I've been thinking a lot recently (partly as required by my pedagogy class) about how I learned to write - a process that is far from finished of course. But I think that whatever ability I have acquired has come from imitation, both consciously and unconsciously. We all imitate other writers on some level. When you read a lot of a single author, his/her voice gets stuck in your head, and the next thing you write sounds a little bit like you and a little bit like them. In thinking back to high school, though, I realize that I have done this intentionally. Whenever I wrote something that was particularly successful, it was because I was consciously borrowing a style from someone else - usually from one of my favorite authors, or from whomever it was that we were reading in class.
I came across a book while I was searching for possible textbooks for my Composition class next semester called Copy and Compose. It was written in the late 60's and is now out of print, so I can't use it as my textbook if it turns out to be the kind of thing I'm looking for. But it approaches the instruction of writing with exactly this idea of good writing through imitation. How can we be good writers if we don't emulate good writers? It is not an attempt to make us all sound the same or to ignore the potential for one's own creative voice, but it acknowledges that, for most of us, that voice will only come with time and practice and from assimilating the voices of many others.
I like this idea and I've been going through its exercises, realizing that I wish I had been specifically taught to write this way. It is primarily useful for style, rather than for argument, but it is incredibly effective in making one really consider the effect of language, and in giving one a sense of control.
Here are some examples I've been working on:
1) The Loose Sentence
I smoked my pipe yesterday, sitting in the cooling late afternoon air of an early Virginia spring, reading from Montaigne, dead now for nearly 500 years, and I thought about mortality and the futility of caring about one's death, while rings of smoke drifted up into the darkening sky.
2) The Inverted Sentence
Foolhardy Bush was, and his ignorance managed to derail American relations with the world.
3) Loose/Inverted
Long I walked, my belly full of beer and bourbon, dragging my feet against the dog's insistent pulling so that when she darted toward a terrified squirrel, I was facing the other way, thinking about you, and Las Vegas, and when you might come home again.
Sentences have an almost poetic obscurity when composed like this - without a larger purpose or argument. I rather like them. And I like forcing myself to think about my prose consciously. I think only good things can come of it.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
2 Corinthians, Chapter 1
Christmas break is now spiraling down, though it still has a few weeks to go (this has been the longest break I've had in my scholastic career - a combination of having no finals and going to George Mason which seems to be an institution that doesn't believe that one has to be physically present to be educated). I've had a couple of longer term writing projects going, though, honestly, by going I mean that I have thought of. My goal for the break was to do the research that these required, especially one project that requires a fair amount of reading before it will come out right. I have been doing some reading on this, but not nearly as much as I had hoped. Anyway, before this becomes that kind of a post, let me get to the point.
The last couple of days, I have felt a strong desire to write, but no real direction. I frequently get this feeling of restless energy, but I am rarely able to structure it enough to put it to useful purpose. For whatever reason, I have been unable to come up with essays to write. I've wanted to work on the larger projects I have, but of course the work that really needs to be done for them is the reading. I've had a miniature form of writer's block. I have plenty of big ideas, but part of reaching the point where I can successfully pull those ideas off is practicing my writing on smaller, more readily accomplish-able ideas. If I'm going to reach the moon, I have to start by building a ladder. Then, once I've built a sufficiently tall ladder, I'll be able to see how silly it was to try reaching the moon with a ladder and I'll go get a degree in aerospace engineering, and build myself a rocket ship. Of course I'll need materials one doesn't find in Wal-Mart. That's where the Russians come in...but I digress.
I hit on an idea I've had and practiced off and on in handwritten journals before. In my many attempts (and failures) to become a better Christian disciple, I have come to realize that even if I can get myself to read the Bible on a regular basis, I take almost none of it in unless I actually write down what I'm thinking on the subject. Mostly, in the periods where I am being more or less faithful in terms of reading, I read a chapter before I go to bed and try unsuccessfully to think about it as I fall asleep. "You know I really agree with what Paul was trying to say - shit I forgot to do my laundry today, what am I going to wear tomorrow - what's going on tomorrow, oh right I have to tutor - that girl I tutored today was hot - I wonder what J is doing tomorrow - wait wasn't I thinking something? What was it? My foot itches. Oh right, Jesus...something...." [and zonk].
So I thought, here's an idea to help with Christian Discipline as well as Writer's Discipline: I'll read a chapter, or less or more (the chapters frequently breaking in the middle of a thought) and comment on it. These comments belong here on the blog that no one reads, because, well, blogs naturally lend themselves to disjointed, unformed thinking rather than formal essays. I just need to keep my wheel's greased, I don't need to agonize over finished products. I'm on break after all.
In my latest attempt at Biblical scholarship I have been delving into Paul's letters to the Corinthians, having just finished the first letter. It's a good one. Lots about love and stuff in there. Though I noticed it does have some serious contradictions - and most of them revolve around women. One of Paul's greatest shortcomings was the extent to which he bought into the male dominated culture that surrounded him. Obviously, the whole Bible, being written entirely by Men, is full of that kind of thing, but Paul tends to run with it. To his credit though, he does stop from time to time to point out that many of his thoughts are just that, and they are not in any way direct revelation from God.
I'd just like to point out - in case you were wondering - the following observations, comments, snide remarks, and/or blasphemy is entirely my own, and not the direct revelation of God, either. So Paul and I have that in common.
2 Corinthians 1:1-11
In this first opening passage, Paul is writing about how God sends comfort to those of his servants who need it most, and how that comfort extends from one to another. At first I was confused by the use of We as in "if we are distressed...if we are comforted," etc. thinking he was employing some sort of rhetorical device - Is he using the Royal We? Is he an editor? - but now I realize that he's speaking for himself and Timothy, and even says so right at the beginning. My bad.
What seems most interesting to me in this passage is how bad Paul must have had it. The reason he is speaking of comfort is because he has just been in danger for his life in the province of Asia. I'm not sure I ever paid any attention to that before. He writes: "We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death." I think we tend to focus on how Paul is, at the time of writing the letter, now very grateful to God and comforted and we think, "Yes, that's the point, God sends comfort." And I think he does, and probably that is the point. But to me it is at least as interesting that Paul was brought to the brink of despair. He doesn't say what happened to him, and I have no idea if it is known or not, but whatever it was must have been terrible that he thought he was going to die. This, to me, is another example of how the people of the Bible are very human. There isn't a person who is alive who doesn't fear death at least a little. Even if we firmly believe in an afterlife, especially in Heaven, there is still doubt at the unknown. I do believe, like Paul, that death is an end but also a beginning to a greater and longer adventure. But I'm still afraid of it. And it seems that Paul was too. But he points out how silly that fear is, even if it is natural. After all, we believe in a God "who raises the dead." So what does it matter if we die? It is a liberating thought. If our time on this earth is only a drop in the ocean of our lives what matters is that we live well, not that we live long. It is better that we risk death in the service of something (or someone) that matters than for us to live long lives of quiet selfishness. I'd rather the fire of my life burn high and hot for a long time, don't get my wrong, but I do think it is better to burn out in one flash of warmth than to smoulder - giving no heat and no light, just smoke.
Anyway, those are my rambling thoughts for today. I will hopefully be back before too long.
All the saints send their greetings.
-St. Benjamin
The last couple of days, I have felt a strong desire to write, but no real direction. I frequently get this feeling of restless energy, but I am rarely able to structure it enough to put it to useful purpose. For whatever reason, I have been unable to come up with essays to write. I've wanted to work on the larger projects I have, but of course the work that really needs to be done for them is the reading. I've had a miniature form of writer's block. I have plenty of big ideas, but part of reaching the point where I can successfully pull those ideas off is practicing my writing on smaller, more readily accomplish-able ideas. If I'm going to reach the moon, I have to start by building a ladder. Then, once I've built a sufficiently tall ladder, I'll be able to see how silly it was to try reaching the moon with a ladder and I'll go get a degree in aerospace engineering, and build myself a rocket ship. Of course I'll need materials one doesn't find in Wal-Mart. That's where the Russians come in...but I digress.
I hit on an idea I've had and practiced off and on in handwritten journals before. In my many attempts (and failures) to become a better Christian disciple, I have come to realize that even if I can get myself to read the Bible on a regular basis, I take almost none of it in unless I actually write down what I'm thinking on the subject. Mostly, in the periods where I am being more or less faithful in terms of reading, I read a chapter before I go to bed and try unsuccessfully to think about it as I fall asleep. "You know I really agree with what Paul was trying to say - shit I forgot to do my laundry today, what am I going to wear tomorrow - what's going on tomorrow, oh right I have to tutor - that girl I tutored today was hot - I wonder what J is doing tomorrow - wait wasn't I thinking something? What was it? My foot itches. Oh right, Jesus...something...." [and zonk].
So I thought, here's an idea to help with Christian Discipline as well as Writer's Discipline: I'll read a chapter, or less or more (the chapters frequently breaking in the middle of a thought) and comment on it. These comments belong here on the blog that no one reads, because, well, blogs naturally lend themselves to disjointed, unformed thinking rather than formal essays. I just need to keep my wheel's greased, I don't need to agonize over finished products. I'm on break after all.
In my latest attempt at Biblical scholarship I have been delving into Paul's letters to the Corinthians, having just finished the first letter. It's a good one. Lots about love and stuff in there. Though I noticed it does have some serious contradictions - and most of them revolve around women. One of Paul's greatest shortcomings was the extent to which he bought into the male dominated culture that surrounded him. Obviously, the whole Bible, being written entirely by Men, is full of that kind of thing, but Paul tends to run with it. To his credit though, he does stop from time to time to point out that many of his thoughts are just that, and they are not in any way direct revelation from God.
I'd just like to point out - in case you were wondering - the following observations, comments, snide remarks, and/or blasphemy is entirely my own, and not the direct revelation of God, either. So Paul and I have that in common.
2 Corinthians 1:1-11
In this first opening passage, Paul is writing about how God sends comfort to those of his servants who need it most, and how that comfort extends from one to another. At first I was confused by the use of We as in "if we are distressed...if we are comforted," etc. thinking he was employing some sort of rhetorical device - Is he using the Royal We? Is he an editor? - but now I realize that he's speaking for himself and Timothy, and even says so right at the beginning. My bad.
What seems most interesting to me in this passage is how bad Paul must have had it. The reason he is speaking of comfort is because he has just been in danger for his life in the province of Asia. I'm not sure I ever paid any attention to that before. He writes: "We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death." I think we tend to focus on how Paul is, at the time of writing the letter, now very grateful to God and comforted and we think, "Yes, that's the point, God sends comfort." And I think he does, and probably that is the point. But to me it is at least as interesting that Paul was brought to the brink of despair. He doesn't say what happened to him, and I have no idea if it is known or not, but whatever it was must have been terrible that he thought he was going to die. This, to me, is another example of how the people of the Bible are very human. There isn't a person who is alive who doesn't fear death at least a little. Even if we firmly believe in an afterlife, especially in Heaven, there is still doubt at the unknown. I do believe, like Paul, that death is an end but also a beginning to a greater and longer adventure. But I'm still afraid of it. And it seems that Paul was too. But he points out how silly that fear is, even if it is natural. After all, we believe in a God "who raises the dead." So what does it matter if we die? It is a liberating thought. If our time on this earth is only a drop in the ocean of our lives what matters is that we live well, not that we live long. It is better that we risk death in the service of something (or someone) that matters than for us to live long lives of quiet selfishness. I'd rather the fire of my life burn high and hot for a long time, don't get my wrong, but I do think it is better to burn out in one flash of warmth than to smoulder - giving no heat and no light, just smoke.
Anyway, those are my rambling thoughts for today. I will hopefully be back before too long.
All the saints send their greetings.
-St. Benjamin
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