The Velveteen Writer

First, listen to this (a newer, hipper version):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHkmLEhFq44

I've an idea in my head, but no way to begin.  Ever go through that?  Oh, yeah.  That doesn't stop after the cap and gown day, kiddos.

Rough transition it is then.  I have another blog that I write that is not as difficult, mainly because I do not have to consistently pause and ask myself things, like "is this academic enough?" "is this inappropriate?"  "what are my intended learning outcomes?"  "will I offend that sweet kid?"

No, no.  The other blog has my cultural fingerprints all over it: my religion, my Southern-ness, my rebellious nature, my sentimentality.  Of course, it's a truer voice.  Less manipulative.  More raw.  More important?  I doubt it.  But decidedly more therapuetic to write.  (And yes, Zeke.  I am real :)

This is not to say that a blog written for a class called "Topics in Writing" isn't pertinent, or real, or fun.  Quite the contrary.  I believe that some of you will go on to get a graduate degree and will need to get much more philosophical in your writing in order to excel.  Others of you will go on to be teachers of writing and will need to ask more of your students than the smooth production of the five paragraph essay.  But . . . how can I help you, really?  If this were the last class I ever taught, what do I need to share about writing?  No pressure, right?

And so, I think I am snagged on a qualitative issue, one that I have been trying to solve by weighing out writing skills against things like paychecks, career advancements, and accolades.  So snagged, in fact, that I am prepared to ditch all of that for something, well, more "real."  

I have read thousands of books, written several published articles, and have even slogged my way through some neatly composed essays that I personally abhorred for an A.  And yet?  A piece of writing from my youth continually haunts me.  

"You become. . . That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."  The Velveteen Rabbit

Real.  What does that mean to writing?  Should we even care, for when we can craft elegantly posed thesis statements and perfectly cited essays, all in hopes of that elusive A, is that all?  Is nothing more required of us?  Of course, I want you all to hone your craft.  Become "skillful."  But, if in the journey you do not find yourself, if on the way you forget why you fancy words and books so very much, if at the end all you have is a decent job but have lost the joy of making magic with a pen, then . . . well, then your hair has not been loved decently off.

  It is Friday, and we have talked of warrants, voice, writing tools like dashes, and have peer reviewed and shown up to class on time.  But, today, this time, just once . . .

 Let's write something for the sheer joy of it.  Push ourselves to create something real.  Here's a bit from me, your very real teacher.

I was the granddaughter of a Cherokee medicine woman and only ten years old, swathed in my mother's white organza scarves and twirling in the pines.  "Dancing in the Moonlight" swelled from my am/fm radio and drove golden sparks of fireflies over my fingers as if I had called them into being, called their little bodies into a dance with summer and sweat and innocence.  It was 1976, and my feet were stained red by Alabama clay, my heart broken by divorce, and my voice was still unscarred by thirty years of smoking.  And I danced, and dreamed, and twirled under a burnished dusk sky.  Part of me is still there, orchestrating fireflies and believing that summer will never end and that daddies never leave.  Somewhere, I dance.

 I'm not going to go back over and revise this.  Because it's real.

Your turn.