Okay, there was a lot of whining and pity partying when last I wrote. Sorry about all that.
Today I come with good tidings. It is Friday, or actually 4:34AM Saturday, and I have met another deadline. That's right, another 10 pages written this week. That means I have twenty new pages of a brand new story toward my deadline of thirty new pages by August 30. Friends, I am actually on track here. And I think--I hope--I'm lacing in enough racially charged scenes/themes/"tropes" to show my advisor that I am trying to learn from his advice to do more with race in my stories.
Actually read a great story--Nam Le's story "Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice" (from The Boat)--about that today, about the somewhat artificial endeavor of sitting down at your computer to write an "ethnic story."
But, hey, I don't know, maybe Rigoberto is right: maybe a writer of color--any color!--can't write without being political. Maybe the act of writing is a political act, no matter what, so if you're going to be wearing your politics on your sleeve, you better damn well know what you think and believe.
Maybe.
I don't know.
I'm just a fledgling young writer here.
If you figure it out first, will you let me know?
I've only finished reading the first two stories of The Boat, but already it is love. Le is absolutely the kind of writer I want to be. Someone versatile, someone not pigeonholed. I mean, I don't want to see writing as a motherfull, fatherless, Japanese-Scottish-English-German-American Indian woman raised in Hawai'i as a limitation . . . certainly there are enough layers to that identity to write about it for a whole lifetime! But, at the same time, if I want to write about something else, about races I am not, and places I've never been, and experiences I've never had, I want to give myself the freedom to do so.
In "Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice," Le writes of a friend who explains why he likes Le's writing, saying, "You could totally exploit the Vietnamese thing. But instead, you choose to write about lesbian vampires and Colombian assassins, and Hiroshima orphans--and New York painters with hemorrhoids" (p. 10).
That's it exactly. If a story idea pops in my head to be written from the POV of a lesbian vampire, I am so going to just go for it, you know, rather than worrying that it doesn't fit into some person's idea of what my ouevre should be.
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6 comments:
Did I tell you that The Boat is one of the most amazing collections I've read since my personal hero Andrea Lee published Interesting Women?
Great post. Very relevant to all writers-- How do we use write with authority, compassion, and originality, using our identities as a springboard but not feeling limited? I'm going to check out that book The Boat. Thanks!
Oh you can hear him read and be interviewed on Live at Prairie Lights here
http://wsui.uiowa.edu/prairie_lights.htm
Scroll down.
Wow. GREAT post. Y'know, I can't tell you how many times I've listened to the debate (both at Sarah Lawrence AND in grad school) about "storytelling rights": If you are NOT, say, a lesbian vampire (to use your example), does that give you the RIGHT to tell a story from that perspective? A perspective that you cannot possibly understand? And, y'know, I understand why people adamantly believe that you should only tell a story from YOUR OWN perspective, and it's a similar argument that is invoked when talking about teachers and students (i.e. only teachers of color should teach students of color, because there's no way that a white teacher could truly connect with a student from a different ethnic background). BUT....I know that I have learned A LOT about this fantastically complex world in which we live as a result of my experiences with working with students from a variety of ethnic and linguistic backgrounds. My students and their families have been the best teachers that I could ever hope for, and I plan to do good work with the information that they have given me. I think my experiences are akin to the experiences that writers have when approaching a story from a different perspective. I think it's dangerous for ANYONE to put blinders on and only stick with what you know. In doing that, you are creating a very tight space where there's no room for learning or growth or true communication or understanding, and these are the things that breed tolerance and peace.
So, um, what I'm trying to say is GO FOR IT. By challenging your own perspectives you are, in a small (but not insignificant) way, promoting peace and understanding, both inwardly and outwardly. I can't wait to see what you end up creating!
And.....now I'm off my soap box :)
If you write about lesbian vampires, can one of them be like Carmen from L-Word? You can pair her up with whoever you think worthy. I just think it'd be hot. Because, she'd DJ in some lesbian vampire nightclub, and then would grab her prey for the night from that crowd. In fact, her prey could turn out to be, oh..i dunno...ME!!! =D And she'd like me so much that instead of killing me, she'd turn me into a vampire too.
there ya go...pulitzer material right there. ;)
Hello Ladies!
Khaliah: Nam Le is a total player in my book. Seriously. I agree. One of the best short story collections I've read in a while, although you should also check out the less widely acclaimed but quite good book by a fellow SLC student, Kaui Hart Hemmings: House of Theives. SOOO good. Also on my blogroll, How to Party with an Infant is her blog.
Molly: Thanks for writing. Where are you working on your MFA at?
Brooke: I LOVED the analogy of teaching and writing from "what you know" versus opening oneself up to the wide world of learning what we don't know. All I can say that you didn't say better is AMEN, SISTER!
Jenjen: Um, right. I'll totally get on that lesbian vampire starring Carmen book. Only I think that sounds less Pulitzer and more trashy romance novel. NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT. In fact, I'd bet romance novelists make more money than Literary Fiction novelists. Sad, sad, sad.
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