doing.

Just about one month ago, I wrote about urge to stop and why you shouldn't. I ended with the reasons why I write, which are all changing and always different.

Two days ago, I had a conversation in a very loud Tex-Mex restaurant. It was a conversation about art, the reasons for art, the meaning to be found in life, the definition of truth. And how the rice was sort of bad.

These are things I think about often, perhaps even too much.

I was spurred on this last weekend because I read a comment somewhere, of course I don't remember where, arguing that the end goal of any piece of writing is to get at truth. In nonfiction, this is clear. And even fiction, or poetry, or any other writing - they are all trying to get at truth in their own ways. This is actually a way of thinking that, in the past, I very much ascribed to. Lately, I'm having some trouble getting myself there.

I have been hung up on this for sometime, but I'll say it yet again: I don't think I know what truth is. There is reality. As someone put it to me recently, there is the location and action of each atom at each moment. But perspective, human memory, awareness, imagination, all of it creates a world that is lots of gray and not much black and white. So what is this thing that we are trying to get at?

I question my motivations for writing. I don't mean that I question their validity, only that I question what they are. With each day, even each slow ticking hour, they change.

a man.

This man is so pale, his hair so dark, that he's translucent. I look and see straight through him. I see the red bricks of the church and the unnameable damp color of the sidewalk. I look under his feet and see no footprint, no footstep, no sound.

He walks slowly. Not the slowness demanded by age or injury, a slowness marked by some deliberation. Each foot lifts, quickly, rises to the height of the step, and then hesitates. It is brief, but if you stare like I do, you'll see it. And so he walks just above the sidewalk. His steps dig into the air, catch, and hold there.

Something makes his image crawl through my brain. Something makes it impossible for me to forget.

Both times I saw him, he carried a package. Both times, I forgot to look closely to see what it was. In my mind's picture, he is carrying an indistinguishable brown box. Both times I saw him, he carried it with both hands, held firmly, squarely in front of his body.

I hope I see him again. One more look, I suppose, and all my questions will be answered. I won't tell you the answers though. You might wish to decide for yourself. You might know, already, what pain he has felt and what keeps him up at night, still, so many years later. You might know, already, what he carries and who he's taking it to. You might know, already.

You might wish to look for him yourself. He might be walking just behind you on another damp sidewalk. You might be looking straight through him without even noticing. Now that you know, maybe you'll see.

thank you, john d'agata.

I was more or less born a reader, if one can say such a thing. What I mean is that, from the moment I learned to read, I did it voraciously. I read quickly and eagerly. I always loved language. I was not likewise born a writer. I mean, I understood grammar. I could write clear sentences and well-organized paragraphs. But the idea of writing creatively never crossed my mind.

My final year of college, I decided to turn my English minor into a major and, subsequently, I crammed a lot of credits into two semesters. I had more or less covered the literature courses I needed, but not the writing. So I took what was my first real creative writing class. I'm going to risk one great big cliche by saying: it changed my life. I read Brenda Miller's A Braided Heart in the anthology Writing Creative Nonfiction. I heard the term "lyric essay" and I instantly fell in love. I can't tell you why exactly, but it made my heart pound. So, in a wave of impulse, instead of using my senior thesis to analyze a literary work, I used it to study the lyric essay and create my own.

I'm having all this nostalgic reflection because, during this past week, John D'Agata has ignited some controversy surrounding his forthcoming book, The Lifespan of a Fact. Those many years ago when I began to explore creative writing, John D'Agata was something of an idol to me. Not because I knew him, or really anything about him. I had his collection, The Next American Essay, which I thought was very cool. And I had the original issue of the Seneca Review that began to advertise and publish what was called the lyric essay.

processing & stereotypes.

I haven't been writing a lot lately. I have no excuses. When life is slow, no problem: I write. When life is fast, everything else feels more important. But all day, I have been telling myself, The things you spend your time on are the things you care about. So if I care about writing, I spend the time. It's important to me. So make the choice.

It's the old love-hate relationship with writing which means, usually, even when I want to write I don't really want to write. There's always some coercion that involves talking in my head and saying things like, Please just shut up and do it. And like anything, the longer I let it slip the harder it is to get back.

So I am catching up today. I will do freewriting tonight. I will devote at least half an hour to working on the essay I've drafted. But I will say this: even when my fingers get hung up, I keep on with the inspiration and the thoughts and my mind is still writing, even when my body isn't. I tell myself, over and over, that this is how I know I need to write. I can't turn any of it off: imagining stories about the people I see, absorbing every weird detail, sitting for stretches and thinking about big things, little things, anything. Getting wild and giddy and frantic over a beautiful word or a beautiful sentence. Reading a story out loud and getting tears in the corners of my eyes, not because I'm emotional, just because I'm overwhelmed with the language.

truth and tweets.

I am easily obsessed with thoughts and topics and ideas.  I'm a thinking person, maybe to a fault.  I'm good at being alone and being quiet.

I'm currently obsessed with truth.  I've been asking people, not so subtly, what they think of truth. Good friends, casual acquaintances. How do you define truth? What do you think it is? Do you think it's important? I am reading too much philosophy, the kind that twists your brain in a knot until your left eye twitches and your stomach drops out. I am hounding truth or it is hounding me. I am beating my head against the table, against the wall, against the questions, one after another.  I am forming some thoughts.  You know what truth is?  Please tell me what you think.

Listen, it comes down to this: I made the choice to write here and write often because I wanted to write about difficult things. I want to take all of the notebooks that I have torn apart and thrown away, take those crackling words, and spill them out all over the place and let people run around in them. I want to split myself wide open and lift up my eyes and make awkward eye contact that lasts too long before I say Hi.

#cnftweet.

I signed up for Twitter awhile ago with the intention of using it for writing nuggets.  Sentences that stand alone, that I want to hold onto.

I'm finally getting around to it.

The heavyweight journal Creative Nonfiction has a running contest for tweets.  But mostly it's just another good practice.  Write one or two solid, clear sentences.  Put them out there.

Check them out on the right!  (omg).