A Reading- "Willow" by Julia Hoban

                “Willow” is Julia Hoban’s first novel, and I had the pleasure of attending a reading of hers a few weeks ago after studying the book in my Adolescent Literature class. I found the experience of the two hours extremely interesting, getting the chance to hear and author discuss her novel- a novelist is what I aspire to be. It was different to put a face to the words/story; fun to see what type of tale she weaves and link certain things to what type of person she seems to be. Hoban came off as eccentric, even declared herself so with the first words out of her mouth. She wears hats she designs herself and refuses to have her picture taken. But she’s also a very kind, warm, and thoughtful person.

                The novel itself is tough material, a girl whose parents died tragically. Willow blames herself for the car accident and now, as the novel opens, is an intense, emotionally distant cutter. Readers would say that that is what the book is about: a cutter. But Hoban says her inspiration more than that. She wanted to write about someone in a dark place, somewhere almost everyone has been once or twice, and bring them to a stage of healing and love as they explore new connections. Hoban stressed the power of relationships, something that there are many of in the novel.

                Hoban also took the time to express how she feels about teenage sexuality and how it is represented. In some instances, and she says these are the prevalent ones, sex among teens is presented as glamorous and consequence-free. Hoban, though, expresses through her reading and through her novel that sexuality should be explored in an emotionally and physically safe way; giving the time for her two characters to get closer and mature before they took that step. And romance isn’t something Hoban has ever shied away from. She said that this is her “first” novel published with her real name, but she had also published other romance novels under a penname in graduate school.

                Her road to writing, she says, was a long and dedicated one. Like we’ve discussed and stressed in class, Hoban highly encouraged in writing every day, whether it’s a large amount of time or a short amount of time; just give yourself some opportunity to write and be disciplined. She admitted that you have to be ready for loads of rejection before you find success; she faced a lot of her own.    

Writing & Workshopping V.S. Blogging

       I have a personal blog myself, although it's more for one specific aspect of my life rather than a general sharing of thoughts or writing, but I feel like I benefit more from workshopping in class than I do blogging. I do, in fact, enjoy our blogging assignments- I feel like they are a great opportunity to share and get to know each other a bit beyond class- but I think the things I learned during our workshopping sessions are what I'll remember most and take with me after the semester is over. That enviornment, one of sharing and bouncing around ideas and giving and taking criticism, was a new one for me. It's something that I found I enjoy quite a bit whether we were going over my work or a classmate's. Just looking at stories closley and offering feedback that meant something to someone- I'm pointing this part out because it's differnet than reading a peice from the text and discussing it- just got my own imagination going and made me feel like writing.
       I'm not sure I would have gotten that from comments on a blog. The in-person environment seemed more interactive and provides, I feel, more opportunites for several thoughts in quick sucession rather than just reading text/comments online. Workshopping creates a more fluid discussion that I think promotes more creative thinking. However, I don't hate the idea of blogging at all, as some understandably do- it's just not for them. I feel like sharing online could create a wonderful network of support and feedback, but I don't think it trumps the atomoshpere of in-class workshopping.

What Is Good Writing?

       For me, this question is a loaded one. There are so many aspects to writing on the surface and deeper within the art that may be judged. So I'd say everyone's definition of "good writing" would be different, with various criteria.
       The principles of good writing vary as well, but the article behind the link gives the thoughts a decent outline. They also state that "good writing" comes from practice and hard work, which I agree with; very few are born brilliant writers. We change as time goes on; we change on purpose and outside forces change us naturally as well. I personally used to loathe the idea of writing for school, whether it was creative or essay format. I had trouble sitting down to put words onto the paper, but time as changed that, and working hard on different styles of writing has also improved my attitude as well. 
       Within that article linked above, I found another one about the difference between good and bad writers. Now, I don't like to call any writer a "bad" writer- it's such a strong and solid word, like it cannot be changed- but I thought the article had some interesting quotes about the differences professional writers found between the two categories. 
  

"The Writer's Guide to Creativity"

After steering clear of Poets and Writers- a handful of classmates already chose it last week-  in the literary section of the magazine area at Barnes and Noble, I found myself looking at publications I’d never heard of. A few things caught my eye, but one in particularly got most of my focus (and not just because of its bright orange cover).

“Writer’s Digest Yearbook Presents: The Writer’s Guide to Creativity” is what I kept picking back up and thumbing through at the shelves. It made me think about everything we discuss in class; inspiration, editing, the writing process, and I was interested to see what group of articles had to say about the broad subject of “creativity”. Plus, the line boasting “Beat Writer’s Block: 90 Prompts & Exercises” didn’t hurt; I’m always looking for different, new ways to get out of writing ruts to see what will work or won’t work for me.

I wound up sitting down and reading the majority of the 100+ page magazine- I skipped the business and publication tips section, figuring that I’d start thinking about non-creative things in favor of interviews and proposals. There were serveral interesting reads and various interesting ideas. The prompts were fresh, things I couldn’t have just thought of off the top of my head but was glad they did and shared with me. I found it great that they could come up with prompts that involved technology and things I do/look out on a daily basis: “Open your email and randomly choose the subject line of a message. Make that the first line of your story. Then, choose another sujbect line, and make that the last line of your story”, or, “Take two of your favorite songs, and match up a line from the chorus of one with a line from the chorus of the other. Then, write a scene that starts with the first lyric, and ends with the second”. I love the creativity in those ideas, how they push the notion that inspiration can come from anywhere and sometimes we have to get it going by searching for it in random ways.

And that’s really just the tip of the iceberg in the magazine when it comes to new suggestions. They adress setting, voice, editing, locations in which to write, sketching character ideas, dialogue and flowing it in an interesting and realistic way, conveying details and images, word choice, and point of view. After reading this, I walked away with a lot of new thoughts and ideas; both about the writing process and inspiration and useful prompts that could get my creativity flowing.

                Once I was done, I found myself at the Writer's Digest website and sifting through articles they publish there and found one on creating compelling characters It had interesting things to keep in mind when molding characters and thinking about their traits, amibitions, secrets, and vulnerablilities. They suggested looking at real people we know: a family member you are close to, a family member you particularly dislike, a childhood friend you've lost touch with, or a stranger you've crossed paths with in the last week. I feel like all of these are great starting points for character ideas or inpsirations for stories.

     

The Writing Process

For me, the writing process follows no concrete direction. It’s not necessarily about “beginning” and “ending”. It’s about middles and twists and starts and finishes, and absolutely everything that comes in between could be the beginning of a story for me. I usually start with something that won’t leave my mind; it could be a character, a line of dialogue, or a piece of imagery. After I have this building block, I think about it again and again. I ask myself questions: Who is this person? Who is saying what I’m hearing? What am I seeing? And I begin constructing upwards and outwards in a sense. I add details to what started as a simple picture or fact and create the ideas around it; I compose another world of fiction where these details exist. But I try to remember, and it’s not always simple to do, to keep asking myself questions to fill in “gaps” or uncertainties. Although, arguably, there will always be inquires left unanswered.

           In this entire process, I write things down. They may just be phrases or words, but eventually I use those to construct entire sentences, paragraphs, and scenes. They could become a short story or a chapter in a novel concept, and sometimes they don’t always make it past the planning stages, but I never let go of an idea completely. I keep them stored in notebooks to peruse now and again to see if inspiration strikes. For me, creative writing cannot be forced. Sure, something could always be produced, but I’m not happy with it entirely if I just wrote it because I had to. I like to feel immersed in a story I am writing, and when I can manage to do that- hear and see things as clearly as the imagination allows- I feel successful, like I’m on the verge of feeling accomplished and satisfied with a work. That feeling doesn’t always come, it’s rare, but when it happens it can’t be compared to any other mood-booster. It makes me want to keep working and keep editing and revising and striving to make a piece better because I’m invested in it. So, my writing process is almost all mental and, in turn, emotional. My mood and atmosphere affects how and what I write and how I react to it. 

Here is a blog about the writing process and suggested writing tips. 

"Be A Better Writer"- A website about the creative writing process. 

        

A Good Beginning: “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway

The limitations of this narrator interested me from the start. Nothing but the setting was revealed, and there are almost no descriptions of the characters beyond “the man” and “the girl”. We only have pages made up of mostly spoken words and short actions to view. The reader must interpret who they are and why they behave the way they behave through analyzing the dialogue exchanged back and forth, with brief visual descriptions of their surroundings between that all seem to serve a purpose. This is especially true with the opening of the story.

At first glance, I honestly did not pay too much attention to the opening due to its factual nature. I took the information in and tried to recreate the setting visually with my imagination and dive into the story for the few solid minutes it took to read it. After I got more into the story, which is one I have never read prior, it only took me a few lines to feel the need to go back to the beginning and rethink what I was seeing and experiencing. There is a lot of information in the simple things, which turn out not to be so simple. The depiction of the setting intricately serves to set up the tension of the piece. There may not be vivid descriptions of the characters and their every action, but the vivid descriptions of their surroundings were everything when it came to relating it back to their conversation, the meat of the story.

The work opens like this:

The hills across the valley of the Ebro were long and white. On this side there was no shade and no trees and the station was between two lines of rails in the sun. Close against the side of the station there was the warm shadow of the building and a curtain, made of strings of bamboo beads, hung across the open door into the bar, to keep out flies. The American and the girl with him sat at a table in the shade, outside the building. It was very hot and the express from Barcelona would come in forty minutes. It stopped at this junction for two minutes and went to Madrid.

‘What should we drink?’ the girl asked. She had taken off her hat and put it on the table.

‘It’s pretty hot,’ the man said.

‘Let’s drink beer.’

‘Dos cervezas,’ the man said into the curtain.

‘Big ones?’ a woman asked from the doorway.

‘Yes. Two big ones.’

The woman brought two glasses of beer and two felt pads. She put the felt pads and the beer glass on the table and looked at the man and the girl. The girl was looking off at the line of hills. They were white in the sun and the country was brown and dry.

‘They look like white elephants,’ she said.

‘I’ve never seen one,’ the man drank his beer.

‘No, you wouldn’t have.’

‘I might have,’ the man said. ‘Just because you say I wouldn’t have doesn’t prove anything.’

            The is a tension set up by Hemingway right off the bat, with more emphasis on the surroundings that the actual characters themselves in the start. In my opinion, that makes the beginning of this story intriguing and smart, and it made me want to keep reading. It is not simple, or a giveaway. It must be read into and interpreted. The setting of a train station, and the following dialogue between the man and the girl, gives across this feeling of being in the middle of something; it feels like a midpoint that a decision must be made at. The location here isn’t a final destination. It is a pit stop of sorts. There is this sense of choice about where to go and no sense of home or comfort and stability. It serves to setup up the idea of indecision between the couple about going through with the planned abortion. They seem to be at a crossroads, and there are a lot of untold stories hidden in their dialogue that makes this piece so interesting to me. We are seeing only a few minutes of the life of a couple that has quite a bit to decide and settle on, and we are left without a conclusion or deep insight as to what they are actually thinking. It can only be deciphered, and I think that feeling of confusion mixed with a heavy dose of intrigue is a beneficial feeling for a reader to experience.     

This is a study guide for the story, something I found when searching for interesting links to place here. The information is interesting, but I found the questions posed about things the story left unanswered were intriguing to consider.

This is a male blogger's take on the story after reading it for the first time, and he is also on a journey to explore more fiction in general. I found looking at what he had to say interesting.

Dialogue

“I mean, I tried, but I couldn’t spit it out,” Stephen spilled his words past his lips with a speed and drama that he wished he could have possessed hours earlier. Things were different now, though. He was more comfortable.

“Why not?” Erin wondered. Her brown eyes widened when her friend plopped down beside her and began speaking without preamble. He wasn’t exactly saying what she had anticipated.

            “Because you- I’m like- I’m me!” he whined forlornly and rubbed at his temples as he took a deep breath, thinking that everything he said wasn’t quite right and that it must be a symptom carrying over from the night before when he attempted to talk to his parents with his tongue all tied in a knot. “I can’t just do that. That’s not who I am.”

            “Have you tried being someone that’s, you know, not you?” Erin suggested. She smiled awkwardly at Stephen while staring at him sideways and sipping her hot coffee carefully.

            “That kind of ruins the point of this, don’t you think?” he asked almost accusingly. His grin was smug and assured.

            “Just trying to help,” Erin held her hands up in surrender, “but maybe you should think about using some of this newfound confidence you’ve got with me on your parents. Then we won’t have to have this conversation every morning for another week.”