Public School BS

When I was very young and in elementary school, I wanted to be a writer but thought I couldn't ever possibly be one. The reason for this? I believed I lacked the proper and required temperament.

You see... public schools have this thing called the 'Writing Process'. All through elementary, middle, and parts of high school, teachers guide you through 'brainstorming', 'drafting', 'editing', and 'publishing'.

As a child, I absolutely HATED brainstorming and drafting. I had an idea and I was raring to go! I didn't want to sketch silly ideas in web-format on a piece of paper! I took to just writing my story or essay and then making fake brainstorms and drafts based on the final product.

I thought this was what being a writer was all about, and, thusly, could not ever hope to be one because the 'process' seemed so ridiculous to me.

It took me a while to figure out that I was gifted with what many of the other students for whom this 'process' was invented were not: a destiny.

I hate to get all arrogant and mystical (woo woo wa-oo) about it, but I understood at that young age (though I lacked the words to describe it or the experience to be credible) that truly great writing begins with a vibrant spark of an idea, a special feeling likened to madness that takes a writer and dictates through him. Creating word webs just did not fit into what I felt whole-heartedly to be true.

Many esteemed and brilliant writers (Ray Bradbury, Thomas Harris, Chuck Palahniuk, Stephen King, JK Rowling, Chris Crutcher, Toni Morrison, James Thurber, etc.), I was relieved and ecstatic to find, feel the same way I do. To hear them speak of the 'writing process', they are pulled along, as if on a path in a misty wood, able to see only a few feet in front of them.

Ray Bradbury described himself as a person with a notepad and pencil, running after his characters and jotting down what they do.

The moral of this exercise is this: If I had followed the 'rules' about my art, I would have been unhappy, frustrated, confused, and my writing would have suffered.

I am here to tell you not to listen to your teachers or your government or any 'experts' that tell you to believe something that doesn't sound right to you.

ART HAS NO RULES!!!!!! You can do it however you want, in whatever way makes you happy and works for you best.

I will always resent my early education for making me feel so unhappy about what I was meant to do with my life, but at least it taught me the valuable lesson learned above.

All that idealistic stuff about no boundaries or limits is true. Follow your dreams, people.

Meredith Maran

Because, in paranoid-Savannah-world, every April 17th is my death day, I have stayed home to avoid school shootings and bus accidents, yet still may be done in by choking, electrocution, and serial killers.

If you can get a hold of the April 2007 edition of More magazine, flip to page 209 and read the story of Meredith Maran.



Or, just visit her website.

She is an inspiring lady with an amazing story, which includes her first book being published at age 18, and raising goats at the age of 17 in Taos.

Quotes from Working in the Dark

I read the book Working in the Dark by Jimmy Santiago Baca and Adan Hernandez, and here are selected quotes pulled from it:

(NOTE: Most of these are probably fragments of sentences, because I only pulled the good parts. So try to take in the imagery and ignore the context.)

While the president’s son in the Rose Garden snares a butterfly into his net and rips off its wings.

Ocean moaning in her blood vessels.

My heart is a cow’s tongue slowly licking a block of ice.

Poetry sits in God’s chair when God is absent.

I reach my bladed hands into the haunted heart of the woman made lonely by her beauty, because she is too beautiful for men to love her soul.

And when I finish a poem I measure its authenticity against their hearts’ reality and their imagination. The voice of poetry runs steadily and faithfully in the veins of all children.

My ears and arms become pollen sacks where butterflies and bees pollinate in language.

In the poem I plant my seed and lick the birth-film from each vowel.

My dove self is eaten and my wolf self growls.

The privilege of poets is that they can become all things in the act of creation, everything –and nothing.

And gently bit her lips.

I have failed many times to water the tree that grows in the heart.

I want to embrace all of life, the beautiful and the ugly, to sit with cowards and warriors and listen to them all.

Each true poem is the pear-handled pistol you point at your heart.

Let poetry be your open space that you transverse with courage.

He can sing the most hidden secrets of the heart. And these are gifts from God.

Somewhere I have never travelled

I do not remember if I shared this before, and because blogspot will not let me look at my July entries, I shall just repost because this is good enough for you to look at a second time.

Introducing 'Somewhere I Have Never Travelled', by E.E. Cummings
(And yes, this is all how he wrote it; I'm not copying from a gramatically-challenged website somewhere)



somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skillfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands


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The love abounds for that phrase 'not even the rain has such small hands'. Kudos to Cummings for the imagery.

And now for your favorite part, the pretty pictures:

Brian Andreas

Welcome to the artwork/stories of Brian Andreas.

I discovered him while shopping with my best friend in a small town, and always meant to look him up, but never got around to it, until Super Hero Journals made an entry today mentioning him, and I knew it was time.



Brian combines watercolor/pen artwork with unique stories or phrases or short sentences that describes an idealistic truth in life, and I think we can all sympathize with his work. Please, please, please check him out. I think you'll find a picture there that you'll absolutely adore.

RIP, Steve

Steve Irwin is dead. If you haven't heard the news, google the story, because I'm not going to reiterate for you. Suffice to say it was tragic and horrible and writers everywhere should be saddened.

You know... in the words of David Sedaris... I always hoped the world would be united by an armed struggle against the undead or something... but it's beginning to look like a step was made in the direction of world peace through Steve's death.



You may ask... why should writers care?

Well, I'm here to tell you that writers /should/ care. A /lot/. Steve Irwin was an important celebrity icon. He was infamous for several quirks, and we all have made fun of him for being an insane adrenaline-addict. He was also a family man living an impressive love story (which should send your writer senses perking) and an environmentalist/conservationalist, and his death has impacted millions of people all around the world. In case you didn't know, the global impactation of millions of people = writerly caring.

You may now reference Steve in your writing. You may compose a personal narration. You may write a story meant to take place in the past and reference Steve's passing as an impactful event in your character's life. This is ripe with opportunity.

But beyond the capitalism, let us take a moment and mourn for Steve, beloved Crocodile Hunter of Australia.

Rest in Peace, Steve. Rest in Peace.

Assignment #2: 11 Moments In...

In David Sedaris' book, Me Talk Pretty One Day, there is a chapter entitled "Eleven Moments in the Life of A Young Artist". The chapter details eleven very short stories about different moments in time during Sedaris' drug-filled stay at art school.

Stealing from this idea, I created, firstly, "Thirteen Moments in the Life of a 'Beautiful' Girl", followed by "Eleven Moments in the Life of a Young Writer" (Both of which I'm considering adding to the personal narrative series of life in Illionis).



If I can take a moment and be misty and hyper-sensitive, in a very Oprah-like fashion... examining my past and my origins as a 'beautiful' person and as a 'writer' was a very personal and revealing experience. I realized my struggles and became more secure in my destiny to write.

I would advise everyone to create their own 'Eleven Moments in the Life of a...' That is this week's assignment. ^^

Sylvia Ji and David Mack

For you: Link to beautiful artwork by obscenely talented artists.

Sylvia Ji, specializing in pink hair and beauty


Writer and Artist David Mack

Not even the rain has such small hands

In celebration of one of the most beautiful phrases ever, here is a poem by E. E. Cummings:

somehwere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands
--e.e. cummings

My Writing Style

Time for a little introduction.

You may have noticed my "Influenced By" list to the menu on your right. I thought I'd take a moment to explain it:

1) David Sedaris -the first book of his I read was Naked , followed by Me Talk Pretty One Day, which I originally thought was a Harlem Renaissance book (nothing could be further from the truth).

Sedaris is original and a true comedian, in the sense that he does not do funny things, he does things funny. From him I learned how to comedically question 'normal' life, poke fun at people, and a particular writing style where I make myself the protagonist while operating in a very antagonistic fashion.

2) Chris Crutcher -Crutcher resembes David Sedaris very muchly, in both life and writing style. His more famous books are "Stotan!" and "Staying Fat for Sara Byrnes".

I first read his autobiography (which was how I got turned on to him), King of the Mild Frontier. I loved his view on things and his hilarious personal experiences, of which it pleased me muchly to see woven, word for word, into his fictional stories. From him I learned how true life experience can be turned into money and fame, following the old quote "Writing allows you to turn the worst moments of your life into cash."

3) KA Applegate. I owe so much to her. She is the author of the Animorph series, which I was obsessed with for four years.
<--- The first Animorph book I ever read.

The Animorph series turned me onto fan fiction, which is where I got my real start with writing. The Animorphs also taught me drama, romance, and angst. Applegate herself influenced my writing style by making me want to turn every sentence into its own paragraph (I'm still struggling to overrule that first impressional training).

4) Tanuja Desai Hidier -Just a general inspiration to young women everywhere. She is beautiful and talented and successful. Who could want for a greater role model? (You can see her pictures on an author expose below)

5) James Thurber -One of the most brilliant writers I've ever met (literarily). His book "Lanterns and Lances" changed my life.
<---One of his drawings about himself and his wife, who never believes anything he says (This seal bit never actually happened).

It is an exploration of literature and assonance and dissonance and the curse/blessing of being a writer, particularly being a writer among ordinary people. He taught me the Letter Game, that it's okay to be paranoid cats will come back as humans to try and kill you, and never to invite more than one writer to a dinner party. Cheers, James.

6) Ray Bradbury -I was introduced to him through his famous book, Fahrenheit 451, which is very 1984ish, but better, I think.

The book was alright, but what I loved most was the interview he had in the back. Ray is the first author I ever encountered who sympathized with me on the vividness and realness of characters. I owe many great quotes and reassurances to him. He is an inspiration on possessed writing.


The WW series employs a mix of Ray Bradbury, KA Applegate, and James Thurber. My personal narratives emply David Sedaris and Christ Crutcher and James Thurber. OCAP is mainly David Sedaris.

Quotes by Walt Whitman

I see in you the estuary that enlarges and spreads itself grandly as it
pours in the great sea.



For my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead,
I look where he lies white-faced and still in the
coffin—I draw near,
Bend down and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the
coffin.

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.

-Walt Whitman

Tanuja Desai Hidier

I read this book several weeks ago, and I wanted to share it with you, not so much because of the story (Which was okay), but because of it's author.



Tanuja Desai Hidier is not only an accomplished author and filmmaker, but also a musician, and lead singer in an English rock band.

Her first novel, "Born Confused" features the cultural concerns of an Indian girl (Dimple Lala) raised in America. I originally thought this novel was going to be a true story, but instead it turned out to be a work of fiction, which diminished its value in my eyes, but it was a good story nevertheless. "Born Confused", published in 2002, won the Larry King pick of the week, an American Library Association BBYA book of the year, and a Sunday Times (Times of London) book of the week.

Tanuja's first short film, The Test, which she wrote and directed, deals with many of the same issues as "Born Confused", and was screened at the 19th Asian American International Film Festival, the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. and the Toronto's Desh Pardesh festival, receiving the Award of Merit from the 1996 Sinking Creek Film & Video Festival at Vanderbilt University. She is currently turning "Born Confused" into a screenplay.

She is the lead singer and songwriter in the London band Tanu & Marie

She was a finalist for the 2006 Asian Women of Achievement Awards for the United Kingdom and was recently voted one of the 50 Coolest Desis in the world by Desiclub.com.

(Information paraphrased from her website)

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I feel that Tanuja is an inspiration to any female interested in the arts. She is only in her midtwenties, and has already accomplished so much (And some of her accomplishments I didn't even include!)

To read more about her, including an overview of her musical career, and a Q&A, click on the link above.