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rmAs a writer of, among other things, the personal essay, the last thing I am concerned about in my writing is the sensibilities of the members of the unfortunately-named LiveJournal friends list.
Instead, I concern myself with what is the burden of anyone who is a personal essayist. That is, how do I tell the truth and tell it with point and art while also respecting the lives of people who either don't know I'm a writer or couldn't really do much about that fact when they chose to entwine, however briefly, their existence with my own?
It's a complicated question, often ugly, and one I've been struggling with for most of my life.
My ex, Michael, and I, used to have terrible and bitter fights about such things. It is only unfair to say that this is the reason we are not together because that was merely the most obvious symptom of a deeper and all-pervasive disconnect between us.
When you ask me not to write about you, you are asking me to forgo a sense, as if I am blind, as if food is no longer to have taste. I only finish seeing in the telling of the story.
I was very young then, and was, to be amusingly understated, somewhat less than gifted with discretion. But he too was flawed, not knowing the difference between privacy and shame, and using it often, as a weapon against me and how I would live.
Since then, I have come to understand that I will never be able to make everyone in my life comfortable with my words. Similarly, I have come to understand that there is little to be gained by asking permission to do what I do -- which is tell stories.
Some of the most important stories I have told were maybe not so much mine to tell, and my life has become a balance, not between what I may say and what I musn't, but the cost of declaration versus the price of silence.
Similarly, many of the stories I have told and will continue to tell can and do effect how people view me. Luckily, as someone without a traditional corporate job and no desire for one, I can afford certain snap judgments maybe other people cannot. It is not that I have done nothing I am ashamed of, rather, it is that I can think of nothing so shameful, so useless, as silence in the face of even the most fatal flaws. All events are suitable to confession; the trick is finding the manner of it. And the time.
LJ is a medium in which audience and interest is constantly self-selecting. My first account here was as an early adopter, and I have had people reading my journal come and go and stay since then for all sorts of reasons -- some related to my content and some more related to their lives, goals or LJ usage patterns.
As a writer, it is never my job to protect the audience, but to inform and arouse in all manner of what some would view as too limiting a word. As an LJ'er, my concern for the sensibilities of my audience (because that is what a "friend of" list is, although I am blessed that many of these people are also my real friends and intimates), is limited to the basic decorums of this medium -- that is, I use cut tags for images that are not work-safe or may overload someone's technical capabilities.
The rest is up to the reader. As a writer, I've got quandaries enough without taking on responsibilities that truly have no reason to be mine.
Instead, I concern myself with what is the burden of anyone who is a personal essayist. That is, how do I tell the truth and tell it with point and art while also respecting the lives of people who either don't know I'm a writer or couldn't really do much about that fact when they chose to entwine, however briefly, their existence with my own?
It's a complicated question, often ugly, and one I've been struggling with for most of my life.
My ex, Michael, and I, used to have terrible and bitter fights about such things. It is only unfair to say that this is the reason we are not together because that was merely the most obvious symptom of a deeper and all-pervasive disconnect between us.
When you ask me not to write about you, you are asking me to forgo a sense, as if I am blind, as if food is no longer to have taste. I only finish seeing in the telling of the story.
I was very young then, and was, to be amusingly understated, somewhat less than gifted with discretion. But he too was flawed, not knowing the difference between privacy and shame, and using it often, as a weapon against me and how I would live.
Since then, I have come to understand that I will never be able to make everyone in my life comfortable with my words. Similarly, I have come to understand that there is little to be gained by asking permission to do what I do -- which is tell stories.
Some of the most important stories I have told were maybe not so much mine to tell, and my life has become a balance, not between what I may say and what I musn't, but the cost of declaration versus the price of silence.
Similarly, many of the stories I have told and will continue to tell can and do effect how people view me. Luckily, as someone without a traditional corporate job and no desire for one, I can afford certain snap judgments maybe other people cannot. It is not that I have done nothing I am ashamed of, rather, it is that I can think of nothing so shameful, so useless, as silence in the face of even the most fatal flaws. All events are suitable to confession; the trick is finding the manner of it. And the time.
LJ is a medium in which audience and interest is constantly self-selecting. My first account here was as an early adopter, and I have had people reading my journal come and go and stay since then for all sorts of reasons -- some related to my content and some more related to their lives, goals or LJ usage patterns.
As a writer, it is never my job to protect the audience, but to inform and arouse in all manner of what some would view as too limiting a word. As an LJ'er, my concern for the sensibilities of my audience (because that is what a "friend of" list is, although I am blessed that many of these people are also my real friends and intimates), is limited to the basic decorums of this medium -- that is, I use cut tags for images that are not work-safe or may overload someone's technical capabilities.
The rest is up to the reader. As a writer, I've got quandaries enough without taking on responsibilities that truly have no reason to be mine.
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no subject
Date: 2008-01-14 09:43 pm (UTC)I'm applying to a single MFA program for memoir writing here in the city.
I continue to labor on the novel in solitary horror.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-14 09:57 pm (UTC)There are so many good MFA programs in NYC. Some of them will let you do a combined degree in memoir and fiction once you get into the program. I really had a hard time not going that route.
I know you have an editor, but do you have an agent? If you need or want a rec I worked with a great one last year and I am always looking for good writers to send her way.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-14 10:03 pm (UTC)Because of the "genre-bias" that exists against fantasy and the "ughy" subjects involved in my novel, I've sort of resigned myself to working on it in a dark, solitary pit.
Mainly, I'm just applying to the CUNY MFA, as there's no other program in the city I could financially swing without merit aid, and I am not in a financial position to be eligible for any other type of aid due to bad credit, the high cost of living in NYC, etc.
Also, their instructors seem oddly relevant to the themes I play with in non-fiction.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-14 10:12 pm (UTC)The CUNY MFA program has some excellent instructors, as does the Brooklyn College program. People I know who have gone there loved it. I think Columbia and NYU are hyped more, but students don't get as much time with their famous teachers as they do at smaller programs. My friends who have gone to Iowa report the same problem.
God, I should have done a program I could afford. I'll be paying for this MFA until I am 90. And if I don't finish something in the next year or so I am going to drown myself in the Charles River, at least metaphorically.