This Week

Writer's Words

A few quotes from today's morning workshop:

"Sometimes my stupid ideas are my best."
~Ashton

"Bad characters seem more real."
~Keegan

Thursday - Some Reflections

I hope everyone enjoyed Rusty's talk today as much as I did. She began by discussing the root of the creative process, the inspiration source of our penned pages. One idea that especially appealed to me, borrowed from the philosopher Giorgio Agamben (who was borrowing from the ancient Greeks), is that the creative act (writing) is, in one sense at least, the "unveiling" or illuminating of a pre-existing nugget of personal experience or insight by the conscious mind from the subterranean archives of the subconscious. William Stafford, a favorite poet, agreed, saying that our creative process is more about mining and melding the buried bounty within each of us than some glorified physical, outward act of genius. I agree with Stafford and Rusty, and think that we produce our most vivid writing when its fuel is our personal experience. Reading, I think, is about (and I'll paraphrase the wonderful musical and film The History Boys here) "those moments when you come across something — a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things — that you'd thought special, particular to you. And here it is, set down by someone else, a person you've never met, maybe even someone long dead. And it's as if a hand has come out and taken yours." A writer best encourages this transcendent experience through infusing his (or her) writing with the deeply personal, which he (or she) knows best (one would hope).

-Alex The Intern (I don't always go by this title, but in this case . . .)

The First...Blog Post

I remember it was seventh grade and I had never been to a social, but God did I catch on fast. I remember wishing someone would take me by the waist and dance with me like the rest of the slightly-slutty school, like the repetitive grinding and youthful voice crackling moans coming from the dirty floor.

I remember him coming up to me and the laughter that in sued, a laughter that came from my lip-glossed kiss. He couldn't be serious. But he was and took my waist like any other nervous seventh grade boy, only a little taller and a little less anxious than I was.

Dancing with him was almost the most awkward thing I had ever done, next to breaking up with my elementary school "boyfriend", a relationship which consisted of holding hands during recess and nothing more. His shoulders smelled like sweaty musk due to the rhythmic techno beat. The shirt on his back was soggy, his hair shaggy, but, of course, he didn't know how to dance.

Later I decided that the strange and uncoordinated event was meant to happen like it did, and that most people's middle school experiences had happened as such. Even the spiteful associate-principles of the school had gone through the same initiation, or so everyone assumed. What I never assumed, however, was what would happen the next week at school, and all because of my first dance.

-Teresa Lane