Owen's Writing Week 5

I recently had the pleasure of attending the release party of Helen Degan Cohen’s newest poetry book: habry. It was the first time I had attended a reading of this sort since graduating from Knox, and my first ever in the Chicago area. This week, however, is not about reviewing habry as I didn’t get to spend much time with the work (and so would not be able to accurately describe the book’s merits and/or failings). Instead, I’ll continue with an anecdote about the event. After the ‘formal’ portion of the reading (including three poets and a folk singer/guitarist) Dave Gecic, the editor-in-chief of Puddin’head Press, the publisher of habry, began an open mic session. Of course, I read one of my poems: Death is Second Only to Public Speaking. Though this isn’t the piece I’m posting today, I suspect that the title alone reveals some of the poem’s humor.

The experience as a whole made me reflect on my writing and I came to the following conclusion: when I’m writing something, I take myself too seriously. That isn’t to say that I think of myself as the best thing since sliced bread, my mother has stated multiple times that my non-fiction is self deprecating (I prefer ‘humble’ myself). Rather, when I’m writing, especially something new, I find that I put too much pressure on the piece. I expect my writing to be ‘meaningful’ and ‘worthwhile’ without ever asking myself what those two terms mean. Death is Second Only to Public Speaking is an example of this, and I have a few others, but I think that my short story Polyester Tears is the most (painfully) obvious. Simply put, when I wrote Polyester Tears, I came to the piece with the understanding that I was writing something serious. In retrospect, that was a dumb expectation.

As a beginning writer I commonly went the route of concept writing, or writing a story with a specific concept in mind (hence the name). To date, fully 6 of the 8 fiction pieces I wrote at Knox could be considered concept pieces and The Six contains elements of this style as well. As I continue to grow as a writer I’ve found that I am gradually moving away from concept writing and am beginning to see many of the flaws in this style. Basically, it comes down to the difficulty of properly fleshing out a concept piece. For example, Claustrophobic Spelunker never fully grew into a real story and A Regression of Thought’s reason for existing turned out to be its greatest flaw.

So I come to Polyester Tears, a piece that I wrote during my first full writer’s workshop. The concept behind this one was based on a backpack that caught my attention during one of my more boring classes. As I stared at it I noticed that, with its zipper open, it looked like it was crying. That’s it, that’s where the beginning of Polyester Tears came from, a backpack that looked like it was crying, a concept that should have obviously been a humorous one.

There is something else to note about this story; I wrote it during a time when I was actively exploring stylization. That is to say, I was playing with the perspective of my pieces, the style of writing, and other things of this sort. For Polyester Tears I decided to try two things. First, I wanted to write it from a female’s perspective. Besides The Six, where I sometimes wrote from Abigail or Frieda’s perspectives, I had never actually tried writing something exclusively from the opposite gender’s point of view. This seemed as good a time as any to try (it helped that the backpack in question was, in fact, owned by a female). Second, I wanted to play with the journalistic style, Dear Diary type of stuff. It’s a style I’ve never really been fond of and my thought was that, if I played with the approach a bit, I might better understand the merits of it.

Beyond that I don’t really know what to say about Polyester Tears, so I guess I’ll end with this disclaimer: this piece has a bit more language than some of my other works. Not enough to merit an adult warning label or anything, just don’t be surprised if an expletive is thrown out every once in a while. Also, don’t be afraid to laugh (with me or at me)…I won’t take it personally, I promise.