Writer's Note: I Really Am Thick

I am so thick it is laughable.  Honestly, if it didn't cause me so much pain, I'd laugh too.  In fact, when I finally am able to learn something, I often do laugh at myself.  I am so consistently wrong that it amazes me that I still often think I am right.

Where is this coming from?  

You have "The Incredible Jessica James" to blame.  

I watched this movie tonight, which is about a playwright in NYC, and there is a scene in the movie that just blew my mind tonight.  The problem is that it is so simple that I felt like an idiot when I had my AHA moment.  

The premise for the scene is this:

Jessica meets her longtime playwright idol at a weekend retreat.  Before introducing herself by name, she gushes over the artist.  When the artist finally gets her calmed down, Jessica asks her a question, a sincere question, a question that many artists wonder about/ask.  

"When do you know you've made it?"

The playwright replies, "I'll let you know when I get the memo."

Jessica replies, "But you won a Tony..."

After a short give or take, the playwright gestures around to signify the weekend retreat they are on, and she says, "Isn't that what we're doing this weekend?"

For me, my heart finally broke of many of these crazy illusions about success, the writing life, etc.  I just...stopped.  It was so simple.  It was so easy.  I couldn't believe how thick I had been.  

As I sit here and write this post, I'm a writer.  I've arrived.  I'm here doing the work, and that's it.  I enjoy being able to write in my own voice to an audience.  That's it.  That's the pleasure.  Everything else is...everything else.  

P.S.  I enjoyed "The Incredible Jessica James".  Jessica Williams is just about as charming as they come.  Thank you, Jim Strouse for your body of incredible work.  I have just now realized how much I enjoy his films.  Check out his IMDB profile here.

Personal Notes: Principled Pleasures vs. Pleasure as Principle

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As a result of reading The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by blogger Mark Manson, I've been thinking about the idea of pleasure lately.  Pleasure is a large word to throw out there, but I will be using it in this blog post to address physical pleasures (i.e. food, drink, sex, etc).  In reading Manson's book, I've been thinking about pleasure in relationship to entitlement, a word that gets thrown around a lot these days, and I think I've stumbled upon something that helps me clarify the "issue" of pleasure for myself personally.  It all hinges on the use of the word "principle."

A principle is the building block, or foundation, or a system of belief.  In mulling over the idea of pleasure, I found myself using this word in a couple of different ways, and I decided that I'm going to start using the metric of "principled pleasure" in my personal life.  I need to work on striving for "principled pleasures" as opposed to using pleasure as a principle.  Here's how I seem them as being different.

A person who uses pleasure as a principle is looking to achieve pleasure, in all its myriad forms, as a moral "good."  He/She is looking to achieve pleasure as a result or outcome of action.  By using pleasure as a principle, it is then easy to choose any action that results in action, no matter if that action is good or bad.   It sets the end result as priority over the evaluation of the individual action.  By using this framework for decision making, one could justify any number of actions as long as it lead to the end result...pleasure.  I'm uncomfortable with this framework, and I believe it leads to sloppy decision making.

In contrast, if one is seeking "principled pleasures," then one is seeking to prioritize individual principles as a basis for achieving pleasure.  The moral "good" in the eyes of the individual becomes of greater importance than the outcome.  It is only through the choice of the moral principle that one would be able to achieve pleasure.  One would feel good about decision making, and, therefore, achieve the feeling of pleasure one is seeking.

Some practical examples are necessary here.

1. The lawn needs mowed (unpleasurable).  The completion of necessary maintenance of the house, the chipping in of time/effort on communal household chores, and the desire to be physically active are all principles the individual holds. Choosing the easy pleasure of an afternoon spent "Netflix and chilling" would be more pleasurable than mowing the lawn, but upholding the individual's principles provides a deeper more sustained pleasure than the easy, passive pleasure of streamed entertainments.
2. Having a drink after work provides pleasure at the end of a long shift.  It is the culmination of a day's work, but returning home and spending time with family is a principle the individual holds.  While it is easy to write off the post-work drink as "harmless" and "earned," the prolonged satisfaction of having a close knit family and spending time with loved ones trumps the easy pleasure.

These are two simply examples of the distinction in action.  Holding this framework for decision making will help any individual (but especially me) become better at accomplishing life goals and living a life that fulfills in the long term and not simply in the short term.  

Manson's book is challenging my basic precepts.  I'm starting to look at my life in a new way that is reminiscent of some of the best times of my life.  I've been lazy in my thinking (or lack thereof) and I need to continue to challenge myself in order to achieve the quality of life I desire.  

I sat down today to blog about my thoughts, even though the easier pleasure would have been to simply pick up my book and continue reading.  I hold creativity as a life principle.   It is something I always want to have present in my life.  So...instead of making a sandwich and curling up with a book, I've set myself in front of the computer and written this blog post.  It is much more satisfying.  By living the principle I set for myself, I was able to achieve a deeper sense of pleasure in my day.  By living my standards, instead of flauting them, I was able achieve a sense of satisfaction that otherwise wouldn't have been present.

I'm beginning to think I'm on the right track here.

Teacher Notes: Preparing for Workshop

The day has arrived!  The day where all the days of teaching Composition finally pay off.  I am teaching a fiction workshop this summer at PCC, and I couldn't be happier about it.  I've had the opportunity to teach workshops before at PCC, but this summer feels like serendipity, a coincidence of the fates that conspired to allow me to dive into craft at a moment when I am feeling a creative resurgence.

For me, workshop is a divine space, a space of unadulterated creativity, where writers are allowed to stretch their craft, to dabble, to experiment, to try things they might not have the chance to try when writing in isolation.  In order to model this for my students, I write with them.  I try to show them that the exercises I've produced for them are not just for the "new" writer, but, like any exercise physical or mental, an opportunity to try and try again, to hone and battle, to dive headlong against a task in order to become stronger, more lithe and flexible, to remake ourselves in ways that might be surprising after multiple repetitions.

More than anything, workshop is a chance to write and write a lot.  My workshop classes are full of prompts, of freewrites, of imitations and modeling.  It is a time to read from great works, and then to try our hand at creating our own.  Today is the first day, and I feel like it is the opening of a grand adventure.

Coincidentally, today is also the day I will return to Pacific University's Low-Residency MFA for a faculty reading.  This is the space where I was taught the art of the workshop, the knack of the craft talk, and the unending passion for honing the written word.  The line up for tonight?

Pete Fromm:

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Hopefully reading from his forthcoming novel If Not for This:

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Craig Lesley:

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I'm hoping for new material, but he could read from his nonfiction Burning Fence...

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Or some of his fiction, like Storm Riders...

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The final author is a new one to me: Eduardo Corral

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While unknown to me, a quick search brings the edge of excitement even closer as his poetry promises to ignite me with inspiration.  If he dazzles, then I'll be picking up his collection Slow Lightning.

In preparation for this day full of excitement?  Double barreled coffee.

Teacher's Note: End of Term

The last two days have been a whirlwind of essays, late assignments, grades, rubrics, spreadsheets, and exhaustion.  Even in the wee hours of Father's Day, I found myself at the screen, responding to emails, grading online assignments, and drying out my eyeballs.

But...

It is done!  Grades were submitted this afternoon and the term has been put to rest.  As a treat, I allowed myself a meal on the couch as I watched an independent film, Hump Day, by Lynn Shelton and starring Mark Duplass, who is an actor I've come to trust and follow.  Some of you may recognize him from his work on The League.

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I've already cracked the book Ron Carlson Writes a Story and I've started a cursory rewrite of a piece of flash fiction that I wrote a couple of months back.  Every term starts this same way for me.  After I fulfill my obligations to my students, I burst forth in a frenzy of ambition to read, to write, to hike, to spend time with family.  The week after term is often one of my most creative periods as my desk is cleared of essays and grading.  

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I'm looking forward to what the week will serve me.  Ah, the life of a teacher!

Promise-ary Note: Kyle "Falls" into Personal Time

The last promise I drew was to find 3 hours to spend with myself.  It's hard as a father, husband, teacher, and bartender to carve out these little niches of time, so I had to drop everything on Tuesday and rush out of the house in order to get it in.  This meant leaving stacks of grading left ungraded in my bag and rushing out in order to be back in time to get my daughter, but I got it done.

Thanks to a little help from the internet, I was able to find a hike that suited my time frame. I wanted to get out of town, to explore a section of Oregon I had never encountered before, to scout a hike my wife and I could do alongside our daughter, and I found it in Wahclella Falls just outside of Cascade Locks.  Portlandhikersfieldguide.org provides a nice write up of the trail, so I knew what I was getting into. 

It'd been a long time since I'd gone to the Columbia Gorge, either through traveling through it or to explore it, so when the Gorge opened up in front of me past Troutdale, I made sure to soak in scene as I drove.  Some of you might remember my earlier post about my love affair with driving.  I decided to use my block of time to satiate my desire for the road, for open air, for new vistas, and the Gorge did not disappoint.  It was a beautiful sunny day, and I was hellbent on using it.

Just short of Cascade Lakes is Bonneville Dam.  From Highway 84 eastbound, one simply needs to take this exit (Exit 40) and drive south of the freeway.  The road splits east and west, and a sign points the westward way to Wahclella.  The trail is an easy one, one mile in and one mile out in a lollipop formation.  While there is a rise in elevation on the trail, it isn't anything too extreme.  

Since I was pushing time, I huffed it down the trail, quickly working up a sweat once I hit the inclines.  As it was a Tuesday, the trail was almost completely deserted, only a few families and couples appeared along the way.

I don't know what it is about waterfalls, but I'm drawn to them and the landscapes they create.  There is something about the mix of elements that immediately appeals to me.  The intersection of water misting the air in its descent elevates my spirit as I breathe deep the cascading rumble like the sustenance of sound.  As water crashes into earth, my imagination drives forward like an elemental force, and I find inspiration in the violent energies unleashed in the collision.

While I took a lot of pictures of the falls while I was there, I made sure to leave the electronics alone and to perch myself upon a rock inside the plume of mist.  This communion with nature felt like a baptism, a dip into a holy fount.  I reveled in the strain of the hike as I settled into a melting pleasure of idleness.  The goal having been achieved, I rested and I rested well.

Oregon is full of magical nooks and crannies that can transport us outside ourselves while centering us inside ourselves.  Positioning oneself inside external majesty is a great way to provide the essential insignificance of a life.  I find it important to remind myself of my own immateriality, to beat back my ego, and to remind myself that I am small in all the best ways possible.  

We all occupy the space of our own lives, sometimes even eclipsing the lives of those around us, but encounters with the wider, even wilder, world serve as a sometimes gentle reminder that we are not as important as we think we are.

All in all, the trip was a success.  I spent the drive home blasting the radio, driving with the window down, and recounting the multiple ways my life is a blessing.  Not a bad way to spend three hours if I do say so myself.

The next promise I pulled is also an exercise is getting outside myself.

Promise-ary Note: A New Fiction Piece and a New Promise

Even in the midst of finals week, I was able to pull off this week's promise.  I've been neck deep in essays, but flash fiction, much like poetry, doesn't have to have the long, enduring thought process of a novel project or one of my more typical short story length projects.  

I still had to come at the story three different times before it could be written though.  In fact, you may remember an earlier post about "writer's tools" some weeks back.  Inspiration was being being a stingy little minx this week with all the other concerns I had on my mind, so I had to turn to my writing notebook for some ideas.  A writer, or at least a writer who wants to make a lifestyle out of writing, doesn't have the luxury of waiting around for inspiration.  I can't simply sit there and while away an afternoon hoping that dirty seductress of Inspiration will strike.  Instead, I have to commit to an idea and charge ahead with the hopes that I will seduce Inspiration to follow me.

Inspiration is almost like the stereotype of the woman who loves bad boys.  She likes being chased, being sought after, being the object of the artist's desire, but if you really want a relationship with her, then you almost pay her no attention at all.  You simply march ahead with what you are doing and you'll soon find her at your elbow asking, "What are you doing?"  Or, in the midst of a juicy section, she'll suddenly appear and say, "Oooh, that's good, but what about?"  Sometimes paying no heed whatsoever to inspiration is the best way to be inspired.  It's kind of the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" method of calling down the muse.

So, I turned to my writer's notebook and found a note from years ago when my wife's coworker told us about Craigslist personals.  That was it.  That was the idea.  My prompt became, "Write a story about a guy waiting for his Craigslist personal ad hookup in a mutually anonymous location."  I was intrigued by the idea of the illicit hookup and what the mindset must be in the moments before falling into the arms of an anonymous stranger.  It's rough, but it exists on paper.  That's the hardest part for me.  Once it exists on paper, then I can play with the form, the sentences, the words, etc.  

Unlike Inspiration, Revision is a stable companion, a loving partner, and I can count on her to show up every time I sit with a page full of words.  Sometimes it is hard for me to quiet her down so I can focus, but we have a longstanding and loving relationship.

So, mission accomplished...promise fulfilled.

This week's promise is going to be a good one, and it comes just in time as I've cleared my schedule for some private time with my wife already.

While some of you may be saying, "Gross, Kyle, I don't want to know about that."  I'd like to state that intimacy is a big word and doesn't only translate to the bedroom.  There is emotional intimacy, intellectual intimacy, and physical intimacy.  They are all important, and I plan on trying to focus on all aspects of the word.  I'm excited to spend some quality time with my wife.  She's been killing it lately and I'm sure I haven't heard all she has to say about what's been going on with her.  I drew this last night, and while Tracy slept I hatched a couple of plans for this weekend.  It should be fun.