Synergia: What is Creative Writing? Part 3

Before reading the final installment in this piece, please refer to Part 1 and Part 2.

Dinner was, fortunately, not the awkward affair I’d been afraid of. The ten of us were seated at two long rectangular tables pushed together. Dr. Smith and her partner sat at one end, while Erinne, Alex and I sat at the other. I intended to stew in my own misery and mourn the loss of my four-point-oh, but then someone ordered a bottle of wine and Alex started making jokes about the poets and authors he’d run into during the conference.

Jalia took out her camera and snapped shots of everyone toasting to another successful year of AWP. When our plates of food came, she took artsy photos of everyone’s dishes before we started eating. Veronica talked about the exposure our university’s literary magazine got at the conference and her hopes for making it a reputable journal. Dr. Smith and her partner discussed how nice it had been for them to catch up with friends and professors from their grad school days. Erinne said the conference had inspired her to start working on the next chapter of her novel and she’d also made some good contacts for publishing jobs.

Eventually, we finished our dinners and the bottle of wine, and the conversation turned to what we’d all be doing after graduation. Some of us had no idea. Some of us wanted jobs. Some of us were still waiting to hear back from grad schools. All of us dreamed of being writers. Maybe someday we’d submit a panel and get to present at AWP. Maybe we’d get to join our idols like Art Spiegelman and Jhumpa Lahiri as keynote speakers. Maybe, someday, breathless and excitable undergrads would run into us there and whisper, “Oh my god! Isn’t that the author of—?” Or maybe they’d make fun of us and wonder why their professors ever recommended our books. Or maybe we’d attend just as an excuse to see each other and drink wine together again.

I didn’t speak to Dr. Smith much, if at all, that night. I did, however, leave dinner and go back to my hotel room feeling peaceful and pleasant and not caring much about my GPA or what anyone else thought of my writing.

* * *

I mentioned before that writing about other people’s lives is neater and tidier. It’s easier to impose an ending on an experience or situation when the author is not still struggling with it. In my own life, such complete endings are rare. I wish I could I say I confronted my professor about her comment and asked for an explanation. I wish I could say that I met her in her office and swore an oath to prove her wrong—that I would be a true creative writer and a social activist! Or I wish I could say that I argued my case and brought her around to my way of thinking about writing and activism. I did none of those things. For one thing, I was too afraid. I felt too small to call out my professor, someone that I had previously admired and would have never thought to question. For another thing, I was too angry and bitter. I eventually got over the loss of my perfect GPA, but I was still hurt that someone who shared my passion for both poetry and feminism could so completely misunderstand my work. I was afraid that if I tried to bring up the subject with my professor I would either rant or cry. Both scenarios were mortifying, so I never put myself in that situation to begin with. I stayed silent and nodded “hello” when I passed her in the hall, but I never brought up her comment on my capstone.

For a while, after I graduated and the sting of her comment wore off, I wished I would have said something. Now, though, a year later, when I’m no longer angry, I wonder if it would have even mattered. It wouldn’t have changed my grade, but it might have restored some of my previous admiration for her. It might have allowed me to graduate thinking of her as a friend and mentor and not just another academic. It might have also built up some of my confidence in my own writing. Even if she would have held to her remarks, I think the fact that I was willing to justify my work might have made me believe that my writing was worthy of defending.

To be a creative writer is to believe in the value of your work, even when no one else does. It is to write constantly, even when you don’t think your work is any good, because you must practice your art. It is to submit to contests and publications and agents again and again and again, despite the rejection letters and the setbacks. It is to post on the Internet, even if the only readers you attract are detractors. The writers who believe in the value of their work enough to continue in the face of such trials are the ones who finally attract an Internet following or win a contest or get their work published.

And writing is not easy. It’s a solitary business. It’s often taken me away from the excitement of everyday life, sometimes so much so that the only stories I  have to write about are those of my friends. Or sometimes I find that, really, I fall back on writing my friends’ stories and not my own because I don’t have enough faith in the importance of my own life and experiences. Who would care about my life? I often think. Sure, I’ve done things like attend one of the most prestigious writing conferences in the U.S., but I didn’t do anything while I was there. While my friends were out getting drunk with people like Eli Shipley, I was in my hotel room writing poetry. The only thing that happened to me at AWP was I took a heavy blow to my self-confidence.

But taking a heavy blow to one’s self-confidence is an experience that nearly everyone has had. While I haven’t forgotten about it or gotten over it, I have moved past it and am now able to look back on it with some perspective. Maybe that’s all the meaning or ending that any story can hope to have. I just have to realize that it does have meaning, and maybe that meaning will connect with other people too. In telling that story, in shaping it with that meaning, I am a creative writer. If I use that story as a commentary on the arbitrary lines between academic disciplines, I’m still a creative writer. If I use that story as part of a larger meta-narrative that explores the nature of writing itself, well, then I’m still a creative writer. Being a creative writer means seeing the value in words and stories and messages and putting them together to create art. It means being dedicated to the craft of writing. A year after my professor told me that I wasn’t a “true” creative writer, I’m still here and I’m still writing. And I’m only just beginning to come into my voice.

Of Hamsters and Elderberries…and Nietzsche

According to Nietzsche (so far as I understand him), language is nothing more than an arbitrary collection of metaphors that equate one thing to another. Whoever happens to convince everyone else to share their metaphors is the person who creates “truth.”

But what about art forms that attempt to break down those metaphors? Specifically, I’m thinking of absurdism. Instead of presenting us with the usual and expected, absurdism attempts to shock us out of complacency by presenting us with an event or an action that is completely out of the ordinary. It is given no explanation or rationale. It simply is. The audience must then make sense or it or accept that there is no sense to be made and deal with this unprecedented and inexplicable occurrence.

Of course, absurdism doesn’t always have to be just strange. It can also be humorous. The British acting group Monty Python often used absurdism for comic ends, and while their bizarre sketches often served to shake up audiences, they also made people laugh.  Perhaps they didn’t intend to make people question exactly why we all buy into the same definitions of experiences or who exactly is doing the defining and why, but they might have, just for a moment, defied any common or expected definitions. What do you make of two people flying into a diner in which they are surrounded by singing Vikings and can only order Spam? For a second, you’re not sure what to think.

Ironically, this form that is meant to break down metaphors also builds metaphors of its own. Maybe the first time someone watched a group of “silly English kuh-niggets” trot up to a castle while banging coconuts together while being taunted by a Frenchman who declares, “Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!”, he or she was baffled. However, now that Monty Python has something of a cult following, many of their nonsensical phrases have taken on new meaning, even if sometimes that meaning only is, “I know that reference. I’m a Monty Python fan too!”

I can go up to many of my friends and say, “Your mother was a hamster…” and receive the reply, “… and your father smelt of elderberries!” The phrase, once so nonsensical, has taken on a lot of meanings for my friends and me. It reminds us of the times we’ve watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail together. It brings to mind our shared sense of humor. It also recalls one of the moments in which we first bonded as friends. It is attempting to equate all of these experiences with language, even though, as Nietzsche would point out, we are creating an equality where there really is none.

So, in attempting to disrupt the connection that we create between language and experience, Monty Python’s absurdism has actually created a metaphor of its own. In attempting to undermine the way we view experience and language, has it undermined itself? What would Nietzsche say about that?