Changing the World with Whatever Comes to Mind

Something I’ve learned during my grad school writing experience so far—nearly at the end of the second quarter here, and I’m still loving every minute—is that I have it built into me now to accept times when I might have misread someone else’s writing when I mark something up on their project. Sometimes it’s not my misreading, and sometimes it is. I’m not worried about when it’s one way or the other. When I share the ‘here’s what I think’ for their writing, I’ll admit up front the ‘I could be misreading’ when it’s something I know could be an error on my end. This reminds the writer it’s totally okay not to take my critique.

I think I’ve gotten pretty good at recognizing when it could be my misreading.

This is something I wish I’d had more experience with in previous workshops. Not to say anything bad about previous workshops I’ve been in, rather, I’m saying that I wasn’t doing it enough and I wish I had. I’m glad I eventually learned to admit when I could be wrong. This is something I enjoy seeing from people who read my work, as well. Respond to writing however you want to, that’s all good, but I’ve found some of the most helpful responses I’ve had to my writing—ie. what works well for me, and may not work well for others, mind you—is when I know the reader has accepted the possibility that they’ve misunderstood something because of an issue on their end.

I read with humility.

It’s your work, you know what’s best to do with it, in the long run, just as I know what’s best for my work so that I can convey what I envisioned. Of course, that doesn’t mean that you don’t take other people’s suggestions sometimes when it’s right and helps hone the piece into a more vivid result. I recently had someone tell me that a writer might sometimes only take about 5% of the suggestions given to them in any given workshop. This, obviously, with exception to line edits. This person was talking about broader ideas. Discussions of confusion where most readers want clarification. Questions of what could be done to evoke the sense of what’s at stake. Arguments over chronology within a fragmented narrative that’s juggling three different sequences of time and twin stories.

This brings me to my novel. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve thought up some incredible changes to make in the project to help push the story further, some things that I’m sure will bring me to tears when I write them. I can see the vision more clearly, despite how widely sweeping some of these changes may be and how much time will go into making them. I am happy with the nudges I’ve gotten from readers so far to help me figure these questions out.

The most encouraging thing several readers have said to me in response to the first 90 pages of my novel is that they believe it is “ambitious.” I am proud of that. I don’t want to be any other writer but myself. I have my own voice, and I want it to be recognizable. The more “ambitious” elements of my novel are the parts that I consider to be parts of my voice. I want to become one of those writers who readers trust more readily. Someone you have faith in, even when I’m trying something new, or having fun with form, or just about anything else I do with the stories I want to tell you. And there are so many stories.

I’ve learned a lot about writing in the time I’ve been in this MFA program. I’ve found more pieces of the puzzle to understanding my writing voice. I’ve developed more tools to keep in my writing tool box. I’ve met many incredible people who are really effective readers and responders, people who have given me notes that have helped me fine-tune things and hone the story I have envisioned to share with the world.

This Spring and Summer, I’m going to dive deeper into this novel and really bring as much of it as I can out onto the page. I can’t wait for the day when I can share it with the rest of the world, and not just my close friends and fellow students.

This has been the first, rather quick, edition of Mind (Remixed), a new, somewhat more journalistic, series of posts I’m doing for this site. They will be more tracking of my thoughts and experiences rather than the more essay style approach I’ll mostly be keeping to for a lot of what goes into this site. As always, thank you for reading.

Peace & Love.