary of my own volition before, the musicality of poetry doesn’t send me into thralls of literary ecstasy.  I missed that memo, I just don’t get it.

            Nobody's ever told me that I can't write or that I shouldn't write.  That's probably why I'm still here.  My parents never told me that I'd never be able to support myself with a B.A. in Writing, they just encourage, heavily hint, and otherwise pester me to look into journalism and technical writing.  They know that I'm not cut out for that starving artist shtick.
            We have the money to send me off to school to learn a skill that doesn’t provide an instant financial payoff (or perhaps any payoff).  I was expected to go to college, so I was groomed in the public school system so that I could become a good candidate for acceptance.  There was a prestige level—if I had really tried, or tried at all—a fancy name on my diploma would’ve been nice.  It’s hard to see yourself as attending a prestigious school when you share the TCAT with kids from Cornell.  Maybe IC is nicer than I think it is.  I’m not sure. 
            Anyway, I’ve had a supportive family, and that’s a big deal.  It’s important not to get a raison d’etre stomped out of you when you’re growing up.
            My high school was okay.  They did their jobs in getting me tons of college credit before I even graduated, I took AP courses and tests, got an Advanced Designation Regents degree, and blah, blah, blah.  It’s the same old college rat-race.
            I had room for electives, sort of—at the expense of my only study hall.  I took Orchestra and Art, all four years.  I continued French because it would look good to colleges.  I had always wanted to take the half-semester Creative Writing course that our high school offered.  The kids in that class were the ones who decided what got in to the high school Lit. Mag. something I really wanted.  There was never any room in my schedule for it. 
            But I submitted some poems.  A set of three versions of the same poem, a triptych.  I mixed visual art and poetry and also old-timey vampires.  I thought it was a genius idea.  I never got published.  Looking back, I think that they didn’t got what I was trying to do.  Maybe they didn’t like vampires that weren’t love-struck and sparkly.  They did however, like angsty poetry about the problems of being a teenager that hinges on an extended metaphor about grocery shopping.  I thought it was a boring, whiney poem.
            I’m not bitter.
            Anyways, so that was my only experience with creative writing in high school and it was thoroughly disappointing. 
            So I came to IC.  I’m here because it’s fairly local, and it has a Writing Department.  I didn’t even know that those existed until I found the one here.  At the other colleges I could’ve gone to, Creative Writing was a sad subset of the English major, or it didn’t exist.  So, in the end, my college choice, the big agonizing choice was a no-brainer. 
            Now I’m here, and now I have the best example of how undernourished my writing knowledge actually was.  When I got into Intro to the Essay (which I only took because it’s required) I learned about the existence of the Creative Non-fiction genre. 
            Wait, what?  Non-fiction isn’t just boring book-documentaries?  There is a world outside of textbooks?  Nobody had told me that essays weren’t anything different than the crappy things we wrote in English class, or in frantic, formulaic brain-dumps on Important Tests.
            Totally blew my mind.  Completely changed my idea of what writing is, and can be. 
           
            I feel like ending on a happy note.  Look forward to seeing y’all in class!
Questions for review:
-Should Brandt be explicitly in here?
-I’m not too ramble-y am I?
-Where do you want more?

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