Genre to Genre: My Renewed Interest in Prose, for Better or Worse

 

When I was in grade school, I composed a short story about a whale who got to sing at the Metropolitan Opera. Since my family were not opera buffs, my inspiration came from a Walt Disney cartoon. I don’t even think I’d ever seen the cartoon, but only a still from it, picturing the whale onstage. I recall being praised for this effort, and for so many other artistic products, whether or not the notions were my own or blatant violations of copyright. And so began my writer’s journey.

For the last many years, my primary focus has been poetry. Since poetry consists of words, and words are used for communication, my work rarely veers into the abstract. And since so little of it is of any decent quality, E.E. Cummings excepted, I do not use rhyming forms, or any traditional forms, in my work. I am strictly a free verse gal. My verses end when the thought ends, not when I reach a certain number of lines. Line breaks happen like natural breath, not when the ‘rocking horse’ has reached his destination.

My sporadic forays into prose have for the most part been unsatisfactory. I wrote for several local magazines and newspapers, and was paid a pittance for it. The news article format comes very easily to me, and that work was as effortless as the paycheck was lilliputain. Bottom line, my curiosity about local events only goes so far. I lack the inquisitive nature that marks the work of our greatest journalists. Jimmy Breslin I am not.

My short stories have been adequate at best. Late last year, while yet again cleaning out my physical files (yes, I still have work on paper, and you should, too), I came across some of my old efforts and decided to try to rework them. I have learned a lot in twenty-plus years, and felt I improved them greatly. I sent a couple out for possible publication, but short stories being what they are, the turnaround time is much longer. These days, if you don’t get a reply regarding a poetry submission, they’re either the New Yorker or they’re just lazy. With email, it’s never been easier.

Perhaps spurred on by these minor successes, I decided to start another novel. Meaning, I’ve got a couple of efforts in that area in those paper files, too, but never brought to any satisfactory completion. The final straw was an independently published novel I abandoned after fifty pages, even though the author was a graduate of the holy Iowa Writers Program. It reeked of the same moldy simplicity that most MFA work suffers from. Bland, simple, boring language that takes no chances, elicits no emotion. Maybe it’s just me and my lowly SUNY diploma, but I was not impressed.

Now, did I draw up an outline for this novel? Write up bios for all the characters? No, I did not. Am I aware of these traditional preparations for decent work. Why, yes, of course. I simply wanted the experience of writing prose, and decided to see if that myth where the characters “tell” you what they want and where they’re going could be true. To a certain extent it is. At the beginning of each session, I read the last couple of paragraphs and take them to the next place that seems right. I average about 1,000 words at a time, skipping some days when my schedule really doesn’t allow. I am still working full-time, and I am still going to the gym three times a week. I do what I can.

The good news is I’m not pressured by any deadline or advance. If this never gets done, it’s OK. So many of these projects around me, chapbooks, crochet items, even a bit of physical art that I’ve started probably won’t be finished. Many of these things will no doubt rejoin the elements in one way or another. Even words I’ve published may not be remembered in the next iteration of communication that’s no doubt on its way. You hear it over and over again—it’s all about the process. And I am enjoying this process. I have always enjoyed the process of writing. It’s the one activity I feel completely absorbed by, completely a part of. And if a certain project isn’t fun anymore, I let it go.

While it’s still my choice, I am letting a lot of these projects go. I won’t be a painter, or a seamstress, or make jewelry with polymer clay, although I can. I am at the point, the age if you will, where I need to streamline, focus more on the art that satisfies me, that will make up whatever “legacy” remains when my body has had enough. I’ll be 63 on Friday. That’s basically 60 years of creating, if you count that little drawing my mother has of her and my baby sister done at age 3. I figure I’ve got maybe 20 years remaining to finish what I can, or at least produce some quality work informed by experience. Wish me luck.