{"id":748,"date":"2016-01-11T21:33:21","date_gmt":"2016-01-12T01:33:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.sherryquanlee.com\/?p=748"},"modified":"2016-01-11T21:33:21","modified_gmt":"2016-01-12T01:33:21","slug":"not-good-or-bad-better-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.sherryquanlee.com\/?p=748","title":{"rendered":"Not Good or Bad, better"},"content":{"rendered":"

Not Good or Bad, better<\/span><\/h3>\n

Some of us, particularly American Blacks, grew up with the saying, you\u2019ve got to work twice as hard.<\/em>\u00a0 Perhaps that was the only way those of us who have been invisible (looked away from) could be seen.\u00a0 (I worked twice as hard in graduate school, I earned a 4.0 grade point average, but it didn\u2019t earn me visibility; not even as I pointed fingers and called out.) If I don\u2019t work twice as hard, am I twice as bad?\u00a0 Writers, who have been taught as people we aren\u2019t good, work twice as hard to prove to ourselves we are, so we can prove to others that our writing is good.\u00a0 I tell my students not to think good or bad, just better<\/em>.<\/span><\/h3>\n

A friend said, \u201cWe have to work twice as hard to be equal.\u201d\u00a0 And, yes, that\u2019s been part of my life\u2019s journey, my writing journey-working twice as hard.\u00a0 But it\u2019s time to dispel the myth.\u00a0 Time to ease up on ourselves.\u00a0 Stop letting this age-old adage convince us that we\u2019re not equal. Time to let our self-esteem soar.\u00a0 It\u2019s time we are confident in ourselves and our writing ability.\u00a0 It\u2019s time for us to work less hard (don\u2019t get me wrong, writing is hard work, but it shouldn\u2019t be heart breaking), and to believe we are equal, even in a society that continues to treat us like we\u2019re not, even as we continue to prove that we are.<\/span><\/h3>\n

Our responsibility as writers, James Baldwin wrote (\u201cThe Creative Process, 1962):<\/span><\/h3>\n

\u201cPerhaps the primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid; the state of being alone. That all men are, when the chips are down, alone, is a banality \u2014 a banality because it is very frequently stated, but very rarely, on the evidence, believed. Most of us are not compelled to linger with the knowledge of our aloneness, for it is a knowledge that can paralyze all action in this world. There are, forever, swamps to be drained, cities to be created, mines to be exploited, children to be fed. None of these things can be done alone. But the conquest of the physical world is not man\u2019s only duty. He is also enjoined to conquer the great wilderness of himself. The precise role of the artist, then, is to illuminate that darkness, blaze roads through that vast forest, so that we will not, in all our doing, lose sight of its purpose, which is, after all, to make the world a more human dwelling place.\u201d<\/span><\/h3>\n

When we write we exist in our own small world, even as we contemplate the world at large.\u00a0 We can shut out the naysayers and just write.\u00a0 We can shut out the rule makers, and just write.\u00a0 I tell my students there are no rules; there is craft, but it\u2019s up to you to be creative.\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

Carole Maso wrote Break Every Rule (Counterpoint 2000):<\/span><\/h3>\n

\u201cIf the creation of literary texts affords a kind of license, is a kind of freedom, dizzying, giddy\u2014then why do we more often than not fall back on the old orthodoxy, the old ways of seeing and perceiving and recording that perception?\u201d…<\/span><\/h3>\n

\u201cIf we joyfully violate the language contract, might that not make us braver, stronger, more capable of breaking other oppressive contracts?\u201d…<\/span><\/h3>\n

\u201cMight writing by women, by people of color, by gay men and lesbians be an active refusal of the dominant code, a subversion of meaning as it has been traditionally constructed…\u201d<\/span><\/h3>\n

I don\u2019t write every morning before the sun rises. Not going to happen. I also don\u2019t write every night before I go to bed.\u00a0 Not going to happen. \u00a0But I am going to write, it is my responsibility, not my \u201cluxury.\u201d\u00a0 Audrey Lorde wrote (“Sister Outsider: essays and speeches,” Crossing Press, 1985<\/em>:<\/span><\/h3>\n

\u201cFor women, then, poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action.\u201d<\/span><\/h3>\n

\u201cWe can train ourselves to respect our feelings, and to discipline (transpose) them into a language that matches those feelings so they can be shared. And where that language does not yet exist, it is our poetry which helps to fashion it. Poetry is not only dream or vision, it is the skeleton architecture of our lives.\u201d<\/span><\/h3>\n

For many of us we get up early because we have to-to get ready for work or get kids off to school.\u00a0 For many of us, at night we\u2019re too tired to write.\u00a0 And for some of us, who have fewer obligations, morning or night we choose not to write.\u00a0 Brushing my, teeth morning and night, is a struggle, but (usually) I do brush; routine, for me, is a challenge.\u00a0 The healthier writing choice for me is to write when I write, not burden myself with expectations. (However, I am goal oriented; if I have a writing deadline, I kick butt.)<\/span><\/h3>\n

Also, I don\u2019t write in coffee shops.\u00a0 Who started that movement, that trend? I\u2019m not sure, and I don\u2019t care.\u00a0 For the amount of coffee I drink when writing, I\u2019d be a fool to pay what I\u2019d have to pay at a coffee shop to drink coffee shop coffee, and anyways, I don\u2019t drink fancy coffee-cappuccinos, lattes (I\u2019ll admit, an Americano once-in-awhile). I take it straight, like my whiskey.\u00a0 Mostly, though, I can\u2019t write in a coffee shop because the noise, the people, (the conversations), and the smell of coffee are distracting.\u00a0 And then there\u2019s the fact that I prefer my own bathroom; a nearby bathroom always a necessity for a serial coffee drinker.<\/span><\/h3>\n

I prefer my own space, my own home where I can write in my jammies, if I want; where I can listen to my favorite music in the background as I write, if I want; where I can eat chocolate or drink red wine, if I want (actually, I don\u2019t drink and write, but it\u2019s a possibility).\u00a0 I have a lap top computer because I thought I might write in the world of coffee shops; for the most part, however, my laptop only moves from my office desk to my dining room table and back again.\u00a0 Occasionally it\u2019s travelled with me to free rooms at Casinos, where, when my money ran out, I wrote in the privacy of what no longer could be considered a free room.<\/span><\/h3>\n

I did earn an MFA in Creative Writing, but not to be a writer, not because I thought the only path to publication was to earn an MFA degree.\u00a0 No, I went because I wanted to prove to myself, and my children, that I could. \u00a0I wanted to work twice as hard<\/u> so I could feel equal, so I could feel smart. (Yet, I chose the MFA program above other graduate programs because I didn\u2019t think I was smart enough-for math, for science; not that I thought a MFA degree would be less than, but I thought my experience as a writer would see me through).\u00a0 I don\u2019t regret my choice; if only because I learned that what didn\u2019t work for me challenged me to learn and use what does.<\/span><\/h3>\n

Writing Exercise:\u00a0 answer the following questions:\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 do you lack confidence in yourself as a writer? in your writing?\u00a0 why?<\/span><\/h3>\n

2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 what have you learned about being a writer, about writing that you need to set aside to move forward with what works for you?<\/span><\/h3>\n

3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 what works for you?\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

\u00a9Sherry Quan Lee, January 11, 2016<\/span><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not Good or Bad, better Some of us, particularly American Blacks, grew up with the saying, you\u2019ve got to work twice as hard.\u00a0 Perhaps that was the only way those of us who have been invisible (looked away from) could be seen.\u00a0 (I worked twice as hard in graduate school, …<\/p>\n

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